39 Round Balls in One Hole, Copper disc

Ahab8

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I had a couple hours the other day and decided to go hunt for a 1700s fort site. I walked up to the top of a steep hill with a nice flat spot on top. Got some iron signals up there but nothing significant. Then I hit a weird little signal and dug this very deep copper disc. Worst I've ever seen
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Soooooooo I was left thinking that this wasn't the spot. Just not enough there. I started detecting down the hillside and got a couple of solid signals right next to eachother. Dug down and found a round ball. Stuck my propointer in and found another. Kept on checking and out they came. 39 of them in all. Not all the same size which I thought was a bit odd. I was also surprised that they weren't spread around more. They were in a fairly small area. So now I'm just not sure if I'm in the right spot or not :tongue3:
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When I first started detecting I absolutely loved finding musket balls. Now they're just more of a wasted good signal. This "spill" was a pretty neat find though.
After this I walked to another small area with some early activity and pulled this button out of the iron
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Upvote 17

cjon455

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I'm trying to find a way to compliment your round balls without sounding sketchy, lol!!!

How odd is that to find that many in one hole, I bet they were in a pouch that was dropped and rotted away

GREAT DIGS!
 

treblehunter

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"When I first started detecting I absolutely loved finding musket balls. Now they're just more of a wasted good signal. This "spill" was a pretty neat find though. "

They just can't all be Tree Coins and Reales, you spoiled brat! No wonder those guys are all making voodoo dolls, lol (I never made one) I don't care how big your head gets, I still like ya.
 

3RINGER

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That's a pile of lead there. Agree with cjon on the pouch drop, seems if they were pouring molds you would have found more drip lead there.

Still a nice bunch of finds...WTG!
 

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Ahab8

Ahab8

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I'm trying to find a way to compliment your round balls without sounding sketchy, lol!!!

How odd is that to find that many in one hole, I bet they were in a pouch that was dropped and rotted away

GREAT DIGS!
Yeah it's funny cause I originally wrote something about enjoying finding round balls then changed it lol.
 

Bill D. (VA)

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That's a strange but interesting site Abe. I have to agree with you on musketballs. Its always a good sign to find them, but any one of them has a good chance to be a coin too so they can be a big disappointment. The day I dug my Lord Baltimore I had dug a few musketballs, and what I thought was going to be another turned out to be a $10,000 coin. You just never know which is why we have to dig it all.
 

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Ahab8

Ahab8

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"When I first started detecting I absolutely loved finding musket balls. Now they're just more of a wasted good signal. This "spill" was a pretty neat find though. "

They just can't all be Tree Coins and Reales, you spoiled brat! No wonder those guys are all making voodoo dolls, lol (I never made one) I don't care how big your head gets, I still like ya.
Ha ha yeah it prob sounds bad but if you could see how many of those things I've got it would scare you. They're everywhere around here and they just give off suck a beautiful signal. They could easy be a coin so it gets a bit frustrating. I've got piles of those things. Maybe I can make some sort of cool display at some point and label the different cal.
I also have been in a bit of a coin slump since the big day but I just haven't been out much at all. So every deep musket ball sound like my next coin....but it isn't :-)
 

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Ahab8

Ahab8

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That's a strange but interesting site Abe. I have to agree with you on musketballs. Its always a good sign to find them, but any one of them has a good chance to be a coin too so they can be a big disappointment. The day I dug my Lord Baltimore I had dug a few musketballs, and what I thought was going to be another turned out to be a $10,000 coin. You just never know which is why we have to dig it all.
Absolutely! Those deep ones can sound so good. I still consider them a cool piece of history but I've got hundreds of em
 

Charlie P. (NY)

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Definitely sounds like a leather ball bag that disintegrated.

If they are different sizes it was likely for a smooth bore. One large ball and three small was a "buck-and-ball" load and worked extremely well for anti-personnel use as well as deer and moose.
 

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Ahab8

Ahab8

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Definitely sounds like a leather ball bag that disintegrated.

If they are different sizes it was likely for a smooth bore. One large ball and three small was a "buck-and-ball" load and worked extremely well for anti-personnel use as well as deer and moose.

Hey that's great info. Thanks Charlie. Any day I learn something new is a great day
 

CASPER-2

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Davers

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It's a pretty good thing when a little over a year of hunting one can e mass such a large amount of Musket balls .
Then become tired of digging them.:laughing7:
At least with CW era Minies one has a long list of types to find & A round ball is a round ball.???
There are many places you guys in the NE hunt that seem never to have Seen a Detector.

Yous Guys are Lucky To have so much history in your area , all this from a place where the maps before 1830 ish have my area listed as Indian Territory .
Still have never found a Complete Point from that Era :icon_scratch:.

Glad your still able to get out this time of year.

p.s. Just thinking if you think about it if you stack 2 of those ball together you have an 8 , Sooo you actually found 19 . 0 8's...That add's up to a-lot of Good Luck in 2015.:thumbsup:

Davers
 

treblehunter

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Ha ha yeah it prob sounds bad but if you could see how many of those things I've got it would scare you. They're everywhere around here and they just give off suck a beautiful signal. They could easy be a coin so it gets a bit frustrating. I've got piles of those things. Maybe I can make some sort of cool display at some point and label the different cal.
I also have been in a bit of a coin slump since the big day but I just haven't been out much at all. So every deep musket ball sound like my next coin....but it isn't :-)

I agree, every bullet I have found just doesn't blow my dress up, I think because I hunted with a muzzy for so long, just feels like I found one of those?
 

Iron Patch

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That's cool... keep those separate if you didn't already mix them in to your others!
 

BuckleBoy

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I agree that you dug a shot pouch that was lost and disintegrated. IMO the areas around forts (hills, flats, ravines, creeks) have not been hunted near enough. It's finds like these that tell me that there are great things waiting to be dug. This could've just as easily been a coin purse or money belt that got snagged on a tree limb and fell to the ground.

-Buck
 

ARC

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Cool finds... my guess... shotgun pellets. aka... double 0 buck shot
 

watercolor

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Great assortment of recoveries Ahab!

I wish I could find a few musket balls like that around where I live. . . I can count the number I've found
during the last 8-years on one hand.

Since I know little about musket balls & such, what are the knife-like "slits" on several af the ones you found?
Is that a result of trimming the sprues? Just curious.

Again, great hunt!
 

Iron Patch

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I agree that you dug a shot pouch that was lost and disintegrated. IMO the areas around forts (hills, flats, ravines, creeks) have not been hunted near enough. It's finds like these that tell me that there are great things waiting to be dug. This could've just as easily been a coin purse or money belt that got snagged on a tree limb and fell to the ground.

-Buck


Yes, I can see this guy running through the woods trying to reload while chasing his lunch.... and the pouch gets snagged and by the time he realizes it's gone, it's too late.
 

cjon455

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I guess after a couple hundred roundballs it tends to get a bit boring, I don't see too many of those around here, keeps then interesting, I swore I dug a carved bullet yesterday, hard to tell
 

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