Two Great Finds from Two US Conflicts

[swabbysteve]

Had an awesome weekend with Saftgeek detecting multiple sights over 4 days with every environmental condition possible... chiggers and mosquitoes included! Of course we filled our pouches with the standard assortment of junk, and there was plenty of new coinage and a small but nice assortment of wheaties and one war nickel he found. But these two beauties are the absolute pinnacle of my detecting finds so far!!The 1943 half dollar rang up on my MXT-300 solid as a quarter and was about 4" deep. The shot Civil War bullet was found at a very old elementary school in an even older part of town. A bulldozer had excavated a section of the schoolyard right in front of the main entrance about 16" down and it was another 3" below that in very hard dry clay and really put up a fight to dig. It was a strange signal so I had to see what it was... and as you can see I nicked it. We're guessing it to be a 58 or 64 cal. ,definitely untouched from the day it was shot...and flattened... against whatever the old boy was aiming at! I never expected to go home with treasures as cool as these (for me anyway)!! The fact that they both came from significant eras of American history and were found during Independence Day weekend is very fitting! Thanks for reading and hope you had a fun July 4th weekend and got some good loot as well.

Here's the back sides.

 

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[Erik in NJ]

Was that undisturbed soil at 19"? Or do you think the strata had been mixed in the past. If undisturbed, makes you really wonder about the things out of our reach with current technology. Find anything else at that depth?

 

[swabbysteve]

Was that undisturbed soil at 19"? Or do you think the strata had been mixed in the past. If undisturbed, makes you really wonder about the things out of our reach with current technology. Find anything else at that depth?

Good question Eric.The school sits on top of a hill in Jefferson City,Mo. and the bullet was near the edge of the excavation, and then the land slopes down to the playground. Looking at a side view of the soil I think it's original but I'm not sure.The bullet was the only thing my machine registered in the excavated area which was about 150'X100'.All the removed soil had been taken off site already. I forgot to mention that Saftgeek found a shot bullet of the same Era and caliber the same day at a location a few blocks away downhill from the school along a slope about 6" deep, not mushroomed as bad.I'll ask him to post a photo here of it. Both sites are in known areas of Civil War skirmishes within the city. Maybe mine slammed into the hillside and was buried on impact? Just wish I wouldn't have nicked it.