Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics. NOW UPDATED!

Bill D. (VA)

Silver Member
Oct 7, 2008
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SE Virginia
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What a day!! And it almost didn’t happen. I hadn’t planned to get out today due to other things going on, but I ended up with a couple of free hours late in the afternoon and couldn’t resist the urge to do a little hunting. Plus today’s the last day before deer hunting gets in full swing so I wanted to take advantage by hitting my new button site one last time. When I got there I decided to go check out the little alcove area way in the back left of this huge field. After the long walk I noticed there was a nice little ridge in the middle of this area and I thought there was a good potential for a house or camp site. But after 10 minutes of swinging and hearing nothing but dead silence, and with no sign of any previous occupation (absolutely no iron, bricks, pottery, oyster shells, etc) I started to head to another part of the field in search of a new hotspot. But as I was leaving I got a nice deep hi-tone signal and was surprised to see a LC pop out. So I slowed down a bit and within another 15 ft I got a similar signal which turned out to be another copper. And 5 minutes later a 3rd one rang out. This was getting fun! Then I started getting several hi-tones but they all ended up being some sort of pot metal. Right when I was about to give up and move on I got a great sounding but very deep tone, and from 10-12” I pulled out a nice looking silver disk. To my amazement it ended up being an 1827 bust dime. In spite of digging over 120 colonial silver coins in the last 15 years, this was only my 2nd bust silver ever. What a way to end the hunt I thought. But little did I know that I wasn’t even halfway there yet. I decided to go back over the area where I had found the 4 coins very slowly and at a 90 degree angle to my previous direction and got immediately rewarded. In the next 20-30 minutes I dug 2 more coppers, a 1775 one reale , a 1782 cut one reale, and finally a big ole 2 reale. After expanding my search pattern a bit and not finding any more coins I decided to call it quits since the sun was quickly fading behind the trees. I figure this must have been some kind of random coin spill that had gotten scattered by the plow over the years as all 9 coins were found within a 40-50 foot circle. And it was also odd that I did not find a single button, buckle or any other relic – just a couple of small lead bullets. I haven’t had a chance to clean the coins up yet, but was excited to post these as soon as I could. It appears one of the coppers is a draped or capped bust variety and the others are the standard coronet head cents. I’ll post up the cleaned coins in a few days. This is just another example of a site that produces unexpected finds in the most unexpected of places. But that’s what makes this hobby so exciting. Since a couple of these coins were found at the very edge of the detection depth of my F75 I feel like more coins could be found. Need to bring in some different machines and larger coils in there to make sure anything left can be found. Where's a GPX-5000 when I need it! More on that later …..

UPDATE: For those that haven't seen my post about the follow-up hunt on this site you can check it out at the following link:

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,435471.0.html

In a nutshell, I found 3 more coins using the 15" coil on the F75 - two 2 reales and another copper. I've added a pic at the bottom of this post showing all 12 coins cleaned up. A 3rd trip there this weekend didn't produce any new finds, but I may be close to purchasing a new Minelab GPX-4800 and will surely take it here first armed with an 18" coil. And then back to the hammered silver site.
 

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Upvote 0

Don in SJ

Silver Member
May 20, 2005
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Bill, you sure came thru at the end with a great hunt! But, you did ruin your typical Silver to Copper ratio on this hunt! ;D
Mouth watering finds, Congrats.........

Don
 

cntrydncr1

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Feb 23, 2007
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Bradenton, Fl
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

wow that is incredible!! congrats on the awesome hunt!
 

TommNJ

Bronze Member
Nov 3, 2008
1,575
178
NW NJ
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Wow! Congrats on a amazing day! :headbang:

TommNJ
 

OP
OP
Bill D. (VA)

Bill D. (VA)

Silver Member
Oct 7, 2008
4,711
6,212
SE Virginia
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2
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F75 SE (land); CZ-21 (saltwater)
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Don in SJ said:
Bill, you sure came thru at the end with a great hunt! But, you did ruin your typical Silver to Copper ratio on this hunt! ;D
Mouth watering finds, Congrats.........

Don

That's funny Don! Yeah, I ruined the ratio but with 4 early silvers I'm happy no matter how many coppers I dug. Good luck to you in your search for the elusive colonial copper ..... Bill
 

tennessee digger

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Sep 14, 2011
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701
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Those are just great Bill. All I can say is wow!!!!!!!! Tennessee digger
 

gwdigger

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Dec 3, 2006
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

It is astonishing how much Spanish silver comes up on Virginia sites. I get to hunt the Eastern Shore of Va and its the same over here. If you want Spanish silver we go down into Va. If we want early coppers we go up into lower Delaware.
 

OP
OP
Bill D. (VA)

Bill D. (VA)

Silver Member
Oct 7, 2008
4,711
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SE Virginia
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F75 SE (land); CZ-21 (saltwater)
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

gwdigger said:
It is astonishing how much Spanish silver comes up on Virginia sites. I get to hunt the Eastern Shore of Va and its the same over here. If you want Spanish silver we go down into Va. If we want early coppers we go up into lower Delaware.

I agree totally. Some of my buddies up north have difficulty finding colonial silver, but find an abundance of early coppers. The reverse is true down here. Even though I've dug quite a few VA halfpennies I've only found one other state copper and a very small number of British coppers in 15 years of hunting colonial sites. Lots of theories as to why that is, but mine is that due to the large waterfront populations and heavy commerce here in Tidewater (related to tobacco) that larger denominations of coinage were needed, although a lot of bartering and trading also took place.
 

jewelerguy

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Jun 28, 2011
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

wow sweet! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
 

gwdigger

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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Bill D. (VA) said:
gwdigger said:
It is astonishing how much Spanish silver comes up on Virginia sites. I get to hunt the Eastern Shore of Va and its the same over here. If you want Spanish silver we go down into Va. If we want early coppers we go up into lower Delaware.

I agree totally. Some of my buddies up north have difficulty finding colonial silver, but find an abundance of early coppers. The reverse is true down here. Even though I've dug quite a few VA halfpennies I've only found one other state copper and a very small number of British coppers in 15 years of hunting colonial sites. Lots of theories as to why that is, but mine is that due to the large waterfront populations and heavy commerce here in Tidewater (related to tobacco) that larger denominations of coinage were needed, although a lot of bartering and trading also took place.

We've got one site down in Virginia that produced 23 various reales alone (that I know of). I dont think my posse has found 23 Spanish silver coins in total up in Delaware over the 20+ years we've detected.
 

HISPAN

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Mar 15, 2009
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

three Reale in a single American field ? ...... very lucky. :thumbsup:
 

romeo-1

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Jul 29, 2005
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Wow...nice Spanish collection there!
 

joeyfresh

Bronze Member
Dec 19, 2006
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Colonial Virginia
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

That's a great field you have there Bill. From Spanish to hammered, it's astounding the amount and types of silver you have pulled from our great colonial Virginia fields. Keep 'em coming :notworthy:
 

dasho

Jr. Member
Jul 19, 2010
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MO
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Rad!
 

gwdigger

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Dec 3, 2006
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Something I just remembered. Sometimes when I asked farmers for permission the old timers often said "no one had any money back in those days". Chuckling, I'd answer "thats because they lost it all in the fields". :tongue3: It often seemed to break the ice a bit.
 

Iron Patch

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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

A day like that has to be a fun day! Makes a person hungry to find a good site.
 

AGBlex

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Sep 20, 2011
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

great great find man love the old silver!
 

gleaner1

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Feb 1, 2009
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

Such an early spill not seen too often, great group of finds.... :icon_thumleft:
 

johnnyblaze

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Dec 20, 2010
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

This is what it is all about man :thumbsup:


Killer finds :headbang:

Blaze
 

silversweeper

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Aug 22, 2011
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Re: Early coin spill yields silver and copper bonanza!!! Lots of pics.

WOW. I'd say Happy Hunting but I can only imagine the grin that is probably stuck on your mug every time you look at those coins or remember the day! I'd have to pinch myself repeatedly to make sure I wasn't dreaming! That is one gorgeous Draped bust dime! The others are all awesome as well of course. And...oh what the heck...Happy Hunting!
 

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