paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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Tried out a new old roadbed and over the course of two miles found four old foundations. Even more amazingly all four were 18th century and it looks like at least two were abandoned prior to 1800! The catch was that all four had already been hit and probably multiple times. Still, they usually miss things and I can usually manage to pull out something. What I didn't expect was how nice those missed targets would be!
For starters I pulled out 18th century folding knives at two of the foundations. One even has the bone sides still intact. I also found rosehead nails at each of the foundations and the ones in the picture above are just the nicest couple, but there were loads.
One foundation turned up two gorgeous dandy buttons:
The star pattern one is in a terrific state of preservation and even the tiny dotted rings are still visible under magnification. The other was pierced by a square nail for whatever reason, but has a fancy design and turned out pretty well after some dry brushing. Another button recovery is actually a first for me in terms of construction:
The front is tombac with a nice etched pattern, but what's unusual is the back is poured pewter that had an iron shank inserted into the pewter. Based on the primitive style I have a feeling that this is from the first half of the 18th century. And if that's the case it still wouldn't be the oldest relic I dug!
Pewter dognose spoon handle top! While this one just had a decorative pattern, some of these are found with portraits of William and Mary or Queen Anne which should give you an idea of the age. The spoon references I have place dognose spoons between 1700 and 1720 although there's some argument over one specimen that appears to have a portrait of King George III. Archeological controversies aside, based on the other finds this fragment may well be early 18th century.
Of course there were a few other tombacs and pewter buttons scattered around. A fragment of a rat tail pewter spoon and a Connecticut copper that was punched with a square nail and destroyed by ground action. But the star find, believe it or not, was sitting on the surface next to one of the foundations:
The detector beeped and I looked down to see a round shape. I thought it was another dandy so I didn't even snap a photo before I picked it up and saw that it was a Connecticut copper that was beautifully preserved. A bunch of the lettering was obscured which initially I thought was because it was worn, but as it turns out this is a rare die pairing and that isn't circulation wear or even ground action, but incredibly poor die condition. The Miller number is 33.29-gg.1 which is listed as an R-5, and a clear example can been seen below:
The dies on both the obverse and reverse were already worn out so all of the (admittedly few) examples of this type have serious defects. Note the die break below the hand on the reverse which you can see on my dug example as well. Apparently there are only 50-60 of these known and this one is one of my nicest preserved Connecticut coppers to boot!
Obviously I'll be going back to each of these spots and hopefully there are a few more treasures that have been missed!
For starters I pulled out 18th century folding knives at two of the foundations. One even has the bone sides still intact. I also found rosehead nails at each of the foundations and the ones in the picture above are just the nicest couple, but there were loads.
One foundation turned up two gorgeous dandy buttons:
The star pattern one is in a terrific state of preservation and even the tiny dotted rings are still visible under magnification. The other was pierced by a square nail for whatever reason, but has a fancy design and turned out pretty well after some dry brushing. Another button recovery is actually a first for me in terms of construction:
The front is tombac with a nice etched pattern, but what's unusual is the back is poured pewter that had an iron shank inserted into the pewter. Based on the primitive style I have a feeling that this is from the first half of the 18th century. And if that's the case it still wouldn't be the oldest relic I dug!
Pewter dognose spoon handle top! While this one just had a decorative pattern, some of these are found with portraits of William and Mary or Queen Anne which should give you an idea of the age. The spoon references I have place dognose spoons between 1700 and 1720 although there's some argument over one specimen that appears to have a portrait of King George III. Archeological controversies aside, based on the other finds this fragment may well be early 18th century.
Of course there were a few other tombacs and pewter buttons scattered around. A fragment of a rat tail pewter spoon and a Connecticut copper that was punched with a square nail and destroyed by ground action. But the star find, believe it or not, was sitting on the surface next to one of the foundations:
The detector beeped and I looked down to see a round shape. I thought it was another dandy so I didn't even snap a photo before I picked it up and saw that it was a Connecticut copper that was beautifully preserved. A bunch of the lettering was obscured which initially I thought was because it was worn, but as it turns out this is a rare die pairing and that isn't circulation wear or even ground action, but incredibly poor die condition. The Miller number is 33.29-gg.1 which is listed as an R-5, and a clear example can been seen below:
The dies on both the obverse and reverse were already worn out so all of the (admittedly few) examples of this type have serious defects. Note the die break below the hand on the reverse which you can see on my dug example as well. Apparently there are only 50-60 of these known and this one is one of my nicest preserved Connecticut coppers to boot!
Obviously I'll be going back to each of these spots and hopefully there are a few more treasures that have been missed!
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