Broke a Voodoo kettle I found on the beach....1804 dollar coin inside...Is it cursed?

[Boxerfan]

I'd say yes-as its a fake...If real it would have potentially been a 3/4 million dollar coin


But the whole story is kinda interesting.

I metal detect-mainly for exercise but occasionally you come across an old coin or nice ring. I've pretty much cleaned every park in my area of any forms of metal so it is slim pickins nowadays.

I was detecting a local beach on the Columbia river. Just after labor day crowds I was hoping for the best. I saw a small crock pot-almost like the pot O gold Leprechauns hoard their gold in. Cast iron-but it was cemented closed. The cement had shell ornaments & it appeared to have just washed ashore. Which is strange-unless it was hollow inside. And a knock on its side said it probably was. But there was no way to unseal it-too bad as it was a cool old cast iron piece & I collect things like that.

So I picked up a large rock nearby & did the dead...And immediately realized I'd probably just unsealed a curse/voodoo charm or whatever.

Red cloth with icky bones & large seeds-some feathers etc. I gathered it up & threw it in the garbage can above the shoreline.

I went back to my detector & saw a coin where the pot had shattered. A modern quarter & it was covered in soot. I realized there may be more coins in the pile I threw away & went to look.

And good thing I had-there was a very large coin-with some fire damage-right in the middle. I washed my hands & then the coin as best I could. I could make out an old eagle & The United States of America on the rim. The face side was pretty crusted from fire damage.

Took it home & cleaned it up a bit-the date became visible-1804!!

This was very interesting-so I grabbed my out of date coin book-

$700,000.00

But I also saw some corrosion-which is not really possible if it was silver.
So I grabbed a magnet-Smack!-stuck like glue...

So-whomever set the voodoo used a fake coin. Go figure...

[haele]

1. Sounds like an pot to "contain and nullify a mojo bag".

Or from a voodoo war where one practitioner found a juju sent from another practitioner.
I wouldn't be suprised there was a fairly large Folk or Voodoo practitioner community in the Portland area.

Since you found it at the shore near running water, it should be neutralized, if you believe in that sort of thing. Though you probably should have dropped the bag and whatever you didn't keep back in the river, just to be safe...



Send what you remember about the description of what you found to the forums of cat yronwode's Voodoo site:

http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html

and see what answers might come up.

Haele
(who's mom is a cultural anthropologist and had been interested in that sort of thing a long time ago.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Interesting puzzle, indeed.

Who made the pot, and why?
Not to mention the coin..where was that made and why?
The questions will last longer than the day of searching did, I wager.

[LiberalElite]

3. just as well -

maybe you know this already but - cleaned coins aren't worth as much

[Boxerfan]

4. I had a very nice 1/2 doobie disappear-before I could offer it as sacrament...

I thought to myself after I broke it open I should offer some herbs to show respect. I looked into my top pocket where I had just minutes ago put the better 1/2 of a large doobie of very nice herb-it was gone.

That's Ok as I was going to offer it up anyhow. But it really did just go Poof-gone. It's not a large beach & I checked the area I had covered before finding the pot & it was gone.

I still had my carry pipe & blew some smoke over the area I broke the pot. And I did find some more modern coins-all sooted from a fire. I discarded the modern coins with the remnants. But the dollar was far too intriguing to leave due to superstition. But alas-a modern fake & plated steel-not even a good fake.

But whomever made the item put a lot of work in it. And I did want to respect that-but it was just not something I wanted to re-bury.