Saturday, July 19, 2008

The Birthday Bash

Today my sister showed Meg and I how a kid birthday party is done. Well, probably more me than Meg as she is definitely more in tune with such things. My four-year-old nephew's party had a treasure hunt, slippy slide, mini-pool, hot dogs, dairy/nut free cake, and take home gift bags. Henry did really well at the party. It was hot, but he was fine just being under the fan in a quiet area of the house.

Before the big event I searched some coin.

Another box of small dollars (1,000 coins) produced two mint set dollars (1981S, 2003P) and a proof dollar (2005S). The proof doesn't have much cameo left, but it is a new one for me.

I also hunted through six boxes of halves (6,000 coins). These yielded five 90% silver halves (1948D, 4 x 1964), six 40% silver halves (1965, 2 x 1967, 2 x 1968D, 1969D), one mint set half (2002P), and a St. Anthony medal. The 1948D Franklin is one I needed for my album. It's a good one as it is the 4th most rarest Franklin, only about 4 million were minted. The St. Anthony medal seems appropriate to find, as he is the family's patron saint. On the back of the medal it says "The Franciscans St. Anthony's Guild 1-800-848-4538 www.anthonian.org."

Lastly, two boxes of dimes (5,000 coins) turned up four silver Rosies (1952D, 1959, 1961D, 1964D). These dimes put me past the 600K mark!

Found: 1 penny (in Marlboro center)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Just wondering, how do you determine a "mint set" half (or dollar)?

Nice finds recently...

kestrelia said...

Dan,

A mint set coin is a non-proof coin produced by the mint for collectors. Since the coins are made just like any other circulation coin I can only say a coin is a mint set coin if coins of a particular denomination were not produced for circulation that year. For halves mint set coins would be 1970, 1987, and 2002-; for dollars such coins would be 1973, 1981, 2002-(except for presidential dollar coins). The mintages of these years is far lower than other years. Since the coins were only sold to collectors, such coins were bought over face value and somehow made their way into circulation.

Brian