Yesterdays pile of colonial goodies including 2 KG coppers

Bill D. (VA)

Silver Member
Oct 7, 2008
4,711
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SE Virginia
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Detector(s) used
F75 SE (land); CZ-21 (saltwater)
Primary Interest:
Other
Yesterday's pile of colonial goodies including 2 KG coppers

My partner Dan already provided the background regarding our hunt yesterday in his recent post, so I won't provide a repeat. But I do have to reiterate that we experienced the full gamut of hunting conditions going from a snow-covered arctic tundra to a mudfest within the course of about 5 hours. Chomping away at the frozen turf with a pick-axe is no fun as many of you know, but trying to retrieve your unearthed artifact from a handful of mud soup is no picnic either. In spite of all the difficulties it turned out to be a productive day for both of us. After our initial disappointment with gridding the area of most promise with very little to show, things changed quickly when we started wandering and both of us settled into our own artifact-rich hotspots within 5 min. Buttons started coming out at a rapid pace and we ended up with about 50 between the 2 of us. I finally got the colonial coin train going with the recovery of a KG copper. At first I though it was a large flat button as it was reading rather low (55 on my F75), but the left facing bust confirmed the ID. After Dan dug his early LC and cut silver I was fortunate to get a nice high tone just before we were preparing to leave, and another KG popped out with a 1745 date. I have to say its extremely unusual for us to be digging so many coppers and so few silvers at the last couple of sites. My long term ratio is about 4:1 in favor of silver. But I'm not complaining as I have embarrassingly few KGs in my collection. My only button that was out of the ordinary was this very tiny one with a cool looking lion design. I also dug what appeared to be a couple of thimbles, but it seems as though they were purposely made without tops. Not sure how they could function properly with that kind of design. But maybe that's not what they are?? The last 2 pics show a very interesting brass item I dug in a very small trash pit that contained only a little bit of charcoal and bones. A number of other chewed up pieces of brass were also in the pit that were probably part of this item. Don't have a clue what it might be. Hopefully things will dry up soon so we can get back in there for a little more enjoyable hunting and pit digging, but the next week looks to continue to be wet. But guess that's better than the 6-8" of snow and -4F temp we had last week.
 

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Upvote 16
Last item is a pot handle (two of them helped hang it over a fire), I think 17th-18th C.

the Lion button is cool!

Yes, they made lots of topless thimbles.
 

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Fantastic hunt, Bill. Glad you could add a couple to your copper collection. Interesting thimbles. Who knows what people did back then when they got bored.
 

Thanks Cru. But the pics shown in the link appear to be from a standard thimble although its labeled as topless.

OK, I picked the wrong one, do a search for 'open topped thimble' & your get loads.

Known as tailor’s thimbles.
 

Great collection on colonial finds. Well deserved in light of the conditions you had to endure to get them. Can't wait to see what turns up when things dry out and thaw out.
 

Had a blast as always Bill - just wait until we get a full day in there with normal conditions. You know I was thinking of it being part of a copper pot - I believe cru is correct.
 

Wow Bill, great finds! Coppers are always great to dig and I'm glad you're padding your totals. I would love to see a photo of a whole pot that those handles belonged to. They look very interesting.
 

Bill that is amazing! Really happy for you fellas to have such an amazing site. That has got to be a lot of fun . Always fun to see coins in the hole
 

very nice finds!I really like them coins
 

As always, superb saves.
 

Had a blast as always Bill - just wait until we get a full day in there with normal conditions. You know I was thinking of it being part of a copper pot - I believe cru is correct.

A full day without frozen ground or mud would be awesome. But we might have to wait a while for that, unfortunately.
 

I'm curious. What are the white chalk stick looking items?
 

Nice finds! Did you leave any relics for when the ground is cooperating? That was a lot of work!
 

I'm curious. What are the white chalk stick looking items?

Those are broken stems from colonial clay pipes. They are very common finds and you'll usually see a few scattered on top of the ground in the field where an early site was located. Many more including the accompanying pipe bowls can sometimes be found in nearby trash pits. They can be dated based on the bore diameter - the larger the older. Based on the ones I found during our first visit to this site the average mean date of occupancy was calculated to be about 1720. I recently wrote an article on colonial clay pipes that you might want to check out if you're interested in learning more on this subject. If so, send me your email address in a PM and I'll forward a pdf copy to you.
 

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