Spanish Silver, and a colonial Apothecary weight! Wow!

[Scrappy]

A quick post before I hit the sack. I went to an area I call Basstards of Brambles meadows. It's a place only me and the crew can go.

I found lots of buttons and such but they're soaking (not pictured)

A 1789 Spanish 1/2 reale (note the Carolous IV vs. Carolous IIII). Also, the double holing is killer. One was filled, only to have another put in it.



It other keeper and a KILLER find was an apothecary weight, 3 Drachms. (Thanks Bill D. for the ID). Looks to be 18th century from my research.



I went ahead and did a light zap in the electrolysis tank. I'm not a fan of zapping anything but iron, but I otherwise wouldn't have been able to make out the markings. Both sides are marked.

An undug example



Curious about apothecary weights? Here's a tidbit:

https://www.britannica.com/science/apothecaries-weight

I'll post the buttons and bits tomorrow once cleaned.

UPDATED: some buttons incl. a nice folded colonial crosshatch, a winder, and some Indians including a roached 1871 and 1872



I'm glad I was able to add this picture before my post turned in to a pumpkin. Tnets 24 hour edit rule should GO!

Good digs and good luck

Steve

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Great hunt Steve! Those apothecary weights do not turn up nearly as often as coin weights as I can attest to. So that's definitely a nice find. And that filled hole on the silver is something I've never come across before in spite of digging at least 20 holed coins. Like to know the story behind that one. But I believe it would make more sense that there may have been 2 holes originally and 1 was later filled for some reason. Otherwise, if only a single hole was originally drilled and later filled, and someone wanted to later re-hole it, they would have probably just knocked out the filler in the original hole instead of going to the trouble of making a new one. But who really knows?? Very cool and unusual find regardless.

 

[metalev4]

Nice digs Steve. Never seen a filled hole, really cool.

 

[Steve in PA]

Nice finds Steve! The 1/2 real with the filled hole is really unusual. Love the weight too.

 

[Scrappy]

Very nice Scrappy! Two keepers that many have on their bucket list. Congrats

The only thing that comes to mind about the filling of the hole is to bring the coin back to a certain weight. It has the cool factor written all over it, that's for sure.

Yep, it had to do with the weight. That's what I had read somewhere, a while ago, dunno where. It certainly gives it character. Two holes and all that wear - I bet that coin circulated for 40+ years!

 

[Scrappy]

Scrappy - I love seeing your finds, only they make be depressingly jealous!! Congrats to you, mate, I'm happy for you!

I can relate. I see the guys overseas killing it with stuff 5-10X older than mine. A few days ago someone was upset because they dug a bunch of Roman nails...

Well I'd be thrilled to dig something like that

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Congratualtions on the excellent finds!

 

[Agent Green]

Amazing finds... super coins and an awesome relic..

 

[sugarquartz]

Very nice, i would have been thrilled to find the weight. The re holed half reale is just as awesome. Congrats

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[Tpmetal]

great finds!

 

[Stef45]

Great finds. Never seen a silver holed, filled in, then holed again...why wouldn't they just hole where it was already holed? lol The weight script is really cool. Congrats bud!

 

[Relicific]

Awesome hunt
Very cool apothecary weight

 

[Don in SJ]

A two holed Spanish silver, kind of cool to find it with one filled and one not, probably will never be able to determine the story behind that coin.. I found the same weight eons ago, I believe my notes have it as a 2 Dram weight. roughly 120 grains I believe... Don

 

[Silvermonkey]

Great hunt Scrappy! Love the reale... always nice when those get to see the light of day again. And thanks for the link about the apothecaries weight. Always good to learn a bit of new information.

 

[Scrappy]

Gotta love that apothecary weight-those are very infrequent finds. And congrats on finding the half real.

Thanks Glen. And to think just a common (square) coin weight was on my bucket list. Ha!

 

[Scrappy]

Yep, the filled hole is really cool Steve and the apothecary weight is a nice find. Congrats

Thanks Joey. That Spanish is the strangest thing for sure. The more I look at it, the more trouble I have imagining what happened. Cheers buddy

 

[Scrappy]

Yep. Same markings

Did yours come from the Posey site?

 

[toasted]

Did yours come from the Posey site?

I wish I had a posey ring. It came from the Pomander and two cobs site

 

[Scrappy]

Great hunt Steve! Those apothecary weights do not turn up nearly as often as coin weights as I can attest to. So that's definitely a nice find. And that filled hole on the silver is something I've never come across before in spite of digging at least 20 holed coins. Like to know the story behind that one. But I believe it would make more sense that there may have been 2 holes originally and 1 was later filled for some reason. Otherwise, if only a single hole was originally drilled and later filled, and someone wanted to later re-hole it, they would have probably just knocked out the filler in the original hole instead of going to the trouble of making a new one. But who really knows?? Very cool and unusual find regardless.

Thanks again for the ID Bill. Another theory I have is it had two holes. At some point the coin was laid on its side and hit three times, perhaps a "counter test". Perhaps one of the filled holes, which you can see didn't adhere well, popped out. Haha, guess we'll never know!

 

[Davers]

Cool as heck find as usual Scrap.
You make it seem easy , tho it's a real Pain finding old sites & relics.