A silver coin, a Tippacanoe button, couple other old buttons and mystery tag.

[Juice in the hole]

My fiancee and I went out Saturday and Sunday for about five hours total with our White's VX3 and found some interesting pieces. My favorite is the "Tippacanoe" William Henry Harrison campaign button that would date to 1840. It took a few minutes of Google image search to find out what I had. I can't find an identical match, but it does say "Tippacanoe" across the top and the image does include a cabin, cider barrel, cannon and flag flying from the cabin. I cleaned it and all my other finds (except for the silver coin) in hot hydrogen peroxide and then olive oil for a few hours. Patience isn't one of my virtues. That wasn't good enough and I read on here that naval jelly works wonders on buttons. So off to Ace I went. I used it on all of the buttons and it worked great, but ate away some of my Tippacanoe button. I should have left well enough alone and just soaked it olive oil (despite the warnings against olive oil and two piece buttons). It looked better before the naval jelly attacked it.

The silver piece was a mystery and we honestly thought it was a tag for a doll or something since the coin is worn so heavily. I did a Google image search for early silver coins on a whim and discovered it's a Spanish silver. Possibly a 1 or 2 Real? I miked the coin and it measures right at 20mm.

The tag is a mystery and I originally thought it may be a furniture tag. The more I look at it, it reminds me of a dogtag. The only military actions around here were some minor Civil War skirmishes and a Union occupation for several months. I believe the tag reads "Wm. BARHAM 2030 PERICE. ST. PHILA. Any ideas?

The rest of the stuff looks to be early buttons of some sort. Maybe a gilded and possibly a pewter button? The toy gun parts were cool, but they'd be a whole lot cooler complete. I thought the little copper washer looking thingy was a coin, but now I'm not so sure. No writing that I can tell. The penny looks like either 1944 or 1945. I'm gonna throw it back in the dip for another go round.

All in all we had a great day! The fiancee was really into the silver coin and the cabin button. If you have any cleaning suggestions or ID suggestions, I'm all ears. Thanks for looking!

 

[Evolution]

Sweet finds. Gotta love Spanish silver. Congrats!

 

[Steve in PA]

Neat finds. You have to watch yourself with that Naval Jelly. You do have a Spanish one real there. All in all a good hunt!

 

[Juice in the hole]

Neat finds. You have to watch yourself with that Naval Jelly. You do have a Spanish one real there. All in all a good hunt!

The naval jelly improved the definition of the "Tippacanoe" lettering, but erased the lettering near the bottom of the button under the cabin. Now I'll never know what it said. If I had to do it over again, no naval jelly for this button!

 

[Ia.FurTrade]

Only use Naval Jelly if you have considerable gilt showing!

 

[Ahab8]

I echo what they said. You have to go real easy with the naval jelly. I just spot hit the Dandy that I found and prob could do a bit more but am leaving as is since nobody knows exactly what it is. You need to neutralize it quickly as well as there are some mild acids in it that you don't want to allow to continue to work. Buckleboy wrote a great piece about cleaning all different types of buttons. Here's mine
This is a good article

 

[park pirate]

Old silver nice...

 

[Carolina Tom]

Congrats on the silver. Nice to see Spanish silver in NC.

 

[1stColonialRegiment]

Awesome hunt! I really like those relics. I also run the VX3, any suggestions on settings?
-1stCR

 

[Juice in the hole]

Awesome hunt! I really like those relics. I also run the VX3, any suggestions on settings?
-1stCR

Thanks a lot! I have a bunch more, but those are what I found over the weekend. I'm lucky to have a fiancee who has a large OLD farm with many OLD cabin foundations and tobacco barns. Truth be told, I'm probably only average at metal detecting, but I hunt in a target rich area and I have a great machine.

I've had the VX3 for almost 2 years now (first detector) and have really had my best luck with the HI-PRO setting. I turn the RX up to 13 and leave everything else alone. The Deep Silver mode works well also (again turn the RX up), but seems to misidentify stuff. At least for me. I use the "FOX Trash" setting for shallow surface targets in trashy areas. I replaced my DEMO with this setting. I also replaced my COIN mode with the "Magic" program and I've had mixed success with this mode. I never used the COIN mode, so this seemed a good place to try it. It does indeed find deep targets, but you really do have to go slow and pinpointing is marginal with this setting. Maybe a more experienced White's user can chime in, but that's what works for me.

Another thing is ground balancing. I've had much more success lately and part of that is making sure I'm ground balanced even when using AUTOTRAC. From your live menu, scroll over to Tracking and press enter and then view. Hold the loop high in the air away from any targets and press enter. You'll see the strength numbers drop to zero. Now lower the loop down to the ground over a target free area. Now manual ground balance and then start hunting. I do this every 20 minutes or so. I read comments from a long time White's user about manual ground balancing even if you use AUTOTRAC and I attribute much of my recent success to that.

 

[1stColonialRegiment]

Thanks a lot! I have a bunch more, but those are what I found over the weekend. I'm lucky to have a fiancee who has a large OLD farm with many OLD cabin foundations and tobacco barns. Truth be told, I'm probably only average at metal detecting, but I hunt in a target rich area and I have a great machine. I've had the VX3 for almost 2 years now (first detector) and have really had my best luck with the HI-PRO setting. I turn the RX up to 13 and leave everything else alone. The Deep Silver mode works well also (again turn the RX up), but seems to misidentify stuff. At least for me. I use the "FOX Trash" setting for shallow surface targets in trashy areas. I replaced my DEMO with this setting. I also replaced my COIN mode with the "Magic" program and I've had mixed success with this mode. I never used the COIN mode, so this seemed a good place to try it. It does indeed find deep targets, but you really do have to go slow and pinpointing is marginal with this setting. Maybe a more experienced White's user can chime in, but that's what works for me. Another thing is ground balancing. I've had much more success lately and part of that is making sure I'm ground balanced even when using AUTOTRAC. From your live menu, scroll over to Tracking and press enter and then view. Hold the loop high in the air away from any targets and press enter. You'll see the strength numbers drop to zero. Now lower the loop down to the ground over a target free area. Now manual ground balance and then start hunting. I do this every 20 minutes or so. I read comments from a long time White's user about manual ground balancing even if you use AUTOTRAC and I attribute much of my recent success to that.

Thanks man! Appreciate the advice. I've had my VX3 for about a year, but it doesn't seem to be doing as well at cellar holes as my AT pro. I think part of the trouble may be the coils I have for the VX3. I have a concentric and a double D, but they are both a lot bigger than the AT PRO DD. Target separation may be the issue. I gotta get some more money and try some smaller coils. I'll definitely try out your settings though!