Since a whole bunch of "stuff" circulated until 1857, what are the odds of finding Spanish

pcgs69

I've been viewing finds of Spanish silver from members on other forums who are in the Mid Atlantic and the South. I would like to try finding one in 2010, but in my neck of the woods, there's nothing that really dates to the 1700s. There are, however, houses built from the 1830s to 1850s, which are tempting.

What would you say the odds are of someone actually having 1700s spanish silver in their pockets in the 1830-1857 timeframe? Is finding one a complete fantasy, or could there be a possibility? I know, I know, anything's possible, but I don't know how common these coins were up until the law/act of 1857, when they were to be traded in for U.S. coinage.

Any input would be great.

lordmarcovan

The odds are pretty good. In my experience here in the South, on the rare occasions when any pre-Civil War coins turn up for me, they're Spanish silver slightly more often than they are other things (like British or French or early US). It wasn't until around 1857 that the US Mint had cumulatively cranked out enough product for there to be enough US coins to go around in people's change, so the Spanish coins circulated well into the Civil War period and were even around afterwards (a buddy of mine dug a 1773 1-real piece that had been made into a circa 1870s-1880s Victorian love token, a hundred years after it was struck, and it was found in a place that had first been developed in 1901).

Whatever the earliest establishment date of your site is, you can realistically expect the possibility of finding coins that are 30 to 50 years older than that, or even older, in the case of long-circulating stuff like Spanish colonial silver. I would venture a guess that there is lost Spanish silver buried in every state of the Union. More of it in places that had pre-1857 history, of course, but there's Seated coins and Indian cents practically everywhere there's a Victorian neighborhood, and some of that older Spanish silver hung around well into that era as keepsakes, as my buddy's find proves. He was at first disappointed that the reverse of his coin had been planed off and made into a love token. I told him he was a dummy because the love token made it all the more one-of-a-kind and interesting. Furthermore, it had a single initial "M" carved into it, and that happened to be my friend's first initial! He was meant to find that thing!

ricko

I agree with LordM...if you are on the east coast, odds are good, that give sites with an active colonial history, and even post colonial, Spanish silver could turn up. There have been a lot of silver reales found on the New Jersey coast lately. Cheers, RickO

lordmarcovan

Here you go, while we're on the subject.

I once found a 1782 French Colony of Cayenne 2-sous piece, a contemporary counterfeit 1782 Irish "Hibernia" halfpenny, a 1779 Mexico City 2-real piece, and a 1929 Standing Liberty quarter all in one smallish area on an old plantation here. The sternpost of the USS Constitution had been cut from an oak on the property and Aaron Burr had been a guest in the house after the duel with Hamilton. He witnessed a big hurricane there in 1804. It was a great dig spot. The two 1782 coins (French and Irish) were barely two feet from one another and it was fairly evident they'd fallen from the same pocket around the same time. Too bad I never wrote that story up. I'll need to do that one of these days. I still have the coins and could take pictures of them.