Fresh out of the dirt today! Some friends went diggin' on an 18th century site, and...
lordmarcovan
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... and I'm gonna have to keep y'all in suspense while I edit and upload pictures. 
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
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It doesn't help that this creaky old 'puter is running verrrry slooowwwly. Not just the internet connection- the computer itself. Ugh.
OK, I'll have a few preliminary pix up momentarily, unless I get another crash.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
<< <i>Rob, can't wait to hear the tales of your adventure!! Awesome! >>
Not MY adventure, alas. I haven't been diggin' in months. I was at home, sleepin' off a graveyard shift, and I've got another in a few hours. This was my buddy Billy, who's found some past legendary finds (remember the 1798/7 Draped Bust cent that made Coin World? That was Billy's find.)
Billy and his brother Frank went north of here, near Richmond Hill, GA, on a colonial/Rev War era site that was occupied at least into the early 1800s. The artifacts and coins bear that out.
Photobucket is runnin' slow, too. Grr.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
This one is about the size of a quarter.
(Sorry 'bout the quickie pics. That's a crowned eagle on the obverse.)
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Ack, more computer issues.
And I gotta head off to work. I'll post the rest later. Sorry. This computer is just too buggy.
Oh, and before this thread gets "poofed", I must add that there WILL be an early US coin posted. I'll let y'all take your guesses on what it will be.
Sorry for the technical difficulties. I'll continue later. Maybe the puter at work will be more cooperative.
There are four more items remaining, and I'm saving the best for last. These fellas had a helluva good day in the field today, if you ask me. And they're goin' back tomorrow.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
<< <i>How 'bout a little Spanish silver?
Ack, more computer issues.
And I gotta head off to work. I'll post the rest later. Sorry. This computer is just too buggy.
Oh, and before this thread gets "poofed", I must add that there WILL be an early US coin posted. I'll let y'all take your guesses on what it will be.
Sorry for the technical difficulties. I'll continue later. Maybe the puter at work will be more cooperative.
There are four more items remaining, and I'm saving the best for last. These fellas had a helluva good day in the field today, if you ask me. And they're goin' back tomorrow. >>
(insert popcorn icon)
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
I promised y'all some Spanish silver, didn't I.
Here is a 1746 1-real piece. That's the Pillar of Hercules type. Billy says this was the first Pillar coin he's found- all the others have been the portrait type. Granted, it's not in the best of shape- Billy called it "burnt up"- (i.e., corroded), but hey- Spanish silver is Spanish silver, and sometimes one is lucky to read the date on a dug piece!
Speaking of lucky to read the date, Billy also found a half-cut eight-reales piece! Wow. And he got the half with the date and mintmark, too.
How cool is that?
OK, I'm at work at the resort, alone at the Front Desk, on a Saturday night with a bunch of drunken wedding guests (and a church group too) milling around my lobby. Gonna be a busy graveyard shift. I'll leave you with those two for the moment. Maybe in the wee hours I'll drop the other shoe, and post the final piece by the dawn's early light, if anyone is around to express further interest.
Next up will be another piece of silver, though not a coin. Then the final pièce de résistance will be a United States coin that Billy's brother Frank found (and which I subsequently have purchased, along with the artifact which will be in my next post.)
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
The half of the 8 is cool.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
This one bear some further research. I am 98% certain it is a buttplate (pommel) from an 18th century flintlock pistol. Silver, too. What an expressive gargoyle face, eh? The mounting screw would've gone in where the mouth is open. I'll bet such a weapon, were it intact today, would be worth a pretty penny indeed. Even this one piece ("gun furniture", they call stuff like this), would probably have a pretty solid price, were it for sale on a military artifacts site.
Billy also showed me a sword handle he'd found at the same site, which had a similar (but not identical) creature's face on it. That was brass.
Last but not least will be the US coin. Are you ready for it?
Two words in THIS post will give you a tiny hint about what it is. After five or six folks guess at it, or somebody gets it right, I'll post it.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
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OK, that's four replies since I posted the silver gun pommel doohickey. It's kind of quiet here, being the wee hours, but I'll go ahead and do the reveal after one more person takes a stab at it. (Fortunately it's turning out to be a bit quiet for a Saturday night at the hotel, too.)
Nope, not a 3c silver. It's earlier than that.
Not a Fugio cent, either, though that's a bit closer to the truth.
Nor is it a disme, but the dimes that circulated next to it were possibly referred to as "dismes" (deems) by the folks who spent 'em.
There are two words (right next to one another) in my post about the gun pommel doohickey that describe this mystery coin pretty well.
(Edit- since I've revealed the coin below, now, I'll tell you. The hidden hint was where I said "pretty penny". For the next find is just that.)
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
(They did find some other gun parts, though. Billy showed me some rammer guides from Brown Bess or similar muskets.)
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
AB
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
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I look forward to the final pièce de résistance.
Thanks for posting your finds.
<< <i>Thanks for posting your finds. >>
Huh. Like I've said, I wish these were MY finds. I've made some nice digs, but not much stuff like this. Not very often. My friends found this stuff.
I did buy the pistol pommel from Billy and the following coin from Frank, though.
Speaking of which...
OK, here we go...
[drumroll]
Ta-daaa!
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
This is perhaps the sixth truly remarkable 1798 cent I've seen dug on local sites. Several of my buddies have found 'em, but I haven't... yet. One was a 1798/7 that Billy found and sold me, and there was a Coin World article about it. This one is just about as nice, gradewise, though probably not worth what the overdate piece was. I dunno. I posted this on the "Copper 4 The Weekend" thread and am told it's a Sheldon-166. Note the major die crack across the reverse.
Redbook only goes up to EF40, and those prices are quite interesting.
I've bought the large cent, and the pommel thingie, and will probably submit the cent to PCGS and get it TrueViewed. My pictures stink. I don't know if it will grade or not, but even in a Genuine holder, I should think that this coin should be quite desirable with this level of detail. I'll bet it was a lovely red beauty when it hit the dirt two centuries ago.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Nice find!
PS...sell it to me!
Check out this monster megalodon tooth he found. (Previously- not today, obviously.)
Those are not a child's hands in the picture, BTW. They're my wife's. And she has rather large hands for a woman- as big as mine.
This tooth is not only huge, it's in fantastic shape, AND it's a "pathological", meaning it has some anomalies which make it more valuable (like an error coin). Note the two spots where the tooth was damaged and subsequently healed- one on each side. That had to have been some really big and crunchy fish bait to damage a tooth like this. Of course Megs ate whales and other marine mammals, and I guess pretty much anything they wanted to. A megalodon would probably give the Loch Ness Monster a run for its money.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Dennis
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Bob
8 Reales Madness Collection
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But the absolute winner must be your new 1798 cent. She is so pretty
<< <i>That 1798 is an amazing find! Was it in the ground like that or was it protected from the elements somehow? >>
Right outta the ground, believe it or not. Our sandy coastal GA soil is very kind to copper sometimes. That's not true if a lot of coniferous (pine) trees are around- they seem to make the soil more acidic, and in many of our local soils salt content is a problem, being so near the seacoast. But in well drained, sandy soil, you'd be amazed at how well preserved the early copper coins are. I've heard of Liberty Cap cents that nice being found on an island near here!
Though more modern and common, I once dug a 1919 Lincoln cent that was pretty amazing. It was EF+ to AU but sharp, and you would never have known it was a dug coin. It had glossy brown surfaces, right out of the dirt. Looked like it came out of a dealer's case instead of the ground. We've dug 1820s buttons that not only had the gilt left on 'em but still had thread attached.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
In North Carolina, and up in the red clay country in general, I found the opposite to be true. The silver came out nice and bright (one 1910 dime I dug didn't even need to be washed off!), but the copper was generally pretty nasty looking.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
<< <i>
I would chit my breeches big time if I found that, an' I would even not worry about it all the whiles.
<< <i>What brand metal detector are you using? Mine is like 40 years old...and Im thinking technology has came up a bit since then?? >>
I use a Garrett GTI-2500. The guys who found these items were both using the Tesoro Tejon.
To use a completely unscientific automotive analogy, my machine is like a fancy Lexus or Cadillac with lots of digital bells and whistles. It has a large computerized graphic display which shows target ID, depth, approximate target size, etc, etc. It's good for urban coinshooting.
Their machines, by contrast, are more like a Humvee or a powerful 4x4 truck. Great for relic hunting on rural sites. They don't even have a meter. They've got a few knobs and it's all analog. The Tejon also has manual ground balancing, which I haven't the first idea how to do. Those who DO know how to do it, however, get fantastic depth from their machines. And relic hunting is all about depth and less about fancy bells and whistles.
Just like the Cadillac-versus-Humvee analogy (which is admittedly a bit flawed), there are some machines which are better for rural relic hunting in the woods, and others that are better for city parks and such. But generally speaking, their machines could be used in an urban environment and mine could perform adequately as a relic machine. Urban coinshooters like me find more coins than the rural relic guys, but when the relic guys DO find a coin, it's usually a good one. In fact, some of the best coin finds around here are actually found by the relic boys, who are mostly shooting for Civil War and Rev War military relics like buttons and belt plates. Coins are a "byproduct" for them. They like 'em, but show 'em a State Seal or Confederate Navy button, or an obscure militia belt plate, and that's what makes them salivate. Ironically, I'm a coin guy and my most valuable find was a belt plate (War of 1812 US Light Dragoons), while Billy the relic guy's most valuable was a coin (the aforementioned 1798/7 cent which had very similar detail to this one.) Hey, we all take whatever we can get!
Even a 40-year-old or barebones detector will still find metal. And if it will find a coin-sized target that's buried six or more inches in the ground, it's got what it takes to find the old goodies. But ground depth can be unpredictable. I've found an 1829 half dime at grassroots depth (barely a quarter of an inch down), and modern Lincoln Memorial cents at eight and ten inches. You never can tell. I'm told this 1798 cent was found at a depth of eight inches, which is probably pretty average for such a find in this area, but I don't know if the ground they were hunting was cleared (bulldozed and root-raked) or if it had grass or brush covering it. These backwoods relic guys go crashing into some pretty impenetrable thickets my sissyfied park hunting self would almost never think of exploring. (Then again, when Spanish silver and 18th century US coins start turning up, you can bet I'll get out the machete and plunge into the jungle with the best of 'em!)
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
I mostly shoot for semi urban, and try to get there after the ground is scraped. Nothing sensational yet, but some puzzlers, once a horseshoe on an old farm lot, and buried not five feet away..a coin hit, deep...a 1987 lincoln cent. go figger.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.