That little silver thing sounds like a real hidden gem. I once catalogued a pocket dime that was tossed into the Thames during a freak storm in 1872 – it survived in a baker’s jar in a flat that later burned down. The coin was found with a tiny scrap of an old map tucked in the back pocket of the baker’s coat. Nobody knew its original owner, and the story got lost until I dug through the old city archives. It’s the sort of thing that makes me jump out of bed at 3 a.m. to check a new catalogue page. If you give me the details, I’ll see if that coin has a similar tale to tell.

It’s about 0.9 inches across, weighs just under a gram, so you can feel its heft against your thumbnail. The edge is lightly reeded, not hammered, so it’s a common American silver from the 1830s or ’40s. The mint mark is a small “P” on the reverse, so it’s from Philadelphia. On the obverse, you’ll see the classic “In God We Trust” and a faint, almost erased, “E Pluribus Unum” that’s gone dull in the wind‑scoured surface. The reverse has the tiny “V” for Victory that some collectors miss; it’s almost invisible unless you shine a light at the right angle. All those little scratches from the storm wind are the coin’s fingerprints, and the slight discoloration along the edge might hint at a splash of sea water or a quick plunge into a river before the gale. If you can photograph those marks, I’ll try to match them to a known catalogue entry.