paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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Yup, you read that right, and it is without a doubt from the 18th century too. I found a new spot over the weekend that consists of a tiny foundation no more than 8'x8' on the edge of a stream. Not many targets in the ground, but absolutely everything was pre-1800. The Liberty Cap was on the edge of the cellar hole between some rocks and it rang up low so initially I thought is was another tombac and put it with the rest of the finds. It wasn't until I started cleaning everything up that I saw the faint bust with the cap behind it under the crusty dirt.
Pewter in this state can go either way so I only let one side dry and went to work on it with an Andre's brush. Took about half an hour of careful work, but it was worth it because it was extraordinarily well preserved under all that dirt:
Like I said, stunning!
The reverse is a little weaker, but I think that's because it was cast face down and the reverse had less pressure on the molten metal.
Of course the obvious question here is why was this even made? It's half the thickness of an actual liberty cap large cent and I doubt it was a serious attempt to make a counterfeit. I found a ton of melted pewter fragments around and while that isn't unusual for colonial period sites, proportionally here it was almost half of all recovered targets and some were even clipped.
Makes me think that he may have been a small scale pewter smith and was either messing around or wanted to make something to impress people with his skills. I suppose it's also possible that he was a counterfeiter and this was a sort of dry run for a half dollar mold. At any rate very cool and as far as I can tell unique. There are a decent number of pewter large cents out there, and I've even found a couple, but they tend to be of matron head dates. I think they were probably used as gaming chips, but this one definitely feels like something else.
The rest of the finds were nice 18th century pieces.
The shoe buckle is very pretty and actually copper as opposed to the more usual brass. The dandy button was the very first target and the edge scalloping had me going for a bit since it looks a little like one of the script GWI buttons, but alas it's just a floral pattern in the middle. The only actual coin was a draped bust large cent and before the obverse crumbled it appeared to be 1797. A shame, but I'd prefer the pewter be well preserved in this case so the soil chemistry is just fine the way it is!
Definitely a fun little spot and an awesome new piece for the collection! I'll be searching the spot again when the weeds are a little lower and maybe I'll find something else that would explain what was going on there. Maybe I'll even get lucky and turn up one of the molds!
Pewter in this state can go either way so I only let one side dry and went to work on it with an Andre's brush. Took about half an hour of careful work, but it was worth it because it was extraordinarily well preserved under all that dirt:
Like I said, stunning!
The reverse is a little weaker, but I think that's because it was cast face down and the reverse had less pressure on the molten metal.
Of course the obvious question here is why was this even made? It's half the thickness of an actual liberty cap large cent and I doubt it was a serious attempt to make a counterfeit. I found a ton of melted pewter fragments around and while that isn't unusual for colonial period sites, proportionally here it was almost half of all recovered targets and some were even clipped.
Makes me think that he may have been a small scale pewter smith and was either messing around or wanted to make something to impress people with his skills. I suppose it's also possible that he was a counterfeiter and this was a sort of dry run for a half dollar mold. At any rate very cool and as far as I can tell unique. There are a decent number of pewter large cents out there, and I've even found a couple, but they tend to be of matron head dates. I think they were probably used as gaming chips, but this one definitely feels like something else.
The rest of the finds were nice 18th century pieces.
The shoe buckle is very pretty and actually copper as opposed to the more usual brass. The dandy button was the very first target and the edge scalloping had me going for a bit since it looks a little like one of the script GWI buttons, but alas it's just a floral pattern in the middle. The only actual coin was a draped bust large cent and before the obverse crumbled it appeared to be 1797. A shame, but I'd prefer the pewter be well preserved in this case so the soil chemistry is just fine the way it is!
Definitely a fun little spot and an awesome new piece for the collection! I'll be searching the spot again when the weeds are a little lower and maybe I'll find something else that would explain what was going on there. Maybe I'll even get lucky and turn up one of the molds!
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