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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[Stef45]

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!

Scrappy not gonna lie when he told me what time in the morning he wanted to go i was a little hesitant but had my work done and figured..might as well. Glad Jon got me up early to dig. Thanks though, good luck to you. I'm sure you'll be finding something great again soon.

 

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[Bass]

Fantastic finds! You are on a roll! Congratulations

 

[Wildcat1750]

Congratulations on a great hunt and a couple of HUGE finds!

 

[gheenoe78]

Dang, you guys are on a tear. Great finds Stef. That reale is in amazing shape. Awesome to find a tag as well. Congrats!

 

[TRanegar36]

Your persistence is paying off. Keep grinding!!!

Congrats and look forward to more cool stuff from that site-

 

[Aureus]

Awesome finds, congrats!

 

[montcalm]

You did a really nice job the real look already nice ,unclean,probably turn awesome.the button and the tag are cherry on the cake.

 

[Ahab8]

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!

Stef I had to screenshot these from my old post but this is a decent example. I try to just enhance the detail while keeping the dark toning. I e prob got better pics at home on my iPad but these aren't bad

 

[DFW_THer]

OMG What a hunt!!

 

[DownNDirty]

Wow, wow-did I say WOW? You are on quite a roll, Stef-glad to see Jon isn't finding all the good stuff as usual. Huge congratulations!

 

[Stef45]

Dang, you guys are on a tear. Great finds Stef. That reale is in amazing shape. Awesome to find a tag as well. Congrats!

Thank you! Yeah I'm not even going to try cleaning it as of now because it is in pretty good shape.

 

[Stef45]

Wow, wow-did I say WOW? You are on quite a roll, Stef-glad to see Jon isn't finding all the good stuff as usual. Huge congratulations!

Thank you Thank you Thank you! Yeah he's in a mini slump aka he hasn't found something awesome in a few hours! The quality and quantity of the finds right now is amazing. Hope to find more next time I'm able to get out there.

 

[Stef45]

Stef I had to screenshot these from my old post but this is a decent example. I try to just enhance the detail while keeping the dark toning. I e prob got better pics at home on my iPad but these aren't bad
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Wow you can really tell a difference there! Definitely something to think about whenever I decide to try cleaning it further.

 

[K1DDO1979]

Awsome finds! [emoji2]

 

[Stef45]

Thanks everyone for the comments! Slowly cleaning the tag, its pretty fragile. Still considering cleaning the coin but not a lot. Still no word on the button...might post it on What is it.

 

[Scrappy]

Scrappy not gonna lie when he told me what time in the morning he wanted to go i was a little hesitant but had my work done and figured..might as well. Glad Jon got me up early to dig. Thanks though, good luck to you. I'm sure you'll be finding something great again soon.

Coins are most active just after dawn, which is the best time to catch them. Lol.

That's my favourite time to go as well. Drive in the dark, begin at first light.

 

[Stef45]

Just a little update (if anyone cares lol) I was able to remove some more dirt from the slave tag and i can read 1835 in the middle portion of the tag right where it had been broken in half. This places it the same age as VMI's tag made by the same guy William Rouse who was contracted to make the tags from 1834-1840. Now if i can just figure a way to be able to read the occupation.

 

[Stef45]

Was able to remove more dirt very delicately. I think the combo of the dirt being very dry and using the side of the toothbrush brissles helped. Not sure how well it will show up but I can see "vant" which means it says servant on it. The more I look at the tag and how it's bent the more I think it's the other half of the partial tag I dug months ago about 20-25 yards away. We know he area was plowed so maybe over time it was moved further and further apart. I'm not 100% sure and may never know 100% that they are one in the same but it looks to be so. The font of "Charleston" and the font of "servant" appear to be the same size and in other tags from the same maker this seems to be the case as well. Pretty cool if they are the same tag! Either way I'll have to display them together. Thanks for looking again and good luck.

 

[Relicific]

Awesome hunt
Love the reale
Congrats

 

[Stef45]

Awesome hunt
Love the reale
Congrats

Thank you sir. It was a good one might never have another one like it