This past weekend I was detecting in a nearby small town just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was officially my first day using my Equinox 600, with all the settings in the recommended positions. I began detecting a local permission and found a few older wheat pennies, and pieces of a pocket watch. About my 5th hole, I heard a solid tone that registered a 22 on the Nox 600. Unsure of the VDI meaning, I decided everything with a solid tone was worth digging. After a few large scoops into the soil, a small round disc lay in my plug. It was very crusted over, but, I could make out $1.00 and Sapulpa. With nothing to clean it properly a places it in my finds pouch and continues on for another hour. Once I got home, I carefully cleaned the token to reveal the company name "Egan Bros" as well as "Sapulpa I.T.". Clueless I began to search for the token online. While I did not find this particular token, I did discover that I.T. stood for Indian Territory and the Egan Bros had a Mercantile in that town around 1894 or 1895. John Egan was the more known and not only opened the mercantile in Indian Territory, but also was a part of a group that paid in the application money of $1000 to make Oklahoma a state later in 1907. He would go on to become a bailiff, a deputy, a postmaster general, and be known as one of the founding fathers of the town of Sapulpa due to his contributions. The I.T. tokens are VERY rare, especially of the aluminum/ tin variety especially to have likely survived more than 120 years in the ground. To my knowledge so far, there are no known detectorist in our area to ever find an I.T. token. About 30 years ago, the token was listed in a token book valued at $300. It is now worth more than 5x that amount due to its historical connection.
