brianc053
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,021
- Reaction score
- 3,723
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Sussex County, DE
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 3
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Equinox 800
XP Deus 2
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
Hi everyone. Inspired by toasted's post yesterday about his 1764 Spanish one Real discovery, I decided to post about my best find to date. Below the pictures I'll explain why I hesitated to post about it, and I'll also explain how I cleaned it (gently).
As for the discovery itself, some of you may have read my posts about this farm in my town where I've found some excellent items over the last 18 months: a few King Georges, a Royal Navy button from the Revolutionary War era, and various other artifacts. A few weeks ago I posted this story from the same farm: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/648386-lead-imprint-large-cent-why.html but I didn't explain why I was hunting the farm that day.
The farmer is putting in a new driveway, and that driveway runs through the field where I've been finding all the good stuff (the site of a house from the 1700's that stood into the late 1800's). He dug up a nice section of the field and called me to let me know that there was fresh dirt to detect. I found that lead imprint of a large cent in some of that dirt.
But I also found a 1753 Spanish one Real that day, from the Lima, Peru mint, which is my favorite find of all time (so far).
I even managed to capture the actual reveal of the coin on video, because I knew I had a great target (but didn't know how great until I wiped away the dirt). I've included a link to that video below.
Without further ado, here are the pictures. If you'd like to read more about my arrangement with the farm owner or about how I cleaned the coin, that info is below the pictures.
The new driveway area:
The video of the reveal:
Why I was hesitant to post about this find: my arrangement with the farmer is that I give him everything I find at the farm. This was something he and his family insisted on about 2 years ago because the farm has been in their family for 4 generations, and the older generations didn't want to lose anything of sentimental value.
Over time the current owner and I have modified the arrangement, and on a case-by-case basis I can buy something off an auction site that is similar and he'll take that item, so that I can (or my son can) keep what we find.
In this case that's what I had to do. I had to hunt down a 1753 Spanish one real and give that to him, which I ultimately did. But that took time and also made me reluctant to post in "Today's Finds" because of the time that passed, but also because I felt weird about buying something from an auction site. I felt like that "tainted" the find in some way. Call me weird (or just too honest, I don't know). Anyway, I hope that explanation makes sense.
As for cleaning, the only thing I did at first was a very light rinse with water to remove the dirt. But I was annoyed by the brown stain on the reverse, so I tried using those Andre's Pencils on it - and I'm really happy with the results. I used the pencil lightly followed by the steel wool one, and it only took about 5 minutes to improve the look.
Here's a picture of the coin I found (left) and the one I bought and gave to the farmer (right). He got a pretty nice coin too!
If you've read this far: thank you for reading and for letting me tell my story.
As for the discovery itself, some of you may have read my posts about this farm in my town where I've found some excellent items over the last 18 months: a few King Georges, a Royal Navy button from the Revolutionary War era, and various other artifacts. A few weeks ago I posted this story from the same farm: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/648386-lead-imprint-large-cent-why.html but I didn't explain why I was hunting the farm that day.
The farmer is putting in a new driveway, and that driveway runs through the field where I've been finding all the good stuff (the site of a house from the 1700's that stood into the late 1800's). He dug up a nice section of the field and called me to let me know that there was fresh dirt to detect. I found that lead imprint of a large cent in some of that dirt.
But I also found a 1753 Spanish one Real that day, from the Lima, Peru mint, which is my favorite find of all time (so far).
I even managed to capture the actual reveal of the coin on video, because I knew I had a great target (but didn't know how great until I wiped away the dirt). I've included a link to that video below.
Without further ado, here are the pictures. If you'd like to read more about my arrangement with the farm owner or about how I cleaned the coin, that info is below the pictures.
The new driveway area:
The video of the reveal:
Why I was hesitant to post about this find: my arrangement with the farmer is that I give him everything I find at the farm. This was something he and his family insisted on about 2 years ago because the farm has been in their family for 4 generations, and the older generations didn't want to lose anything of sentimental value.
Over time the current owner and I have modified the arrangement, and on a case-by-case basis I can buy something off an auction site that is similar and he'll take that item, so that I can (or my son can) keep what we find.
In this case that's what I had to do. I had to hunt down a 1753 Spanish one real and give that to him, which I ultimately did. But that took time and also made me reluctant to post in "Today's Finds" because of the time that passed, but also because I felt weird about buying something from an auction site. I felt like that "tainted" the find in some way. Call me weird (or just too honest, I don't know). Anyway, I hope that explanation makes sense.
As for cleaning, the only thing I did at first was a very light rinse with water to remove the dirt. But I was annoyed by the brown stain on the reverse, so I tried using those Andre's Pencils on it - and I'm really happy with the results. I used the pencil lightly followed by the steel wool one, and it only took about 5 minutes to improve the look.
Here's a picture of the coin I found (left) and the one I bought and gave to the farmer (right). He got a pretty nice coin too!
If you've read this far: thank you for reading and for letting me tell my story.
Upvote
9
