What On Earth Have I Found?

Is there any way that you would be able to clean it up a little more and post another couple pictures?

Any indication of what metal it is? It's not magnetic is it?

hi

When it was in the ground it read like a clad quarter on the metal detector. Now it is out and cleaned up a bit it is reading as pure copper. At the very least very high copper content.

It's definitely not magnetic. On cleaning up more. I've already sat it in 5% vinegar over night which took a lot of surface corrosion off. Before I did that the surface was just a blackish green with no details visible at all. The surface details are extremely faint so I worry any more exposure to acid may actually do more harm than good, but could give it a try if the consensus is to do that?

Thanks Neil

I was exploring the possibility that it may be a hard times token of some sort.

First, thanks everyone whos looked and commented so far. Before I posted I was thinking 'this is more like a token than a coin'. I'm from the UK so had never heard of hard times tokens and had to google them.

I think you folks have nailed it. It seems crudely made, which made me think it was an early coin; the font seems large for a coin and the letters are not uniformly spaced. plus the circle isn't in the center of the token. It's thickness isn't uniform (0.03 inch to just over 0.04 inch). But it's pretty round (0.95-0.96 inch). So I can believe someone engraved and struck it themselves.

I took some photos with it wet and with a strong light shining across it and you can now see the letters clearer. I've also added a picture showing where the visible markings run.

As it seems to be pure copper I've put it back in to a vinegar salt mix to see if any more detail can be revealed

Good point @fc. Here is a link to an example that had many of the same design elements as the OP's piece:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces140292.html

Now this one is a modern German token so I'm not suggesting that it is a direct match.

Thanks I gave that a try. Another hour in the vinegar and a rub with a tooth brush has changed the color, making it more copper colored. No new insights in terms of detail though.

I removed the kink with two pieces of wood so as not to damage the surface and did a rubbing of each side.

The side with 'The future of' on shows "The fut r f" on the rubbing, the font is raised but very slightly. it certainly looks like there was text all the way around. If I take the trade token idea 'business' doesn't fit (its too short in that font size to go around the token). If I squint and use an bit of imagination I think I can see a vertical line after the F (could be an I and further around a bit of what looks like a V and then almost certainly an S and then the T next to 'THE')

Investment fits almost perfectly in the font size but that is a lot of guess work.

The reverse side is just too corroded, there is a suggestion of a circle engraved just within the lip but nothing more.

So trade token seems the most likely. It was found in Pittsboro North Carolina a depth of a maybe 4-5 inches. The area had a gold rush as well as huge tobacco plantations so it seems perfectly plausible that some gold company or plantation was issuing tokens as payment to workers.