Tons of Relics and My Very First Spanish Silver -1773 1/2 Reales!

[paleomaxx]

A few days of 50 degree weather only thawed the first few inches of ground here, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyways. I'm very glad I did too. I found this site literally the day before the ground froze solid in December so I only had a chance to pull a few pieces out of the ground and verify that it was indeed an 1820's to 1860's site. Here's the relics just from today:



The reales was a huge surprise; I had my fingers crossed for a capped bust in this field and when I first separated this from the mud I thought it was a heavily worn barber dime.



This is my first ever spanish silver; up until now I haven't even found a cut piece and I was starting to think they weren't popular in this area. The last digit in the date is very hard to make out, but I'm leaning towards 1773. The reverse is just plain worn, but the edge with the mint mark has the most relief. The Mo is Mexico city correct?

There were a few other interesting bits. The other two coins are an 1862 IHP, and a dateless wheat cent. I found a great piece of oil lamp that has the "Star HB&H Pat July 23 1872" knob. A couple of buckles, my first harmonica reed, and random lead bits rounded out the hunt. I found two pieces of porcelain that have the makers marks.



Are they recognizable enough to put an approximate date on?

 

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[Terry Soloman]

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[dirtdigginfool]

Congrats on the Spanish silver! It got up to a record-tying 67 degrees here today and I actually had the day off and was slobbering to get out...but Mother Nature added a little twist in the form of all day rain...ugh..but I'm glad to see some of us are getting out and digging great stuff! Thx for sharing...ddf

 

[Mackaydon]

Great save !!
Mexico City mint and .9027 fine silver.
Don......

 

[paleomaxx]

Don't worry, it was raining here too. Started just after I found the 1/2 reales, but there was no way I was packing it in after that. Had to ditch the glasses and ended up soaked, but found a bunch more relics so totally worth it. I could have done without the mud though

 

[Loco-Digger]

Nice to see you sneak a day of detecting in what is normally frozen tundra time according to the calendar. Congrats on the spanish silver. That's a sweet keeper and still on plenty of other's bucket lists.

 

[CMDiamonddawg]

Congrats on the half real , imho , the odds are better of digging a Spanish cob than cuts or AKA , bits , North of Maryland ,

both are very elusive at least for my exp. in SJ, just a personal observation ...... good day !

CMD

 

[trapperart]

Congrats on the half real nice

 

[Tommy G]

Congrats on some nice finds, especially that half real. Definitely looks like a 1773 to me.

 

[dr-quest]

The pottery pieces arnt going to be much help, One is Harker pottery Co. from east liverpool Ohio and dates 1890-1900 (blue ink one) , the other looks like the Stone china mark used by St. Johns and would date 3rd quarter of the 19th century. Great find on the silver

 

[paleomaxx]

The pottery pieces arnt going to be much help, One is Harker pottery Co. from east liverpool Ohio and dates 1890-1900 (blue ink one) , the other looks like the Stone china mark used by St. Johns and would date 3rd quarter of the 19th century.

That's actually super helpful, thank you so much! There's one 50'x50' section of this field that's riddled with iron, brick fragments, and ceramic pieces. At first I assumed this was the remains of the 1850's house on the map but there's so much ceramic that I'm starting to think it was also a dump for the other houses in the area. One of the buckles has an 1879 patent stamp and the oil lamp fragment has an 1872 patent date so this puts the ceramic around the same time period.

According to the historical maps someone bought up this piece of land as well as 200 acres of surrounding fields and consolidated 3 houses under his name. This was one of the houses, but not the one he chose to live in so maybe they just used to to dump all the unwanted stuff in until it was eventually plowed into the ground.

 

[dr-quest]

As long as they dumped more Spanish silver Eh!

 

[Ahab8]

That's a killer find my friend....congrats on that bucket lister

 

[Scrappy]

Way to go with the sweet Spanish and your first. I bet you can't stop holding it. That's a great feeling. Cheers

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Awesome relic hunt, congratulations!