xcopperstax
Silver Member
- Sep 3, 2018
- 2,508
- 4,872
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Max
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
This one is a bit of a throwback to before I was a member of TNet: It was august 2018 and there was a spot down the street from my house that I have always been interested in. In this area there was a section of land that was always overgrown with plant life so thick that detecting was not really feasible. I found a seated dime nearby so I had a hunch that the area was old. On that trip I noticed that the area had been totally clear cut making detecting a go. It was important to get in there quickly because the plants were growing at lightspeed! My best detecting buddy and I went to give it a try on a super hot day after work. It might have been in the 90's but the sun was past it's peak and treasure was calling. On that first trip my buddy found a beat up copper disk that was so caked in dirt it was unidentifiable. Looked like a colonial copper to us so it was now on! Let's find this treasure. He went on to find a couple mercs and several Indian head pennies which was encouraging but as the day wore on I started to get really frustrated that I wasn't finding anything. There was a lone tree in the field that my buddy pointed out as being covered in poison ivy. I wasn't too concerned about it. I later came down with the worst poison ivy I've ever had! The pictures would probably be taken down from TNet as too graphic. I will spare you all. Eventually I squeezed a couple silver Rosies and a war nickel out of the field. A three silver day is a great success for me but those three coins don't capture my imagination too much. The day ended and I left wanting those colonial coins. I was itching for weeks and ended up going camping that weekend in Maine on an island where there were more bugs than I've ever seen ever... and yes they loved me! It was a tough weekend.
The colonial copper turned out to be U.S. 2 cent piece... still a great find but it left the veracity of it being a colonial era site in question. I went back a few weeks later in the pouring rain hoping to find something. The poison Ivy wasn't going to stop me that easily! Although it had been hot with very little rain the field was quickly filling in. This would probably be the last possible time I could detect it. I gave it a mighty effort slogging around up and down the hill but didn't find much. After a couple hours I was ready to call it quits. I swept my coil over an area and got a pretty loud signal. It was probably more trash but I gave it a dig. It was not too deep but I pulled out a pair of metal field glasses. They were heavily coated in dirt and I put them in my pouch and left disappointed. A few days later I took a hose and sprayed the dirt off the relic to reveal some embossed writing around the eye piece. It said F.W. Lincoln and Co. Boston, and the glass was intact (only slightly chipped on one lens) which is a small miracle! Okay this now had my interest because I live in Boston.... After some quick research I learned that Frederick W. Lincoln was the grandson of the famous Paul Revere! He was one year old when Revere died so I am thinking they probably met each other…. though F.W. probably didn't remember meeting grampa Paul. In 1839 he started a company that made nautical and surveying optical devices. The company was sold in 1883 and the name was changed, so that means the glasses were produced during that time period. F.W. Lincoln was also a somewhat (though lost to history character) famous and important player in Boston's history. He was mayor of Boston from 1857-1864. Being a civil war mayor must have been a stressful job! He went on to live until 1898 but I couldn't find out anything else about him. He's buried in a local cemetery so I hope to find his gravesite. This find quickly became one of my favorites. It even has some of the original black paint on it. One of the best / most interesting relics I have found! I asked Mark Parker from W and E what he thought and if we could narrow down the dates but he wasn't able to do so he added that they actually could have be made in Europe and marked with the F.W. brand name as they are similar to European styles at the times. He said they could have been sold as surplus long after they were made but it might not be possible to figure out. At this point more research needs to be done.
I toothpicked the dirt off to show you what you see here. I am unsure what I could do with these to display them. A) leave as is B) get them restored to be shiny brass (not sure that's even possible) C) cover in museum wax and call it a day. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'd be interested in opinions on what to do to conserve these. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
The colonial copper turned out to be U.S. 2 cent piece... still a great find but it left the veracity of it being a colonial era site in question. I went back a few weeks later in the pouring rain hoping to find something. The poison Ivy wasn't going to stop me that easily! Although it had been hot with very little rain the field was quickly filling in. This would probably be the last possible time I could detect it. I gave it a mighty effort slogging around up and down the hill but didn't find much. After a couple hours I was ready to call it quits. I swept my coil over an area and got a pretty loud signal. It was probably more trash but I gave it a dig. It was not too deep but I pulled out a pair of metal field glasses. They were heavily coated in dirt and I put them in my pouch and left disappointed. A few days later I took a hose and sprayed the dirt off the relic to reveal some embossed writing around the eye piece. It said F.W. Lincoln and Co. Boston, and the glass was intact (only slightly chipped on one lens) which is a small miracle! Okay this now had my interest because I live in Boston.... After some quick research I learned that Frederick W. Lincoln was the grandson of the famous Paul Revere! He was one year old when Revere died so I am thinking they probably met each other…. though F.W. probably didn't remember meeting grampa Paul. In 1839 he started a company that made nautical and surveying optical devices. The company was sold in 1883 and the name was changed, so that means the glasses were produced during that time period. F.W. Lincoln was also a somewhat (though lost to history character) famous and important player in Boston's history. He was mayor of Boston from 1857-1864. Being a civil war mayor must have been a stressful job! He went on to live until 1898 but I couldn't find out anything else about him. He's buried in a local cemetery so I hope to find his gravesite. This find quickly became one of my favorites. It even has some of the original black paint on it. One of the best / most interesting relics I have found! I asked Mark Parker from W and E what he thought and if we could narrow down the dates but he wasn't able to do so he added that they actually could have be made in Europe and marked with the F.W. brand name as they are similar to European styles at the times. He said they could have been sold as surplus long after they were made but it might not be possible to figure out. At this point more research needs to be done.
I toothpicked the dirt off to show you what you see here. I am unsure what I could do with these to display them. A) leave as is B) get them restored to be shiny brass (not sure that's even possible) C) cover in museum wax and call it a day. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'd be interested in opinions on what to do to conserve these. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
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