Im Back...With My Best Coin Yet

[Brendan M.]

I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Hello everyone! Long time!

As some of you know, I moved off Long Island last year, and headed upstate; I'm just outside of Lake George these days, and have been working hard to learn the new spots and do the research. After some minor wins last year (1-pound cannon ball, handful of musket balls) it's been really heating up for me lately, and yesterday I made my best coin find to date.

I was hunting some pretty dense woods that run along an old military road here that was used during the French & Indian War, close to several battle/ambush sites. I got one of those weird hunches to turn left instead of right, and about two feet after changing direction I hit a nice dime-type signal with my DFX. It was really shallow -- only about an inch and a half -- so I used my hands to brush away the dirt (didn't even bother digging), so you can imagine my surprise when a pristine 1724F 2 Reale "Cross Pistareen" popped up!

The detail on it is pretty fantastic. Although I'd like to think it was dropped during one of the battles there in 1755, I just don't know if it would've withstood 31 years of circulation and still be in the condition it's in today. But at any rate, it's now the oldest silver I've found (prior record holder was my 1738 1 Reale Pistareen) and is tied with my 1724 Charles II halfpenny as my oldest coin overall. Not a bad day of hunting!

 

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[West Jersey Detecting]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

What a coincidence! I was speaking to Bill (Bookfisher) earlier this week and asked if he had heard from you since you moved, and there you are!

That is truly an amazing find, and in superb condition. I would love to see this one up on top...but the mods seem to have something against Spanish Silver! I knew you would come through with something big up there in NY!

While most of my woodland finds are deep, some are shallow... even on level ground. I have a theory that tree roots can sometimes push objects up toward the surface...part of the reason I always check the bases of trees, young or old. Less likely, but possible is that it may have also been dug out of the ground by an animal that removing obstacles from its burrow.

I hope to see this up on top shortly!

 

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[bookfisher]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Great coin!

I'm not surprised at the depth. As stated elsewhere, soils grow at the rate of about 1 inch per 200 years in most of the United States. 1.5 Inches sound just about right to me.

Normally after 250 years it should be about 5 or 6 inches or deeper in undisturbed soil. Most of my 200 years and older finds have been at that depth or deeper.

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

What a coincidence! I was speaking to Bill (Bookfisher) earlier this week and asked if he had heard from you since you moved, and there you are!

That is truly an amazing find, and in superb condition. I would love to see this one up on top...but the mods seem to have something against Spanish Silver! I knew you would come through with something big up there in NY!

While most of my woodland finds are deep, some are shallow even on level ground. I have a theory that tree roots can sometimes push objects up toward the surface...part of the reason I always check the bases of trees, young or old. Less likely, but possible is that it may have also been dug out of the ground by an animal that removing obstacles from its burrow.

I hope to see this up on top shortly!

Haha thanks, Neil. Of course I thought of you after finding this. It's the one I've been waiting for, as you know...Makes all these recent trips into the woods worthwhile. I've been slogging through some pretty rough terrain up here, and after ending up with little more than the occasional musket ball after quite a few hunts, I was starting to worry that all the old-timers up here had picked the key spots clean. My faith has been restored!

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Here's a pic of the coin alongside a modern quarter for scale. It's slightly larger than the quarter.

 

[bookfisher]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Very Cool! Thanks for the comparison picture.

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Very Cool! Thanks for the size comparison picture.

My pleasure, Bill. Good idea on your part...

 

[oldmaps]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Congrats on spectactular find, I'd be happy to find any reale in any condition

 

[bearbqd]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Wow, I think the age and shape of that coin is definitely banner worthy. Awesome find.

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

A true gem!

 

[RiverRat3]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Awesome find, great looking coin!

 

[Steve in PA]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

That is a sight for sore eyes. It's been way too long since I've see something like that in my hole!

 

[CoilFisher]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Not a bad find?

Thats like banner material.

I wont even KNOW anyone in my lifetime that will find something like that.

 

[sekypaleo]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

One word...stunning ! big time CONGRATS on that one!

 

[g-olden years]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

my o my o my, STUNNING! I just voted banner. Glad you found the one you wanted!!! Andi

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Thanks everyone! I made the banner for the first time! Now both my coin collection and ego have expanded this week.

I'm fired up to get back out there. Hopefully there's more to post! Glad you all enjoyed checking out the pics.

Cheers,
B

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Not a bad find?

Thats like banner material.

I wont even KNOW anyone in my lifetime that will find something like that.

Haha hang in there CoilFisher....I can't even tell you how frustrated I was feeling about the hobby just a month ago. All it takes is one good day!

 

[dustcap]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Great find.
Sounds like a good spot to expand the search both up and down hill from the location it came out of. Could be washed out of small cache of similar coins.

Ken 'dustcap' Chichester

 

[Brendan M.]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Great find.
Sounds like a good spot to expand the search both up and down hill from the location it came out of. Could be washed out of small cache of similar coins.

Ken 'dustcap' Chichester

Ken,

My thinking as well. I did focus tightly on the area after making that find, but I fully intend to go back. There are a lot of stories about hastily buried caches in that area, due to the sheer amount of violence and chaos that occurred there in the 18th century. There are even a few missing colonial pay chests that have supposedly never been recovered, as far as anyone knows.

 

[steelheadwill]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Fantastic detail on that Washington
Congrats on the finest 18th C Spanish I've seen in a while,
Also on the fastest banner ! Stunning Find

 

[Briar-patch]

Re: I'm Back...With My Best Coin Yet

Thanks everyone! Yeah you can imagine my shock and the ensuing exclamations I uttered. I was figuring it was a quarter from the 1940s dropped by a hiker or something.

Good looking coin.

I've never understood how the woods keep things so shallow, but they do

Crusader, my particular theory here is recent soil erosion. This was a sloping hillside, and there was some major flooding during the recent hurricane. That could account for a couple less inches of depth...

I had a similar experience in Japan. A friend and I climbed a tall mountain, took about two hours to get to the top... there was no trail... during the climb I even reached up and pulled a flat rock out from under a sunning snake that dropped and got caught in the tree that I was using as a hand hold... good thing it wasn't a poisonous Mamushi (cousin to the American Copperhead) our map had a symbol of a shrine up on top. When we got there, all that was left of the shrine were foundation stones, large trees with roots exposed above the surface of the ground. It looked like something out of Indiana Jones... surely we were in for a large haul of coins that had been thrown at the shrine over the hundreds of years when it was standing. Nothing. No metal in the ground. We couldn't understand it. My friend went down another level and a little later came up with some Meiji copper coins (not as old as we expected from this site... about 200 years... we expected Edo period... about 400 years). I asked him where he found them and he said there was another small levelled area just down the backside of the slope from where the original shrine stood. I said I'm going to check it out... he warned me that he cleaned out the area... well I went anyway and down the slope at the bottom there was sort of a low area right at the foot of the slope and I searched there and it was like Las Vegas... metal detector singing songs left and right. Later we contemplated that with all the rainy seasons over the hundreds of years in Japan, the water carried the coins along with the top soil from the upper level down the slope and deposited them at the foot of the slope where the force of the water dug out the soft soil before flowing on. This also explained why the roots of the big old trees were exposed out of the ground on the upper level. Lesson learned, look for exposed tree roots where the topsoil has been washing away during rainstorms and follow the obvious path the water would take down a slope and look for areas at the bottom that had been dug out by the water flow. It's a natural catch basin for objects heavier than the soil that continues on with the water flow. This type of knowledge on how to read a site will lead you to the treasure.