1824 US Bust Half, 1816 2 Reale and 1776 1 Reale Pocket Spill

[OutdoorAdv]

Still shaking with this one. I got 6 firsts today... (*Update at bottom of post with recent pictures*)

My research finally paid off with some mid 1800's maps and I knew I was on a spot from the colonial period until mid 1800's. I was digging a lot of big iron with most of my holes having oyster shells and clay brick fragments so very good signs. I had dug a couple complete axe heads and was pretty excited... after electrolysis those will display very nice. (more pictures of those a few posts down)

Then I dug this spill... here they are!



The site is loaded with iron so the "perfect signal" doesn't exist here. So I get one jumping from iron with some repeatable mid tones, and jumping into high 80's. I figured it was another piece of deep iron with a halo affect and maybe another harmonica reed.

First one out... I knew it was silver, had letters stamped on the edge, was the size of a half dollar, and saw "Ame.." and 1824, and knew I had just dug an 1824 US Bust Half Dollar.


I calm down, recheck the hole... theres more! Jumping iron, mid tones and high tones... pick through some square nails and...
Second one out... 1816 2 Reales. Saw the size, how thin, and pillars and knew right away.


I'm floating on air by now. Two early silvers. I recheck the hole... theres more! Still jumping iron, mid tones and high tones.
I pull out some more nails, figure screw it... widen the hole and make a pile of dirt.
Two signals in the pile, a high tone and a mid tone.
Third one out... 1776 1 Reales.


Unbelievable! The brass forked thing was the mid tone, obviously three silvers were the high tone... the pouch had 3 or 4 more nails which were the low tones.

Mix all that iron, brass and silver together, put it in a hole... and you get the best imperfect signal I've ever dug!


Final view of the hole the spill came from.


I was only there an hour and after pulling those silvers, I couldn't concentrate... heading back tomorrow.
I'm really excited about the big iron too. Putting them into electrolysis now. I have a few brass items I dug today that I still need to clean up.


Any my 6 new firsts are:
1st Bust Silver
1st Half Dollar
1st Spanish Silver
1st 2 Reales
1st 1 Reales
1st 1700's silver

Also, I've never dug seated. Dug barber and later. Dug a lot of large cents too... so the early silver had eluded me until today.

A better picture of the half with the light just right.


(UPDATE) - Before and after pictures with scale removed

 

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[NEPADIGGER7]

Great job! One helluva day in my book gonna be hard to beat!

 

[frogginfish]

I tip my hat to you, sir! Great great great finds!!!!!!

 

[Ahab8]

Now that is my kind of hunting right there! Great job on pulling those beautiful old silvers out of the iron. Lots of people never would have dug that signal....I guarantee it! Awesome awesome awesome. A lemon juice bath will do those wonders

 

[cjon455]

Omg that is incredible, let me be the first to say BANNER! I agree w abe, not many would've dug such an iffy signal, myself included. I may need to rethink my technique after seeing this

Absolutely beautiful couns, congrats! !!

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thank you everyone! I still cant believe it.

This was only the second time to this site. Last summer I did a little scouting trip, dug a lot of iron and every hole had brick and pottery in it. It looked promising, but the site has high grass, so I put it on the back burner and went for other locations. With my trip to my go-to location being a near bust yesterday, I decided to give this site another shot. I gotta say, it just moved to the top of my list! ha

I was bummed out with the level of black oxidation on them after I got home and removed the dirt. I want them to display well, and at the same time I refuse to do anything that would ever deface a piece of history.

Cleaning the brass items now and setting up my electrolysis bucket now. I will post some pictures of that, and I have a question as to what the forked item was that came from the same hole as the silvers. I'll get those pictures up shortly.

 

[ironhorse]

Great silvers for the site you have going, hope to see some more finds from that site on your return.
Some lower tones could produce some other interesting relics and buttons.

 

[Argentium]

Outstanding dream spill there ! I'd sure like to see some pics of those silvers !!!

 

[Gridwalker306]

Magnificent finds, big congrats!

 

[DirtStalker]

Great finds. Can't wait to see tomorrows finds I know you'll be there early. I know I'd be tossing and turning wondering what else is there.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thank you all again!

I will keep you posted on what else I pull outta there.
Here is the brass. The forked thing is the mid tone from the coin spill hole.
Any idea what it is? It appears to have three rivets through the top and its split part way down the middle. I tried to get a shot of that where I am holding it.




The iron from today I am also excited about. Those two axe heads appear to be the oldest ones I've dug.


I made these clamps recently and they really do a great job getting into the iron to make a good contact.

 

[Rich in Central PA]

Absolutely an amazing day. Great finds there. My opinion.........I would NOT do a lemon juice bath on those coins as someone had mentioned above. You're asking for trouble if you do that. A soft bristle toothbrush and a dab of dawn dish washing liquid & water should do the trick. Again, congratulations.......Rich

 

[Scrappy]

I vote banner for the bust half. That is one heavy hitter there! Those others ain't bad either! Lol. Congrats on many dream finds.

Steve

 

[Ahab8]

Totally up to you on the cleaning but these all went into lemon juice.




As a matter of fact my holy grail took a lemon juice bath. I would NEVER advise you to do something that I haven't done or have had a poor outcome with. If you don't like the way these look then certainly do something else


There's a couple other methods I've used as well. But trust me friend I did that to a coin worth a small fortune. Bottom line is you have to clean them if you want to display them. Somebody a LOT smarter than me advised me on the cleaning of the tree coin

 

[Ahab8]

I'm sorry to post a bunch of pics on your thread but I want you to at least see the results so you can make an informed decision. Maybe Rich can post up a few of his as well then you can compare. I'm always open to new methods. But I am very happy with the results on mine. It kept the nice dark toning without getting too shiny

 

[ironhorse]

Totally up to you on the cleaning but these all went into lemon juice.
View attachment 1145338
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As a matter of fact my holy grail took a lemon juice bath. I would NEVER advise you to do something that I haven't done or have had a poor outcome with. If you don't like the way these look then certainly do something else
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There's a couple other methods I've used as well. But trust me friend I did that to a coin worth a small fortune. Bottom line is you have to clean them if you want to display them. Somebody a LOT smarter than me advised me on the cleaning of the tree coin

A little lemon can go a long way, it will totally take the black tarnish away and give a better display/ picture quality; something that dish soap will not do.

 

[Ahab8]

A little lemon can go a long way, it will totally take the black tarnish away and give a better display/ picture quality; something that dish soap will not do.

And that would be the hunting partner of the guy that advised me lol

 

[ironhorse]

The funky brass pieces look like pieces if a early measuring stick/tape, they're parts of the hinges that fold it up

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

You really need to work that spot hard. Based on your description, it sounds like you're probably into a trash pit. If so, there should be many other nice finds other than coins. You should dig several test holes in that area and see how deep the bottom of the pit is. You'll also want to use a sifter which is a very important tool for this kind of work. And lastly, you could be onto a much larger coin spill. Last year my friend Dan and I stumbled across our "money pit" where we recovered 8-10 colonial coins in the pit itself. They were falling out of the sidewalls as we were digging. I've also dug 2 large caches of early coins over the last few years. One was from the same time period as yours with 9 silvers and 9 coppers. And the other was a couple of amazing scattered caches of hammered silver coins dating from 1560-1640, and there were 26 in all. I'm just telling you this to get you fired up about doing some serious digging in that spot as something even more amazing could be waiting for you. Keep us posted and good luck!

 

[Ahab8]

You really need to work that spot hard. Based on your description, it sounds like you're probably into a trash pit. If so, there should be many other nice finds other than coins. You should dig several test holes in that area and see how deep the bottom of the pit is. You'll also want to use a sifter which is a very important tool for this kind of work. And lastly, you could be onto a much larger coin spill. Last year my friend Dan and I stumbled across our "money pit" where we recovered 8-10 colonial coins in the pit itself. They were falling out of the sidewalls as we were digging. I've also dug 2 large caches of early coins over the last few years. One was from the same time period as yours with 9 silvers and 9 coppers. And the other was a couple of amazing scattered caches of hammered silver coins dating from 1560-1640, and there were 26 in all. I'm just telling you this to get you fired up about doing some serious digging in that spot as something even more amazing could be waiting for you. Keep us posted and good luck!

Great advice Bill. I was thinking that he could be into something very very special. It's already incredibly special as is