I had been pounding one of my favourite spots for about a year before digging what will surely be my best find. I had pulled about 10 coppers out of one of side of the area but only venture to the other half a few times. Every time I went over there I found nothing but trash, not this time. I moved closer to a stone wall that I hadn't paid much attention to before. After about 30 minutes of digging trash, I got a solid coin hit. I cut the plug, flipped, and I saw the copper coin. At first glance I thought it was a British piece but one I had never seen before. I took a couple of photos, put the coin in my pouch and continued detecting.
Only a few minutes passed by and I started thinking more about it and that I had seen it one of my reference books somewhere. The anticipation got the best of me and I headed home to look it up. I checked my books and there it was, a 1786 Non Vi Virtute Vici. A coin so rare, I never expected to find one. What makes this find even more special is that it is unique among only a handful of existing specimens. After a few months of enjoying the coin, I did sell it $30,000.00. I came to find out recently that the spot I was at had been hit hard for many years before me by local detectorists. I truly believe if I didn't have the CTX 3030, I would have missed this coin as the soil there is highly swampy and makes for some very unstable detecting.
David – MA, USA
