Hello All,
I'm back after another exciting hunt with some great things to share with all of you. Foxhound and I have been hunting a site that just keeps giving up the old relics and coins. The first hunt there, we cleared out a lot of iron, finding only "newer" items from the Teens and Twenties. Later on, flat buttons and pewter spoon handles started coming up, so we knew that there could be some real oldies there. We got out on the site yesterday with only an few hours of daylight remaining. Immediately, the flat buttons and pewter pieces started surfacing. I was using super-low discrimination--even digging occasional smaller iron--just to make sure I was getting everything I could on this already-pounded site. A few harmonica reeds and flat buttons into the hunt there, I got an "iffy" signal that only read in one direction. Flipping out a shovelful of earth, the signal immediately improved. (This is normally all it takes to tell if a target is small iron or not
) Within a few seconds, I could see a thin disc encrusted in dirt and let me tell you my heart started racing! Any of you who have ever dug a Reale will understand what the look of such a thin disc means...they're too thin to be buttons or coins of any other kind. Although I didn't take a photo of the coin in the dirt, here's what it looked like before cleaning:
And after some cleaning, the coin turned out to be a 1781 1 Reale piece in nice shape:
I also managed to bag a few pieces of pottery, one badly toasted pewter button, a Silver-Dollar-sized flat button (this one is absent from the photo as I was still cleaning it, but I'll post a photo of it below), and an Indian Head Cent with a square nail hole in the center:
Here's the photo of all of the finds (minus the Dandy Button):
As promised, here's the Dandy Button I found--all cleaned up. So you can see how big it is, I placed a dug quarter from last year beside it.
Dang, Das A Big But-tin! It looks like someone turned it into a pendant or tag after the shank broke off. I'm going with pendant, since the hole is obviously carefully made. Of course, this button was likely plated with silver or gold once upon a time, so I'm sure it would've made an attractive pendant. Here are photos of the front and back:
And here is a close-up of an interesting piece of stamped brass I found. This is a fragment of yet another powder flask from the site. (If you're interested in reading about the first 1850's powder flask and CW Eagle Button, please follow this link: http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,138400.0.html
Below the photo of the fragment, you'll see the photo of an non-dug example that is identical, with a link to the site the non-dug photo is from. It is an early Civil War Remington Revolver Powder Flask! On the website, a non-dug example lists for almost $1300.00!
http://www.vincaponihistoricantiques.com/viewpics.php?cat=6§=cwm&pic=2034&itemid=299
Regards,
Buckleboy
Regards,
Buckleboy
I'm back after another exciting hunt with some great things to share with all of you. Foxhound and I have been hunting a site that just keeps giving up the old relics and coins. The first hunt there, we cleared out a lot of iron, finding only "newer" items from the Teens and Twenties. Later on, flat buttons and pewter spoon handles started coming up, so we knew that there could be some real oldies there. We got out on the site yesterday with only an few hours of daylight remaining. Immediately, the flat buttons and pewter pieces started surfacing. I was using super-low discrimination--even digging occasional smaller iron--just to make sure I was getting everything I could on this already-pounded site. A few harmonica reeds and flat buttons into the hunt there, I got an "iffy" signal that only read in one direction. Flipping out a shovelful of earth, the signal immediately improved. (This is normally all it takes to tell if a target is small iron or not
) Within a few seconds, I could see a thin disc encrusted in dirt and let me tell you my heart started racing! Any of you who have ever dug a Reale will understand what the look of such a thin disc means...they're too thin to be buttons or coins of any other kind. Although I didn't take a photo of the coin in the dirt, here's what it looked like before cleaning:
And after some cleaning, the coin turned out to be a 1781 1 Reale piece in nice shape:
I also managed to bag a few pieces of pottery, one badly toasted pewter button, a Silver-Dollar-sized flat button (this one is absent from the photo as I was still cleaning it, but I'll post a photo of it below), and an Indian Head Cent with a square nail hole in the center:
Here's the photo of all of the finds (minus the Dandy Button):
As promised, here's the Dandy Button I found--all cleaned up. So you can see how big it is, I placed a dug quarter from last year beside it.
Dang, Das A Big But-tin! It looks like someone turned it into a pendant or tag after the shank broke off. I'm going with pendant, since the hole is obviously carefully made. Of course, this button was likely plated with silver or gold once upon a time, so I'm sure it would've made an attractive pendant. Here are photos of the front and back:
And here is a close-up of an interesting piece of stamped brass I found. This is a fragment of yet another powder flask from the site. (If you're interested in reading about the first 1850's powder flask and CW Eagle Button, please follow this link: http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,138400.0.html
Below the photo of the fragment, you'll see the photo of an non-dug example that is identical, with a link to the site the non-dug photo is from. It is an early Civil War Remington Revolver Powder Flask! On the website, a non-dug example lists for almost $1300.00!
http://www.vincaponihistoricantiques.com/viewpics.php?cat=6§=cwm&pic=2034&itemid=299
Regards,
Buckleboy
Regards,
Buckleboy
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![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
So yeah--ya gotta remove the big stuff to find the small stuff. 
Thanks for being that person. 
