Treasure Alert!!!!!

While I was weeding the hosta bed by the road, a round flat object caught my eye. I found it about 6 inches from the second fence post. approximately 1/3 of the photo from the right side.

At first I thought it was a plastic bingo marker but when I rubbed off the dirt I realized it was a nickel. It was rather difficult to tell what type of nickel it was. At the time I was just pleased to be five cents richer. But then I caught a glimpse of the buffalo.

I had to wait until I could wash off the dirt before I was able to read the date. I was surprised that when I viewed my new found nickel using a magnifying glass that it read 1915.

It's fascinating to think about all the hands that have touched this coin. What is REALLY interesting is the coin was minted in 1915 but my home was not built until 1937. The coin doesn't appear to have circulated for 22 years before it was lost. Under what circumstances was it lost???? Could there more????

A quick Internet search found the following information.

In 1915 the postage for a domestic letter was two cents, a post card 0ne cent, and the non domestic rate was five cents. That's in comparison to today's rate of 42 cents for a letter and 26 cents for a postcard.

1915 President Wilson 2006 George Bush.

1915 $ of new home..$3,200

1915 avg earnings...$687.00 2006....$34,926

1915 high school education 13.5% 2006 85.2%

1915 number of cars 2.5 million 2006 237.2 million

1915 gallon of gas 25 cents (seems rather high, because I remember gasoline was 25cents when I was in high school in the early 70's)

1915 % of women who worked 23% 2006 59%

1915 home ownership 45.9% 2006 68.9%

1915 median age 24.1 yrs. 2006 36.2 yrs.

1915 average life expectancy 54.4 yrs 2006 77.8 yrs

In 1915...we were involved in WWI, movies were silent, and the Model T was the car of choice.

Check out this website for Buffalo nickel info and a cool Buffalo nickel giveaway contest!!!

http://www.buffalonickels.us/

*****I have to pass this comment along...one of my co workers was reading my list of 1915 facts and said "geeeess...good thing you didn't find a dime, you would have had to write a book." Also everyone had to look at it with the magnifying glass. Needless to say.....not much engineering was done this morning, but we all now know more than enough about buffalo nickels so it wasn't a total loss.