“Last year, in the wintertime, we had what they called the Blue Tide roll into the Pacific Northwest, with winds and extreme high tides, which flooded many coastal towns,” Don Kelly of the Northwest Artifact Recovery Team (bit.ly/NWDiggers) posted on Facebook recently.

“My brother and I decided to hit the beach as soon as the worst was over. I noticed a huge trench that was formed along the tide wall — it had to be over eight feet deep where the waves had churned up the sand all along the wall.

“Well, if you didn’t hear my scream at 10 a.m. Pacific time, you probably thought it was a tsunami warning as I pulled an 1857 Flying Eagle out of the sand. The sand action kept it in pretty good shape, I’d say.”

Pictured below, the coin Don found; pictured above, what the coin would have looked like freshly minted.

There were 17,450,000 of these .75-inch copper-nickel pennies minted in Philadelphia in 1857; the design, front and back, was by James B. Longacre (bit.ly/1857eagle). These days, a circulated coin is worth about $30 to collectors, which is far better than its actual contemporary value, which is only 30 cents.

“Can’t wait for the next Blue Tide,” Don said, “because I’ll be back in the trenches again!”