West Jersey Detecting
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2006
- Messages
- 5,249
- Reaction score
- 1,102
- Golden Thread
- 1
- Location
- Philadelphia Area
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Nokta Legend, Excalibur 1000/II (hybrid) , Teknetics T2 SE
- Primary Interest:
- Other
Well, I'm still squeaking out some goodies from the site of one of West Jersey's earliest European settlers. As I've mentioned in prior posts, I've found more than 2 dozen coppers at the site, all dated 1810 or earlier.
Last weekend I spent a lot of time going over ground I've already covered, listening for deep signals like the 1708 Louis XIV 2 Denier coin that I found a week earlier.
It was mostly quiet, but I did manage another toasted copper and a pretty nice 1736 KGII farthing, and what I thought was an oblong button. When I began cleaning the button I noticed it had something on the reverse, the image of a bearded man in a cloak, wearing a hat. I made a wax impression and some dirt was still in the recesses of the intaglio, giving it a more detailed effect.
I believe the image to be that of the owner of the land, who's family was one of the original prominent families in this part of New Jersey. The family had lived in the area since the mid-17th century. Since beards went out of fashion in the mid-18th century, I would date this as pre-Georgian period (prior to 1750 or so), which matches most of the artifacts and many of the coins found at the site.
I'm waiting to hear back from the local historic society to see if they have any historic portraits that match. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Last weekend I spent a lot of time going over ground I've already covered, listening for deep signals like the 1708 Louis XIV 2 Denier coin that I found a week earlier.
It was mostly quiet, but I did manage another toasted copper and a pretty nice 1736 KGII farthing, and what I thought was an oblong button. When I began cleaning the button I noticed it had something on the reverse, the image of a bearded man in a cloak, wearing a hat. I made a wax impression and some dirt was still in the recesses of the intaglio, giving it a more detailed effect.
I believe the image to be that of the owner of the land, who's family was one of the original prominent families in this part of New Jersey. The family had lived in the area since the mid-17th century. Since beards went out of fashion in the mid-18th century, I would date this as pre-Georgian period (prior to 1750 or so), which matches most of the artifacts and many of the coins found at the site.
I'm waiting to hear back from the local historic society to see if they have any historic portraits that match. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
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