KILLER Louisiana Hunt! SEATEDS and CONFEDERATES!

BuckleBoy

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Moonlight and Magnolias
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Detector(s) used
Fisher F75, Whites DualField PI, Fisher 1266-X and Tesoro Silver uMax
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All Treasure Hunting
Hello All,

Shanegalang and I got out in the cane fields again for a 12 hour hunt. He was all excited about trying out his new Tesoro Cibola and the detector surely didn't disappoint! First we drove by some important, top secret new sites and they had not been harvested. So we decided to check out a new spot on a hunch that had been chunked and rolled. We did indeed find a house site there, and it was along a route that saw Civil War action. No CW finds though, and it was cold and windy (49 and 15mph winds). Seemed like freezing after getting used to the 100 degree weather this summer for digs. I got a piece of a brass key and a coin that appeared to be flattened. No idea what it was, but wheat or Indian likely.

After a few hours there, we decided to spend our time elsewhere. So we went to our old standby field for the rest of the day. We started the third grid of the area where so many of our nice CW finds had come from. (In Louisiana, you can grid after the plow, then grid again, and even a third time after it has rained several times and do well, since the rain washes the finds out of the dirt, and slowly erodes the tops of the rows.) After a good many rows with just some tiny junque and a couple clay marbles, I heard a beep and looked down to see a button laying face down on top of the soil. I bent over and could see rays around where the shank used to be and said to Shane "you're gonna kill me." The back was the same as the other three CW Pelican buttons from the field, and the button was in a direct plow line from where two of the three others were dug. I ran back to the car while Shane yelled a few expletives, and came back shooting this video:



It appeared that the Pelican was silver gilded, but that was just an optical trick of the fine silt here in Southern Louisiana. It was in fact gold gilded, and came from the same coat as the other three buttons. ANY day a Southern state seal Civil War button button is dug is a great day...but we were not prepared for the fact that the day would get even better!

Well, I rounded the next row and got a solid hit, and out popped the first 1800s silver of the day: An 1897 Barber dime. Plow struck, but will look great in the display case. At that point, we decided we'd film a lot, so I started filming every time I got a decent hit, or a signal I was really excited about. We broke for lunch, ate some delicious seafood gumbo, and hit the fields again.

This time it was Shane that was on fire. He jumped in the first row and dug three flat buttons right off the bat. I got a good hit and started the camera rolling only to hear him yell me over that he had a silver himself! Here's the video. Disclaimer: While it might look like we're a bunch of turkeys, we try to actually know what we're doing. All the thoughts that go through your head when trying to figure out what you've dug, normally they remain silent but on film they all get said instead.
:laughing9:

For some reason, Shane disabled embedding when he posted these, so click the YouTube icon to view them on YouTube instead. I'm sure he'll fix it at some point so they'll appear in this post.



So then I went back to the signal that I was so excited about, and rolled the camera again, expecting another great find...and dug a piece of brass junque! :BangHead: Photos of his SWEET Seated Dime can be seen on his finds post. 8-)

We kept filming, hoping something great would get on video. I dug a nice .44cal Colt Pistol Bullet, and pieces of yet another spur from the field (we must have pieces from 8-9 different spurs from this field right by now).

At one point, Shane looked up and and yelled for me to come over. The camera battery was dead from all the filming, but I came running to see him dig his first large cent! Well, I'm not gonna show you a photo of it. you'll have to check his post out to see what he dug. :wink:

Right after that, I got a crappy signal and stuck the shovel in the ground out of curiosity. A little shred of aluminum turned up, and when I bent over to pick it up, I realized it was a SEATED Half Dime that was beat to death! Of the four things that can destroy a coin, this one has had all four done to it. It has been clipped to pay for something, holed, burned in a cane harvest fire, AND a plow hit it and bent it in half!! Here are some photos:

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Seriously, this is the UGLIEST Seated I have ever dug. I got neither date nor mintmark on this one, so no idea what it is...or should I say what it used to be! The photos above are before I carefully unbent the coin. Now, I NEVER do this with silver coins, because they are so brittle that they break even when heated, but I figured what the hell. Heated it up and bent it most of the way back.

Anyhow, I'll include some footage of one of the false alarms, simply because this one caused me to run the camera the longest because I was so certain it would be what it wasn't... Again, click the "YouTube" icon to play it in a new window.



At any rate, darkness eventually started to fall, and our aching legs, arms, and ankles told us we'd been digging for 12 hours, and we parted ways to go clean and investigate our finds.

After tossing out 100lbs of scrap iron, plus several handfulls of can slaw and mangled brass roofing, I was left with some decent finds. Pelican button is in the center, along with the nasty half dime, a button back that is likely from a Yankee Eagle Button, the false alarm religious medallion (Catholic "miraculous medallion"), a strange tiny brass chain that is gold gilded, the usual marbles, neck and strap box of a spur, and a lantern wick turner that says "SUN LIGHT" with an 1859 patent date.

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The Barber dime. Plow struck but not a bad coin otherwise:

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And of course, the Pride and Joy of the hunt, my Third CW Pelican since August:

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Best Wishes and Happy Hunting,


Buckleboy
 

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THATS FREAKIN AWESOME! CONGRATS!
 

Very well done BB your way out in front of all of us.
 

Wow, that was a killer hunt! Congratulations on some great saves.
 

It looks and sounds like you two had a big fun time on your hunt! Great job on all the awesome finds! The Pelican is beautiful, Way to go! :icon_thumright:
 

Another Pelican?? How many is that now? You guys are killing it. When you panned in on the insitu of the button was that a bead in that field or is it just shell. It looked drilled. Congratulations on the coin and the button. Enjoy seeing the finds come out of the ground. Thank you for sharing and Happy Hunting.
TnMtns
 

Excellent story and hunt! Heck, I would have been happy with just the gumbo!! :laughing7:
 

Great finds! Nicely done.

All the best,

Lanny
 

Your in Pelican Heaven!
 

Great Story and Finds !!
Your Western & Eastern Treasure article is good reading, Congrats !!
 

What a great hunt congrats!!!!!!
 

Another Pelican?? How many is that now? You guys are killing it. When you panned in on the insitu of the button was that a bead in that field or is it just shell. It looked drilled. Congratulations on the coin and the button. Enjoy seeing the finds come out of the ground. Thank you for sharing and Happy Hunting.
TnMtns

That makes four Pelicans from the same coat. So at some point we should be due for 3 or 4 more, plus the cuffs. The piece beside the button was a piece of oyster shell. Seems like everytime something happens with the ground here, from rain to digging out the bottoms of the rows with a light plow blade, more finds come up. I'm just glad that all the research and work I spent my first year here (without finding much!) are finally paying off.

Cheers,


Buckles

Great Story and Finds !!
Your Western & Eastern Treasure article is good reading, Congrats !!

Thanks for the kind words. It was gratifying to see that in print. I really feel like it's my best article for them so far.

Best Wishes,


Buck
 

Incredible!!!Huge congrats man,your makin me proud!!
One of my hunting partners destroyed it for years with the Cibola and just about had me getting one until he bought Larry's Tejon...I eneded up getting a Tejon.He said he would never go back
 

Big congrats BB. Wonderful finds and a great post! Tennessee digger
 

Incredible!!!Huge congrats man,your makin me proud!!
One of my hunting partners destroyed it for years with the Cibola and just about had me getting one until he bought Larry's Tejon...I eneded up getting a Tejon.He said he would never go back

Funny that you mention that. I almost won a Tejon on Ebay. Somebody beat me out, and it only went for $360 from a reputable seller! Darn! Been thinking about getting a Gold Bug. I need something that is killer on small items like half dimes, half reales, and cut pieces...

Thanks for the kind words. Keep the e-mails coming when you guys make it out to hunt. I like seeing the eye candy y'all send my way.

Chers,


Buck
 

You dudes were excited and deserevedly so. Great post and finds. Heck of of a hunt for you two. Still more Pelicans and great seated coins in that field. It took me 13 years in Tennessee to find a CS or pre-war Confederate state button. Like the young Hemmingway look BB-LOL. At least, Shane didn't shake the camera arounf like Dman did on our last video. HH guys, Q.
 

Its hard to say but do you suppose that one day long ago the coat got set down somewhere and forgotten? It would explain all of the buttons being in the same area. Cool finds!!

VPR
 

nice post and interesting coin ! :icon_thumright:
 

wow.. everything u find is great. do u ever hav a bad day? HH
 

You dudes were excited and deserevedly so. Great post and finds. Heck of of a hunt for you two. Still more Pelicans and great seated coins in that field. It took me 13 years in Tennessee to find a CS or pre-war Confederate state button. Like the young Hemmingway look BB-LOL. At least, Shane didn't shake the camera arounf like Dman did on our last video. HH guys, Q.

Aint that the truth! Well, hitting the "stabilize" button when posting on YouTube does wonders. :D Glad you got to hear Shane's Cajun Yell on video. Every time we think we're done with this field, we have another day like this. Sounds like we need to give it a little more time now that the rain has eroded the rows.

P.S.--I noticed something incredible today. Between Shane and I we've dug an example of every type of 5 cent coin circulated in the US between 1740 and the present, with the exception of the Draped Bust and the "half disme." That just blows me away. Phillip, Carolus(es), Ferdinand, US Capped Bust, Seated, Shield, V, Buffalo, Jefferson, wartime silver Jefferson.

Its hard to say but do you suppose that one day long ago the coat got set down somewhere and forgotten? It would explain all of the buttons being in the same area. Cool finds!!

VPR

That is most certainly what happened. All the buttons are the same style and all but one the same backmark. It's obviously a matched set from a single coat.

wow.. everything u find is great. do u ever hav a bad day? HH

Of course we do sometimes. But most of the time we post when we dig, so even the bad days are posted here. There have been a couple hunts this year where we only scared up a couple flat buttons. And of course, 2011 was just a bad year for me. Couldn't get my coil over anything old, and trying to do a lot of research which is now paying off.

Best Wishes,

Buck
 

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