1846 Large Cent Found While Planting Flowers

Fantastic find!

the biggest variation in the varieties of late date large cents is the date position. the dates were individually punched into the dies. every other detail was hubbed, and therefore identical. there can be die markers like tool marks, die chips, die cracks and other failures that make a die identifiable. late date attribution is an exercise in minutia. there arent any super rare varieties known for that year. I cant identify this one from the pictures. the book I use for identification is The Die Varieties of United States Large Cents 1840-1857 by John Grellman, Jr.

some large date varieties are fairly rare in the R-5 range

Nice place

I have no reason to make up a story like that, and I did have a witness but you might not believe that either. Anyway here is some info on copper which you can look up. Copper metals resist corrosion but are not corrosion proof when buried in soil. It is very dependent on soil conditions. Copper develops a naturally protective film that forms on the metal's surface (cuprous oxide), but the film can be destroyed by various aggressive soils conditions which would cause a corroded copper coin . In general, soils such as clay, sand, gravel, loam, seldom possess the combination of properties that are associated with destroying the cuprous oxide film/patina in an aggressive manner.

anyone else feel it looks like the medium date?

this is not a medium date. there is only 1 variety of medium date. the N-11. compare the shape of the 4 in this image to the 4 on the coin in question