When you hear/read about a date in another field...

[SkyMan]

When you hear/read about a date in another field, does it sometimes make you think about a coin and/or series of coins? I think you know you're a serious coin junkie when you hear/read about an event in a given year and it immediately makes you think about a (key) coin (or series). I was just reading this evening about the discovery of the first Stegosaurus (dinosaur) specimen. It was discovered in Morrison, CO. in 1877. The first thing that popped in my head was a key coin from that year.

 

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll give you a hint; "one little,..." (anybody got an image of one BTW?).

[x2rider]

O No, I do that all the time .

 

Do I need help?

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

When you hear/read about a date in another field, does it sometimes make you think about a coin and/or series of coins? I think you know you're a serious coin junkie when you hear/read about an event in a given year and it immediately makes you think about a (key) coin (or series). I was just reading this evening about the discovery of the first Stegosaurus (dinosaur) specimen. It was discovered in Morrison, CO. in 1877. The first thing that popped in my head was a key coin from that year.

 

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll give you a hint; "one little,..." (anybody got an image of one BTW?).

 

Yup.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

 

[WoodenJefferson]

~I now need to see a chiropractor from the head jerk~

 

[SkyMan]

Nice looking coin RMA!

[James_OldeTowne]

When you hear/read about a date in another field, does it sometimes make you think about a coin and/or series of coins?

Sometimes? Try.... always! In fact, it's a good thing. The phenomenon has helped me remember many events from U.S. history, and I've impressed friends and cohorts many times by knowing what year something took place, because I associate the year with a coin from that year.

 

Cool thread subject!

[cpm9ball]

You would have to mention 1877, Sy! I was doing my best to try to put it out of my mind.

 

Five or six years ago, one of my friends wanted to get rid of the IHC's that he had accumulated, so I put him together with another friend who collected them. He had an 1877 and a 1909-S in his "small hoard", and I made sure he was aware that they were the two most valuable in the lot. I let my two friends negotiate their own deal. Don't you know that within a couple of months the value of the 1877 nearly doubled! I didn't do anything wrong, but I still feel bad that one friend made out like a bandit over another friend.

 

Chris

[RockMyAmadeus]

Nice looking coin RMA!

 

It's not mine. Wish it was. I just know how to find nice pics.

[Hard Times]

That one is worth more than my whole collection I'll bet. Can they get better than that?

[Mark T]

Nice looking coin RMA!

 

It's not mine. Wish it was. I just know how to find nice pics.

 

That looks like the recent proof 1877 Indian head offered by Heritage .

 

[johnny9434]

wow, thats a wonderful everything ( and a good pic to )

[johnny9434]

the above post was supposed to be a smiley folks, bear with me for someday i might learn how to to that

[dean1345]

 

 

The confessed Colorado cannibal Alfred Packer is released from prison on parole after serving 18 years.

 

One of the ragged legions of gold and silver prospectors who combed the Rocky Mountains searching for fortune in the 1860s, Alfred Packer also supplemented his meager income from mining by serving as a guide in the Utah and Colorado wilderness. In early November 1873, Packer left Bingham Canyon, Utah, to lead a party of 21 men bound for the gold fields near Breckenridge, Colorado. The winter of 1873-74 was unusually harsh. After three months of difficult travel, the party staggered into the camp of the Ute Indian Chief Ouray, near present-day Montrose, Colorado. The Utes graciously provided the hungry and exhausted men with food and shelter. Chief Ouray advised the men to stay in the camp until a break came in the severe winter weather, but with their strength rekindled by food and rest, Packer and five other men decided to continue the journey.

 

Two months later, Packer arrived alone at the Los Pinos Indian Agency, looking surprisingly fit for a man who had just completed an arduous winter trek through the Rockies. Packer first claimed he had become separated from his five companions during a blizzard and survived on rabbits and rosebuds. Suspicions grew, though, when it was discovered that Packer had an unusual amount of money and many items belonging to the missing men. Under questioning, Packer confessed that the real story was far more gruesome: four of the men, he claimed, had died naturally from the extreme winter conditions and the starving survivors ate them. When only Packer and one other man, Shannon Bell, remained alive, Bell went insane and threatened to kill Packer. Packer said he shot Bell in self-defense and eventually ate his corpse.

 

Though shocking, Packer's grisly story would probably have been accepted as an unfortunate tragedy had not searchers later found the remains of the five men at a single campsite-not strung out along the trail as Packer had claimed. Packer was arrested and charged with murder, but he escaped from jail and remained at large for nine years. Recaptured in 1883 near Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, Packer once again changed his story. He claimed that all six men had made camp alive, but lost and starving, they were too weak to go on. One day Packer went in search of the trail. Upon returning several hours later, he discovered to his horror that Bell had gone mad, killed the other four with a hatchet, and was boiling the flesh of one of them for his meal. When Bell spotted Packer, he charged with his hatchet raised, and Packer shot him twice in the belly. Lost and trapped alone in a camp of dead men, Packer said he only resorted to cannibalism after several more days, when it was his only means of survival.

 

Having twice changed his story, Packer's credibility was undermined, and a jury convicted him of manslaughter. He remained imprisoned in the Canon City penitentiary until 1901 when the Denver Post published a series of articles and editorials questioning his guilt. Eventually, the state was freed Packer on parole. Packer went to work as a guard for the Post and lived quietly in and around Littleton, Colorado, maintaining his innocence until the day he died in 1907.

 

Though we will never know exactly what happened on the so-called "Cannibal Plateau" near present-day Lake City, Colorado, recent forensic studies of the remains of the men who died have tended to support the details of Packer's second confession.