Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
Just got permission for a new colonial site that I've had my eye on for some time. No, this is not the holy grail site I referred to in my last post, but the way it turned out it might as well have been. As I was driving down the lane approaching the house a beautiful bald eagle flew directly in front of my truck so things were starting out right. Then the first signal I got when I walked out in the field was a NY cuff button that fell apart in my hand, but that was still a good sign. After that I wandered around for a bit without finding much, then ventured to another part of the property where I found a musketball, then a 3-ringer and an eagle button not long after. So I decided to hunker down in that spot for a while. As I usually do at colonial sites I dig all non-ferrous targets as many of the tombacs, other small buttons, buckle pieces, etc, often come in quite low on the conductivity scale. As a result I end up digging loads of lead buck shot which I was certainly doing yesterday. I got another one of those hits, maybe just a tad higher on the scale of my F75, and it was a very consistent 27. I knew it was very shallow so I stuck my shovel in at a low angle, then flipped the 2-inch scraping upside down. Immediately I saw a beautiful gold coin staring back at me. I was lucky I didn't hit it with the shovel. I eventually had the nerve to actually touch it, and it turned out to be a gorgeous 1852 one dollar gold piece. I was stunned to say the least. Took me a while to get my wits about myself, then I started hunting the same area a little more slowly. I think I dug one more bullet, then got another nice deep sounding bullet signal. Dug a fairly deep hole (12") and the target was still in the bottom. Finally I got it out and was looking at the back of what I thought was a large pewter spoon. But it was quite heavy. I flipped it over and started scraping the wet dirt out with my fingers when that magical "US" started to appear and I realized I had just unearthed my first US boxplate complete with lead backing. What a hunt this was turning out to be! Later in the day I found a nice piece of cut silver which completed the trifecta. I also dug a nice assortment of other colonial and CW relics including a colonial hoe I pulled from a trash pit. When I was cleaning the finds this afternoon I noticed that what I thought was another beat up NY button turned out to be a Mass coat, also a first for me. And to top things off I thought I saw some writing around the edge of one of the large flat buttons, and after putting it in a warm hydrogen peroxide bath for a while I could see the word "Carolus" so I knew I had dug a spanish colonial copper. Anyway, it was an incredible day that I won't soon forget. This is probably my best hunt ever aside from the 2 days I found the twin hammered silver caches 4 years ago. HH to all!
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