Sooper Dave
Bronze Member
Between being so busy and all of the other craziness of this world, I have not been out digging in two months. I was long over due for some dirt therapy. So Thursday evening I saw an opportunity to drop everything and get in a swing or two. So I headed down the road with my youngest daughter to a spot I have been researching to be a possible Civil War camp. There was part of the old road that runs through the property, but it's long gone and grown over with grass. I started on a small rise in the field and found a flat button right away. I thought this was a good sign and dug a fired bullet next. I worked the area slowly and found another flat button and two pewter spoon bowls. It's now getting dark and the bugs are in full force when I got a nice quarter signal on my Etrac. I was expecting a clad quarter as I pinpointed the target pretty shallow in the plug. I busted into the clod and out pops a cut piece of something that I was sure hoping to be my first cut piece of Spanish silver. The excitement grew as I was getting enough light from the full moon to verify I had just dug a huge first. I high five my little girl as I told her that this was a special find for me, and she knows those kind of finds means a stop for ice cream on the way home so she was just as excited as me. After trying to get a good picture of it in the dark, I looked around for just a little bit more and found another smashed piece of lead and a very old padlock. The bugs were telling us to leave and I was ready to get home right after the stop for ice cream. It wasn't until after cleaning it up and comparing it to a half dollar and a silver dollar that I realized I had a quarter cut piece of an 8 Reales! I never thought I would dig one of these. I've only found one Real back eight years ago and these just don't come up often around here. I still don't know if I found part of the Civil War camp or an old home site. Either way I will be back to look around soon. HH Dave
Upvote
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45-years of detecting, and the only thing left on my bucket list is a Reale! Super find!
