Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Monnaies Serge Huard/Regina Coin Club Token/Trade Dollar. When you begin detecting you find things unusual things that you don't recognize or know anything about but being unusual you wonder if they might be rare or valuable. I found the two large tokens or trade dollars, shown above, at Hollywood Beach about forty years ago or so. I remember it well. I was using the Fisher 1280 Aquanaut, which was my second detector after I got into metal detecting, but the one that really gave me a lot of momentum. It is the one I was using when I learned the dangers of too much discrimination and a lot of other good lessons. I've told this before, but I was finding a lot of larger rings and thought men lost more rings than women, but then after I turned my discrimination down, I found more women's rings. I was missing the women's rings with the nice gem stones before. Eventually I switched to metal detectors that had no discrimination at all - save al little for salt mineralization. Those were the Stever Noga and Herb MacDonald modified Nautilus detectors, which were my favorite detectors. But back to these two tokens. I was in the water on a beautiful, crowded beach day with a lot of tourists. Despite the many people, I was trying to maintain a low profile. Two kids were following me around. I wasn't quite as good at keeping my finds hidden from onlookers in those days and the two kids saw these objects when I picked them up and screamed at the top of their lungs, "He found two big coins." So everyone within a hundred yards knew that I found them, but I didn't know what they were. I later learned a technique to keep anyone from seeing what came up in my scoop even if they wereright there looking at it. Before lifting the scoop from the bottom, I'd shake the scoop vigorously so that it created a sand cloud, then quickly stick my hand in the scoop and by feel pull the item out and in one motion slip it into my pocket before anyone saw it. Very quick, slick and effective. I'd then wait until I got away from the crowds before taking the object out for inspection. Later though, most of the time I'd avoid people by hunting very early in the morning or at night. There were occasions when I couldn't do that. Back to the tokens. That was back before the internet and research wasn't so easy, so I put them away not knowing much about them except what they said. You can clearly read Regina Coin Cub on the one side and Monnaies Serge Huard on the other. Eventually I found the following on the Regina Coin Club site. Over the years the Regina Coin Club has issued a number of trade dollars, commemorative medals, convention souvenirs, wooden nickels, and other assorted numismatic items. Check out the categories below for the latest listing of these numismatica.... They have a number of these listed on the site, but not the one I am showing. See RCC Numismatica | The Regina Coin Club. I have however seen this one for sale on eBay a couple times. Below is the address of the Regina Coin Club. 2370 Elphinstone St, Regina, SK S4T 3P1, Canada C9R9+F9 Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada |
And here is some of the history of the club, which you can find on the Regina Coin Club web site.
On January 23rd, 1953, a group of Regina coin collectors met at the home of Ernest "Ernie" Haddad to discuss forming a new chapter club of the Canadian Numismatic Association (CNA). Cecil C. Tannahill, who had just moved to Regina and was serving as the CNA's Representative for the Prairie Provinces, chaired the meeting and called for an election of officers. Cec was subsequently elected as the club's first President. Christina Morrice was elected the club's first Vice-President, and Thomas James "T.J." Hardie was named the club's first Secretary-Treasurer. The other charter members of the club that night included host Ernie Haddad, Martin M. Watts, and William Nell. At a follow-up meeting on February 3rd, Peter M. Smith, James "Jimmy" Ziegler, R.S. Robertson, and Harold E. Sampson joined the club. Dues were set at $1.00 per year, and all members agreed to also be members in good standings of the CNA. The February 1953 issue of the CNA Bulletin contained the 'official' announcement -- CNA Chapter No. 6 (Regina) was open for membership...
But what I started to discuss is the distance between where the coin or token came from and where it was found. It came from Canada and was found in Hollywood, Florida. That is quite a distance.
In those days, and maybe still today, Hollywood Beach was a place that many Canadians visited in the winter. So that is probably how it got there.
I found other numismatic items on that beach, such as the following silver coin in uncirculated condition.
That is a nice silver commemorative coin in uncirculated condition, yet it was found on the beach - not far from a shower. I remember where it was found. It couldn't have been out there long.
So there were several numismatic collectibles, including other Canadian items, found on Hollywood Beach, and I always wondered about them. I can understand the Canadian connection, which is pretty obvious, but I still wonder how and why fine numismatic like the above uncirculated commemorative coin, would be on the beach.
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov |
It looks like a major hurricane that will affect Florida could be forming. I suspect this one will affect us, but the details are not certain. Possibly hitting the Panhandle as a major hurricane and sending us a lot of wind and rain.
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| Source: SurfGuru.com. |
Looks like we'll be having some higher surf on the Treasure Coast Wednesday and Thursday.
If you have been avoiding the summer heat, this might be a good time to get back in the swing of things. Get your equipment ready and your arm in shape.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net