A REAL great hunt!

Mach1Pilot · Oct 25, 2009

Well half of one, anyway!

My brother in law and I worked over our long ago forgotten homestead... in the past this site has produced a few interesting relics and a few coins dated between 1809 and 1851. This is also the same site that produced a nice eagle button last time out...

Well it continues to surprise.... The first find was another eagle button...this one is small, though. It has i think 15 stars surrounding the eagle... I'm having trouble telling just how many are there.

And two other buttons appeared.. one is smashed and appears to be lead.

But the find of the day was the 1788 Spanish Silver..

Its super thin and worn.... but the date is clearly legible! :icon_thumright:

I'm assuming its a 1/2 real... the diameter is 17.3mm or .684 inches. Will that help determine the denomination? I've tried googling for some info on it without success.

For what its worth, it rang in at 25-41 on the Etrac... That's a lot lower on the Ferrous number than I would have expected. Is that due to the wear/ smooth surfaces?

Thanks for looking!

Narthoniel · Oct 25, 2009

Yep, a nice Charles the Third half reale there, very nice!! I can understand it reading 25 ferrous in the dirt but not out of it. Did you scan it again after it was out of the ground? The 41 conductive is a bit high for them on the scale. Out of a dozen+ I have found with the Etrac only one read that high. Most half reale read in the indian range for me. If you have any other questions about them feel tree to ask. That is a great find, way to go!
Anthony

briankb70 · Oct 25, 2009

nice find on the 1/2 reale

Mach1Pilot · Oct 25, 2009

Narthoniel said:
Yep, a nice Charles the Third half reale there, very nice!! I can understand it reading 25 ferrous in the dirt but not out of it. Did you scan it again after it was out of the ground? The 41 conductive is a bit high for them on the scale. Out of a dozen+ I have found with the Etrac only one read that high. Most half reale read in the indian range for me. If you have any other questions about them feel tree to ask. That is a great find, way to go!
Anthony

Thanks for the confirmation and feedback on the Etrac readings... this machine is new for me, I've only used it maybe 10-12 hours now. I didn't scan the coin out of the hole, though... was to intrigued by it since its my first Spanish silver

Amazingly, this was only about 4-5 feet from where I found an 1809 Half Cent a few months ago with the Garrett 2500. Thankfully the vegetation is now gone so that I could get the coil over it!

And the little eagle button rang up different than I expected also... a 19-26... It just sounded too good so I dug it... glad I did!