Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
Yesterday's short hunt nets 3 more coppers
Due to other pressing issues this weekend my partner Dan and I could only get out for a half day hunt Sunday afternoon. Even though we had several options to consider, we decided to revisit the productive site we've recently been hunting to finish checking out the last couple areas in the field that might have some potential. That didn't work out, except for a random coronet head LC I snagged, so I went back into the adjacent woods and down to the spring stream that produced some nice iron artifacts the last time. With little luck there I joined back up with Dan and we wandered around near the original house site a bit more with not much to show for our efforts other than a couple buttons. The day was looking like a bust, so we decided to hit another very small field on the same property that Dan had been eyeing. This area was also part of a 1680s land patent we had researched for this area, and we were hoping it contained a house site for one of the indentured servants who were likely living on the same patent site as well. It didn't have that killer "look", but to our surprise we started finding large chunks of early brick in the back of the field near the wood line on a slight rise. Not much iron could be heard, but that didn't matter as we soon started popping out buttons at a pretty good clip, and before long I got a great sounding high tone that was screaming colonial coin. And sure enough a Va halfpenny popped out. Dan followed quickly with his own halfpenny, and I eventually added a KG2 copper. This was a fun site to hunt as there was absolutely no modern trash, and all the signals came in strong in the moist, clay-like soil. We both found shallow fire or trash pits in the same area but due to the impending darkness we left those for another time. We kept recovering more buttons right up until dark, so we felt good about what'll be waiting for us when we return. I also dug the triangular base to a barrel tap key. But we continue to be puzzled by the lack of silver coins at both of these sites. We've dug 8-10 coppers and just a single cut piece here. That's highly unusual for us as that ratio is usually reversed. Anyway, I guess you could say the old adage "when one door closes another opens" definitely applied to our hunt yesterday, and we were thankful for that.
Due to other pressing issues this weekend my partner Dan and I could only get out for a half day hunt Sunday afternoon. Even though we had several options to consider, we decided to revisit the productive site we've recently been hunting to finish checking out the last couple areas in the field that might have some potential. That didn't work out, except for a random coronet head LC I snagged, so I went back into the adjacent woods and down to the spring stream that produced some nice iron artifacts the last time. With little luck there I joined back up with Dan and we wandered around near the original house site a bit more with not much to show for our efforts other than a couple buttons. The day was looking like a bust, so we decided to hit another very small field on the same property that Dan had been eyeing. This area was also part of a 1680s land patent we had researched for this area, and we were hoping it contained a house site for one of the indentured servants who were likely living on the same patent site as well. It didn't have that killer "look", but to our surprise we started finding large chunks of early brick in the back of the field near the wood line on a slight rise. Not much iron could be heard, but that didn't matter as we soon started popping out buttons at a pretty good clip, and before long I got a great sounding high tone that was screaming colonial coin. And sure enough a Va halfpenny popped out. Dan followed quickly with his own halfpenny, and I eventually added a KG2 copper. This was a fun site to hunt as there was absolutely no modern trash, and all the signals came in strong in the moist, clay-like soil. We both found shallow fire or trash pits in the same area but due to the impending darkness we left those for another time. We kept recovering more buttons right up until dark, so we felt good about what'll be waiting for us when we return. I also dug the triangular base to a barrel tap key. But we continue to be puzzled by the lack of silver coins at both of these sites. We've dug 8-10 coppers and just a single cut piece here. That's highly unusual for us as that ratio is usually reversed. Anyway, I guess you could say the old adage "when one door closes another opens" definitely applied to our hunt yesterday, and we were thankful for that.
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