Mexican Silver Ring

[pgleba]

Here is a nice little ring. Mexico is stamped inside the band. There a three initials also which I can't make out. The little feet make it interesting.

 

[dirthunter]

Very nice ring.....Congrats.

 

[allen]

congrats on that sweet silver ring !

 

[john09]

 

[Roadquest]

pgleba,

Very nice find. A ring from Mexico, interesting.
Did you find anything else in the area?

Roadquest

 

[pgleba]

In addition I found a clad quarter. The location is a grassy intersection of streets in the city. The reason I was there because of a grist stone marker of a mill dating back to the the 1600's. Unfortunately the stream on which the mill must have been is built over in this area. I couldn't locate the mill site.
I have found a couple of colonial ferry sites in the city. No luck. A colonial slate quarry which is fenced off. I tried emailing the city public works department to get access, no reply.
The height of my metal detecting career is having found the site where the blanks for early Federal large cents were made. I retrieved around 40 blanks and a number of pieces of the strips out which the blanks were punched. Between auctioning off the material and donating to the local historical society I have none of that left.
I am still after the white whale--a Pine Tree shilling. Others in my club have found at least one, if not more.
Many years ago one of the past members reported having found a Dutch siege coin dating back to the 1500's. My theory is that it might have been dropped by one of the Pilgrims.

 

[Roadquest]

''The height of my metal detecting career is having found the site where the blanks for early Federal large cents were made. I retrieved around 40 blanks and a number of pieces of the strips out which the blanks were punched. Between auctioning off the material and donating to the local historical society I have none of that left.''

Do you have any pictures of the blanks and strips. Would be be interesting
to see.

Roadquest

 

[pgleba]

Sorry. No photos. My discovery was made before the advent of digital cameras. I never thought taking photos. Actually I have been pretty careless of my finds until now.

 

[IronSpike]

I've found relics before the digital camera era. Was you find before camera era? Could you get photo's from the ones you donated?

Cool ring. Silver and guessing 1970's.

 

[pgleba]

Film cameras were too much of a bother. Here is a large cent blank photo I got off the internet. Could not find any sizel photos. The auction was handled by Stack's. You would have to contact them.

 

[IronSpike]

That's one you found or one like it?

 

[IronSpike]

Maybe ask the local historical society if you can take some pics of what you donated?

Could you go back and hunt the location where you found 40 blanks?

 

[pgleba]

This photo is pretty much representative of what I found. One blank looks like another.
The site is completely cleaned out. I came across it through some notes I wrote for a mineral locality book. A magazine article written in 1942 wrote of a person retrieving the copper material for the war effort.
Right after the works closed down, I imagine circa 1859, there must have been lots of material lying around. Through the years they were gleaned. The people living in the area apparently did not know what was there or weren't interested. When I was writing the mineral locality book I wasn't interested in metal detecting.
When I went to the site there wasn't anything on the surface. There were so many cinders around that a metal detector was useless.
I was sitting on the bank thinking what to do, idly scratching the ground, when I came up with a little triangular piece of copper. At that point I knew I had it.
I came back with a screen and shovel. After sifting out the material I raked everything back so it looked practically undisturbed. Rains that followed would complete the job.
I later went to another part of the site and found a Chinese coin sitting right on top of some cinders. The site had at the time furnace(s) to produce the copper. This site is now cleaned out. The last time I went there was a no trespassing sign. I had written to the land owners asking if they wanted to strike a deal. No response.
With all these caveats my book is titled "Massachusetts Mineral and Fossil Localities". It is available on line at www.bostonmineralclub.org in the members section of the site. Membership fee is nominal. One does not have to attend meetings to access the site.

 

[Roadquest]

They are going for around $170.00 to $275.00 on Ebay now.

 

[IronSpike]

Hope you one day get access to the site with your metal detector. Sites hunted hard are IMO never cleaned out.

Cool ring and a pine tree shilling is on my wish list too

 

[pgleba]

When I auctioned the blanks off they sold for $40 each.