ebay treasure hunting
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billder:
Online Treasure And Your Metal Detecting Gas Money by Bill Gallagher Deming NM
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My latest finds from treasure hunting online were good and plentiful. I could never have found this stuff as cheaply as I bought it, and thats not just because stuff like that doesn't exist here where I live. No, its because I am a discerning shopper, which means mostly broke, and also because I have taken the time to learn about the treasure being found overseas right now. I have been metal detecting since the early 1970s, and I stay with it too, in this case vicariously, wetting my beak when I can, mostly sharing in all the excitement about what my friends are finding in Europe and Russia and China. This attitude has helped me really score again, and I like that very much. Yes I'm bragging.
My second best finds in the last month were ten rare silver kopeks I got from Ukraine, they date back to the 1600s and earlier, and even if I could find the coins here, the gas to get to and from just about any hunt spot would cost as much or more than I paid for this lot with postage! I would have to have a really good day too, to find ten silver coins, even as small as these are.
These coins are the offstamps and lesser coins from the large numbers being found with metal detectors in Ukraine now, but someday they will be as rare or even more so than their finer counterparts, I have seen it happen many times.
My first love in coinage is American coinage. A close second are coins from the Fourth Crusade. I have more experience in the latter than just about any other coins, because back when uncleaned coinage was very cheap, I was lucky enough to find a few sub-hoards which were literally the cheapest of the cheap. Discerning, right.
At the beginning I did not know what was best, or anything like that, it just happened that I ended up with a lot of the ugliest stuff, things no one else wanted to mess with. Shovels full of it. I got a fair number of the off-cast uncleaned dug coins out of Europe and Middle East, from a fair number of dealers, and that was very good coinage, really, it just looked weird, not something that could be sold easily. Lots of irregular shapes and cracks and off stamped designs.
I bought a few books, which were actually harder to acquire than the coins at that time, and began to study. I cannot say I studied hard, but heres where learning and metal detecting cross over. By having access to some of the actual historical material I was able, over time, to soak up a lot of information, which at first seemed impossible to me. What? Learn all those hundreds of different coins? Now I see its not that big of a deal. I accomplished this by using the books in conjunction with the coins in my efforts to identify them.
So about a week ago I had been shopping around on ebay and just about run out of money. That is a normal state for me, no biggy. I look at money a lot differently than other people. It is energy and because I am energetic I use it, and I like to increase the energy as time goes on. Name of the game. Anyway, its fun to just shop, especially at Ebay, you never know what you will see. Sometimes its pretty amazing, and I have learned some very out-of-the-ordinary things at Ebay too.
So there I am, almost out of money and I see a picture of 6 coins from the Fourth Crusade which I recognize from their shapes. Clicking on the auction link I went there. It was actually buy it now or best offer, not an auction. The first picture was blurry and had no scale indicator, and all the coins were mis-oriented letting me know the seller was not a collector. The coins appeared pretty common to me during a quick perusal, except when I got to the last picture in the series, where I went "Oh whoa". There in the picture was a coin I had only seen one other time in my life, almost twenty years ago, and I sold it for a good price, and sold it so fast I figured I had under priced it, which I did.
Striking errors among ancient coins are a lot more common than modern coins, but in my time I have only seen full inverted figures twice, and here was the second one right in front of me. It was brockaged badly, the obverse of the coin totally obliterated by multiple stampings as it was turned or whatever. But there were several inverted figures on the reverse of the coin, along with a normal figure, meaning the upper die was turned after the first stamping.
That probably happened in an effort to remove the coin from the die after it was stamped and got stuck. Tricks of the trade. It could have been intentional too, but that was not really something that happened often at all. Accidental mistrikes, and coins stuck in a die, were much more common than some coin hammering Crusader getting creative for amusement.
I made an offer on the lot with some of the money I had left, simply on the basis of that one coin. If the seller took my offer I knew I could make money with that one coin. I checked my messages the next morning and sure enough the seller took my offer and I thanked him and sent the payment.
I usually download the pictures when I buy something, for various reasons, not least being a record of what I bought. So I downloaded these pictures, and I cleaned them up some, sharpening, adjusting contrast. As I went along I noticed there were a couple or three Crusader coins in the batch plus what looked like three Bulgarian imitatives c1195AD, of which the inverted figure coin was one.
Then, suddenly, another of those coins looked funny to me as well, so I got the book out. It wasn't funny, but it was rare, and at least one other of the lot were late period Byzantine too, after the Crusades, hard to come by. Vare Scarce Mon. Overall they were in great shape too, and large, in comparison to a lot of other stuff from that time and place.
On the day I received the coins another Ebay shipment arrived, one I had almost forgotton about. I was trying to buy some antique buckles to work into my leather crafting, and there was a lot from Kiev of 20 bronze buckles which were said to be Roman. I don't know if they are, for I have never seen a Roman buckle up close and personal, but these are old and quite amazing, I can only imagine detecting things like this, shux, but really I have it easy, because of the Ebay treasure hunt. These buckles are much better than the picture, and comprise a number of different buckle types, though with an underlying technological similarity. I think I will just put these in a case and hunt up some other buckles for my artwork.
I did some figuring and these finds of the last month cost less than the gas money I would have spent going to my favorite hunt site three times. Seeing as the weather has been heating up and old Mr. No Shoulders is out and about now, I figure this kind of Ebay treasure hunting didn't just pay off well, but was a lot safer too.
Now this doesn't mean stop metal detecting. Nor does it mean use up all your gas money on Ebay. Just be aware that there is real treasure to be had there, and it should be looked at as your own little hunt site, whose goodies are peculiar to your particular outlook and search terms. Its a total win situation when you can get something from Ebay, and make even more gas money than you started with.
b
ps i got those kopeks for 3.50 each with shipping included. i got the buckles for less than 2.00 each, with shipping from russia. gas money will increase!
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billder
GoldDigger1950:
Nice essay. Thank you.
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ArfieBoy:
Thanks for the post Bill! It was very interesting and gave me something to think about.
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