Stef45
Hero Member
I am posting this before I have cleaned my finds fully because I have grad school tonight. Went back to ol faithful this morning with VMI. We first tasted my 1795 Half Dime and it is looking like it is a contemporary counterfeit! Which looks like it might be more rare than the actual real coin. More to follow when i have more info. My first target this morning came in at 38-39 but really faint and only on one axis. But the way this site has been going i knew to dig it. To my utter disbelief out pops my first Spanish Reale! 1774 2Reale mint Mexico City! Could not believe it! VMI was dumbfounded since we have swung this 10 x 10yd area 3948393 times now. Looks to be in pretty good shape but again I have yet to clean it properly. So its officially official...Im in the 1700's club!
Next good signal came in like a button and sure enough it was a button! It is a two piece Navy button. The back is missing unfortunately but to me it looks Confederate. It doesn't say CS at the button like some of the Rebel Navy buttons I've seen however. If y'all know for sure let me know. Since we have dug quite a bit of CW relics and buttons it is very possible that it is Confed. Measuring around 22.5 mm.
With these two finds in a case in my pocket I was flying pretty high! VMI already was ready to hit me with this shovel most likely. So I started to head for my car swinging as I went...popped out a tiny flat button in a trashy area so i slowed down. Very next signal came in like a can. But since this site is what it is i dug it and literally 2-3 inches down pops out a piece of copper. I could barely see what look liked an 8! I started to brush it and saw 1829 and I knew...SLAVE TAG! I yelled over to VMI and said "Hey don't hate me" and he replied "DID YOU DIG ANOTHER REALE (insert expletive)!!!!" and I just kinda grinned. Ive found the top part of a later slave tag where you could read "charleston" but this one has the year and you can see faintly the dots surrounding the "Servant", "Mechanic" or whatever the job title was for the slave. Cant see yet what the job was but these dots were only used by a particular blacksmith who made the tags for the city and it is the same blacksmith that made VMI's slave tag. It is partial but its a almost all there. Pretty over the moon! Again I will try to post more pictures when i have everything cleaned up better. Thanks for reading, sorry for the long story but this was just a banner day for me. Good luck out there!
Next good signal came in like a button and sure enough it was a button! It is a two piece Navy button. The back is missing unfortunately but to me it looks Confederate. It doesn't say CS at the button like some of the Rebel Navy buttons I've seen however. If y'all know for sure let me know. Since we have dug quite a bit of CW relics and buttons it is very possible that it is Confed. Measuring around 22.5 mm.
With these two finds in a case in my pocket I was flying pretty high! VMI already was ready to hit me with this shovel most likely. So I started to head for my car swinging as I went...popped out a tiny flat button in a trashy area so i slowed down. Very next signal came in like a can. But since this site is what it is i dug it and literally 2-3 inches down pops out a piece of copper. I could barely see what look liked an 8! I started to brush it and saw 1829 and I knew...SLAVE TAG! I yelled over to VMI and said "Hey don't hate me" and he replied "DID YOU DIG ANOTHER REALE (insert expletive)!!!!" and I just kinda grinned. Ive found the top part of a later slave tag where you could read "charleston" but this one has the year and you can see faintly the dots surrounding the "Servant", "Mechanic" or whatever the job title was for the slave. Cant see yet what the job was but these dots were only used by a particular blacksmith who made the tags for the city and it is the same blacksmith that made VMI's slave tag. It is partial but its a almost all there. Pretty over the moon! Again I will try to post more pictures when i have everything cleaned up better. Thanks for reading, sorry for the long story but this was just a banner day for me. Good luck out there!
Amazon Forum Fav 👍
Last edited:
Upvote
54
