paleomaxx
Hero Member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2016
- Messages
- 841
- Reaction score
- 6,888
- Golden Thread
- 6
- Location
- Upstate, NY
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 6
- Detector(s) used
- Deus XP
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
I think 2019 is going to be a good year! With low expectations I revisited a site I had pounded last winter just to get a little time swinging. It had been hunted even before I started a year ago and I had only found 2 coins in dozens of hours of gridding so I had believed it was picked pretty clean. But having had good luck with the Deus fast program right next to other cellar holes, I focused on the really iron infested areas where the buzz is incessant and constant and dug every single squeak of a high tone. Talk about a site coming alive again! Almost immediately I started pulling buttons from the iron patch including one I never expected:
Right out of the dirt it was clearly an eagle button, but some careful cleaning with lemon juice revealed some nice gilt and the elusive "R."
The "Scovills & Co Waterbury" backmark places it between the 1840's and 1850's although it's possible it was used up through the Civil War. Eagle buttons are hard to come by in upstate NY and with there not being that many Riflemen this is a particularly satisfying find and as it turns out just the start!
By the end of the hunt I had amassed quite a few buttons that the other guy and I had somehow missed including two huge dandy buttons!
The next incredible find took some research to figure out:
It's made from thin, stamped brass and it was probably stepped on not long after being lost which destroyed the reverse, but the front clearly shows the date and the liberty head. I recognized it as the obverse of a double eagle and I thought it might have been a counterfeit until I stumbled on Shell Cards. Apparently it was a very popular method of advertising after the Civil War and quite a few businesses put them out. Here's a non-dug one I found online:
Some had a brass back and others had a mica window and a paper ad. Despite being popular back then, today many are quite rare and highly collectable. It's a shame this one isn't in better shape, but what a cool post-Civil War find. And speaking of awesome advertising pieces, almost immediately after finding the shell card I started pulling civil war tokens out of the ground left and right! Three were even in the same plug and all six were within an 18" circle.
At first I thought it was a pocket spill, but after cleaning them I saw all six had two holes and five were the same merchant. I thought that was odd and did some digging online where I found several examples of bracelets made from coins in the same fashion.
Most, like the above example, seemed to be silver coins but I did see at least one other made from civil war tokens. Here they all are cleaned and lined up:
Since I didn't find any linked coins or the links themselves it's likely that they used twine or something else organic that rotted away over the years. I'm also probably missing one or two since most bracelets were 7-8 coins but what an incredible find! I do wonder why five were the exact same merchant in Troy and just one was from Albany. All six were from millers though so that may be the common factor. The five are Oliver Boutwell and believe it or not I already had a non-dug example of the exact same token in my collection. I took a few side-by-side photos to show the details without ground action.
The odd token out is D. L. Wing & Co of Albany NY.
Interestingly the reverse just says "Union Flour" so perhaps the bracelet was made with that as a centerpiece for a patriotic statement. It may not be the prettiest, but what an amazing piece to come out of the ground. You can bet I'll keep looking for the missing tokens too!
That wasn't even it for coins, by the end of the hunt I had also found a nice 1858 Flying Eagle cent, an 1864 IHP, two toasty large cents and my very first nickel 3-cent!
I don't think I've ever had a better day for old coins and I have to say that almost none of them gave off "solid" coin signals. Most were either way lower than I would have expected or too faint to give coherent numbers. Safe to say I've learned my lesson on passing over questionable signals. Here's the composite of all the coins:
Apparently the silver was just shy that day, but after all those coins I'm convinced there's a half dime somewhere.
I did dig quite a few other relics and of course tons of iron, but here are the more recognizable pieces:
Only my second padlock ever and the manufacturer seems to be DM & Co which would put it around the Civil War in age. The pewter piece with the handle and the screw bottom is interesting and the leather with rivets was just on the surface under the leaves.
Hunts with such variety are few and far between for me and certainly not expected at sites I've already hunted. I'll be changing up my strategy at cellar holes for sure and revisiting a few that I had previously written off as done. Hopefully there will be a few more days like this and if so, I'm very much looking forward to the rest of 2019!
Right out of the dirt it was clearly an eagle button, but some careful cleaning with lemon juice revealed some nice gilt and the elusive "R."
The "Scovills & Co Waterbury" backmark places it between the 1840's and 1850's although it's possible it was used up through the Civil War. Eagle buttons are hard to come by in upstate NY and with there not being that many Riflemen this is a particularly satisfying find and as it turns out just the start!
By the end of the hunt I had amassed quite a few buttons that the other guy and I had somehow missed including two huge dandy buttons!
The next incredible find took some research to figure out:
It's made from thin, stamped brass and it was probably stepped on not long after being lost which destroyed the reverse, but the front clearly shows the date and the liberty head. I recognized it as the obverse of a double eagle and I thought it might have been a counterfeit until I stumbled on Shell Cards. Apparently it was a very popular method of advertising after the Civil War and quite a few businesses put them out. Here's a non-dug one I found online:
Some had a brass back and others had a mica window and a paper ad. Despite being popular back then, today many are quite rare and highly collectable. It's a shame this one isn't in better shape, but what a cool post-Civil War find. And speaking of awesome advertising pieces, almost immediately after finding the shell card I started pulling civil war tokens out of the ground left and right! Three were even in the same plug and all six were within an 18" circle.
At first I thought it was a pocket spill, but after cleaning them I saw all six had two holes and five were the same merchant. I thought that was odd and did some digging online where I found several examples of bracelets made from coins in the same fashion.
Most, like the above example, seemed to be silver coins but I did see at least one other made from civil war tokens. Here they all are cleaned and lined up:
Since I didn't find any linked coins or the links themselves it's likely that they used twine or something else organic that rotted away over the years. I'm also probably missing one or two since most bracelets were 7-8 coins but what an incredible find! I do wonder why five were the exact same merchant in Troy and just one was from Albany. All six were from millers though so that may be the common factor. The five are Oliver Boutwell and believe it or not I already had a non-dug example of the exact same token in my collection. I took a few side-by-side photos to show the details without ground action.
The odd token out is D. L. Wing & Co of Albany NY.
Interestingly the reverse just says "Union Flour" so perhaps the bracelet was made with that as a centerpiece for a patriotic statement. It may not be the prettiest, but what an amazing piece to come out of the ground. You can bet I'll keep looking for the missing tokens too!
That wasn't even it for coins, by the end of the hunt I had also found a nice 1858 Flying Eagle cent, an 1864 IHP, two toasty large cents and my very first nickel 3-cent!
I don't think I've ever had a better day for old coins and I have to say that almost none of them gave off "solid" coin signals. Most were either way lower than I would have expected or too faint to give coherent numbers. Safe to say I've learned my lesson on passing over questionable signals. Here's the composite of all the coins:
Apparently the silver was just shy that day, but after all those coins I'm convinced there's a half dime somewhere.
I did dig quite a few other relics and of course tons of iron, but here are the more recognizable pieces:Only my second padlock ever and the manufacturer seems to be DM & Co which would put it around the Civil War in age. The pewter piece with the handle and the screw bottom is interesting and the leather with rivets was just on the surface under the leaves.
Hunts with such variety are few and far between for me and certainly not expected at sites I've already hunted. I'll be changing up my strategy at cellar holes for sure and revisiting a few that I had previously written off as done. Hopefully there will be a few more days like this and if so, I'm very much looking forward to the rest of 2019!
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