McCDig
Silver Member
- Jan 31, 2015
- 3,753
- 9,039
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Fisher F75
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
Hunted with another detectorist on Saturday with the plan of splitting the time between the Baltimore County site I've been hitting lately and a permission of my fellow detectorist in the afternoon; that permission is north of the Mason-Dixon line. The morning was cold and cloudy with temps in the 30s and the farm fields were acting just like farm fields, yielding good targets in small quantities. The highlight for my co-detectorist was an 1858 Flying Eagle cent. I came away with a lantern part, large flat button, and a horse bridle rivet. I was told at the end of the hunt that "it was a miracle" that I've been able to pull as many old coins as I have from that site.
The expectation heading north from there that the permission site would be much more productive. An early lunch and then on to the hunt site to the start of an afternoon hunt that was to prove a profound experience. This site sits high on a hill overlooking the countryside to the west and north. Still cold ouside but warmed after lunch I started and the first good target I dug was a pulled Minie ball. Things got a little quiet for me but my co-digger was starting to dig one Minie ball after another.
We stayed pretty much in one area, no larger than an eighth of an acre and were really onto a small "hot spot". I recovered some relics that were unknown to me at the time but turned out to be a top to a match safe and the other, a latch to a cartridge case, then a harmonica reed piece. The hunt was far from over. I heard a good signal and looked to the ground to see a shiny lady Liberty seated looking up at me, just right there on the surface, no digging required, obviously turned up by the plow; the coin turned out to be an 1856 quarter.
There was a flurry of Minie ball finds after that that added four to my total for the afternoon. I had mixed emotions over finding the quarter, but this was not my permission and my host had not found silver on the day. That changed in short order when I went over to see a seated dime in the hand, also from the 1850s.
When I consider the relics I dug from that spot and that each one was very possibly in the hand of someone who served during the Civil War it gave me pause to think about those men, realizing that they may have been on their way to Gettysburg, or perhaps, were among the survivors on their way back, perhaps some never made it home. Either way, it was humbling to recover these.
Many thanks to smokeythecat for the generous permission and a day of camaraderie.
Here's the dig of the first Minie ball of the day:
The expectation heading north from there that the permission site would be much more productive. An early lunch and then on to the hunt site to the start of an afternoon hunt that was to prove a profound experience. This site sits high on a hill overlooking the countryside to the west and north. Still cold ouside but warmed after lunch I started and the first good target I dug was a pulled Minie ball. Things got a little quiet for me but my co-digger was starting to dig one Minie ball after another.
We stayed pretty much in one area, no larger than an eighth of an acre and were really onto a small "hot spot". I recovered some relics that were unknown to me at the time but turned out to be a top to a match safe and the other, a latch to a cartridge case, then a harmonica reed piece. The hunt was far from over. I heard a good signal and looked to the ground to see a shiny lady Liberty seated looking up at me, just right there on the surface, no digging required, obviously turned up by the plow; the coin turned out to be an 1856 quarter.
There was a flurry of Minie ball finds after that that added four to my total for the afternoon. I had mixed emotions over finding the quarter, but this was not my permission and my host had not found silver on the day. That changed in short order when I went over to see a seated dime in the hand, also from the 1850s.
When I consider the relics I dug from that spot and that each one was very possibly in the hand of someone who served during the Civil War it gave me pause to think about those men, realizing that they may have been on their way to Gettysburg, or perhaps, were among the survivors on their way back, perhaps some never made it home. Either way, it was humbling to recover these.
Many thanks to smokeythecat for the generous permission and a day of camaraderie.
Here's the dig of the first Minie ball of the day:
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That was my first surface silver find.
