Unbelievable 3 Hours of digging today! My first Spanish Silver! Another Slave Tag! +

[Stef45]

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!

 

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[Professor of Engineering]

Absolute killer relic and coin hunt!

 

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[Stef45]

WOW! Huge congratulations man. That's one killer hunt. That 2 reales looks like its in great shape. If you decide to try and remove the black scale and have trouble, shoot me a message. I've dug some like that where traditional methods did nothing to that scale. I cant wait to see more pictures of your slave tag. When you're back there with VMI, if you see him digging a huge hole, you might want to run

So your half dime tested 50% silver? That makes it even more interesting man. I can't wait to hear more about that one too.

Yeah i'll have to keep an eye out on VMI now when we are sifting..next think you know he's burying me in a privy! lol Yeah I'm not sure how i want to go about cleaning the Reale...im taking any suggestions..especially from you. I'm hoping that i'll be able to get some more detail out of the slave tag but i wanna take my time on it for sure. But yeah half dime was coming in at around 50%. Granted it was just a streak test but still we would have known if it was 89% silver like it should have been. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...most likely is going to take more research into counterfeits then reaching out to some experts. Thanks for the comments tho i really appreciate all the congrats I've been getting from you and everyone.

 

[villagenut]

Huge congrats, you have been hard at it so a well deserved killer hunt.

 

[Tommy G]

A banner day indeed! The real would have been enough to send me home happy, but you went way over the top with those finds! Big congrats!

 

[Stef45]

Huge congrats, you have been hard at it so a well deserved killer hunt.

Thank you! Yeah dug my fair share of iron and trash at this site. It's definitely paying off now!

 

[Stef45]

A banner day indeed! The real would have been enough to send me home happy, but you went way over the top with those finds! Big congrats!

Hey Tommy, thanks man! Yeah it was my first decent signal about 10 minutes in. A Reale was on my bucket list so I guess I better get more specific now.

 

[bill from lachine]

The 2 reale makes for a great hunt but the slave tag puts it over the top....congratulations!

Regards + HH

Bill

 

[treblehunter]

Congrats, beautiful coin and great finds!

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

You're on quite a roll there Stef. It's great to see you break into the 1700s, and that was a awesome way to do it. And I can't imagine what it would feel like to dig a slave tag, or even part of one. Hope your partner can join in on the fun soon (sorry Jon - your time is coming).

 

[Ahab8]

Stef what an incredible hunt! That 2 Reales will clean up beautifully with lemon juice and a soft toothbrush. That's exactly what mine look like out of the ground. If you would like to see a couple of before and afters let me know bud. To dig those other killer finds on such a short hunt is remarkable! A slave tag is one of those holy grails. It's funny my first 2 Spanish silvers were 2 Reales and I have only found 1's and 1/2s since....but never a complaint when I see one in the dirt. Congrats brother

 

[Patriot Relics]

You're on quite a roll there Stef. It's great to see you break into the 1700s, and that was a awesome way to do it. And I can't imagine what it would feel like to dig a slave tag, or even part of one. Hope your partner can join in on the fun soon (sorry Jon - your time is coming).

I'll manage Bill happy to have brought Stef into the hobby, heck even sold him my old trusty Safari. While it's always nice to have the find of the day in your own pouch, I've always enjoyed sharing the hunt. Again big congrats on your first Spanish

 

[JeffInMass]

Holy *$@# what a group of BANNER finds- Big-time Congrats to you!!

-- Jeff --

 

[trapperart]

Wow your on fire congrats on your finds and thanks for the post

 

[Palmetto Pony]

Awesome job Stef! At least Jon didn't accuse you of cherry picking the good targets (I just had to go there Jon..LOL!). He didn't use any expletives with me though. LOL

Well done!!!

 

[Scrappy]

Haha Stef! Jon told me he was going tomorrow and I had a feeling something good was coming out of that ground. Too bad it was to you! Lol.

That's a beauty 2 real. I've yet to find that denomination myself but I bet it feels awesome in the hand. The slave tag is a nice dig as well. You rocked it brother!

 

[Bartek]

Congrats, beautiful coin you got there.

 

[Stef45]

The 2 reale makes for a great hunt but the slave tag puts it over the top....congratulations!

Regards + HH

Bill

You're on quite a roll there Stef. It's great to see you break into the 1700s, and that was a awesome way to do it. And I can't imagine what it would feel like to dig a slave tag, or even part of one. Hope your partner can join in on the fun soon (sorry Jon - your time is coming).

Lol Listen Bill don't feel too bad for Jon he does have a fully intact slave tag! But yeah He's due now. Thanks a lot it was a pretty exciting morning.

 

[Stef45]

The 2 reale makes for a great hunt but the slave tag puts it over the top....congratulations!

Regards + HH

Bill

Stef what an incredible hunt! That 2 Reales will clean up beautifully with lemon juice and a soft toothbrush. That's exactly what mine look like out of the ground. If you would like to see a couple of before and afters let me know bud. To dig those other killer finds on such a short hunt is remarkable! A slave tag is one of those holy grails. It's funny my first 2 Spanish silvers were 2 Reales and I have only found 1's and 1/2s since....but never a complaint when I see one in the dirt. Congrats brother

Thanks a ton Ahab! When I first started just over a year ago Spanish silver was up at the top so i'm glad i can knock one out this early in my detecting career. Id love to see some before and afters of your coins if you got them avail. Give me an idea of what to expect. Thanks again and good luck!

 

[Stef45]

The 2 reale makes for a great hunt but the slave tag puts it over the top....congratulations!

Regards + HH

Bill

Holy *$@# what a group of BANNER finds- Big-time Congrats to you!!

-- Jeff --

Thanks Jeff! Yeah it was a banner morning for sure...I was pretty jacked up still while i was in class tonight just wanted to get back home and stare at the finds a little more haha.

 

[Stef45]

Awesome job Stef! At least Jon didn't accuse you of cherry picking the good targets (I just had to go there Jon..LOL!). He didn't use any expletives with me though. LOL

Well done!!!

HAHA yeah its just crazy how we have been over the same soil so many times now and things as big as a 2 Reale pop out of the hole! And to think when we first started digging here we learned that a guy had detected it before...well he either had terrible equipment or just didn't put in as much time as us. Goes to show that some sites can still produce even if they are "picked over" Thanks! and hope you have some good finds in your near future