1722 King George, and possible rare tin William III Halfpenny...from Grannys yard!

West Jersey Detecting

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Oct 23, 2006
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1722 King George, and possible rare tin William III Halfpenny...from Granny's yard!

I got out with Ben this morning. The plan was to hit The Shore, so I packed my Excalibur along with my V3i, and Ben brought along his e-trac. After an hour of trying to pull anything of value out of the sanded in Jersey beaches, he suggested swinging by his grandparent's house which was nearby. He told me the house was built in the 1930's and he had pulled some Wheaties from the soil there. The thought of a silver Rosie or Merc was better than the pouch full of air that was attached to my belt so over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we went!

I immediately dug a few Wheaties, as well as severing a buried underground copper wire with my Relic Pro! One thing I don't miss about living near The Shore is the no-see-ums. It has been a lot of years since I had to deal with these painful pests!

After about 30 minutes I got a broken dime reading at around 7 inches, but it was considerably deeper and I had to dig a plug within a plug to get the target. Once on the surface I got a solid 81 on my V3i. I said "I bet this is a silver dime" to Ben, but we both nearly fell over when I saw the copper King George in the dirt!

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Ben walked back to his spot, and I got a deep lower tone signal in the 50's about three feet away from the KG. Another copper!! I called over to him "guess what, I got another one!" and he said "yeah right!".

I worked the area slowly and right in between the first two I got a deep but strong nickel signal. It was a solid 19 on the display. Out popped copper (?) number 3!! I yelled over to Ben again "you won't believe this".

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A little while later Ben came over and showed me a tiny coin, saying "can you believe this? Play money!" I looked down and told him it wasn't play money, it was a silver half dime! His first seated coin. I will let him tell more about it in his own post.

The furthest thing from my mind were coppers today. It is strange that last year I could not buy myself coppers, and this year they seem to be popping out of the ground and into my pouch! What I can't figure out is why copper number 3 sounded like a nickel. All I can come up with is that it may be something other than copper brass or even lead?????? [Correction: The coin on the left in the bottom photo appears to be a Wm III Halfpenny, the right coin appears to be a Wm & Mary Halfpenny. I don't see a plug, so I am not sure it can be a rare tin coin, but VDI is way too low for copper or even lead!] I noticed the coin is beginning to crack so someone HELP tell me how to keep it from crumbling!!!

My last target of the day was the tiny rose button. No outing is complete unless I dig a button or two.


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Good job!! no-see-ems-ended my hunting today....they where friggin vicious
 

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The 1722 is not too bad a shape:occasion14:

Without checking the book, I'm pretty sure they all had copper plugs so it can't be a Tin issue.
 

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Congrats on the three copper day!!!
 

Well done.
 

Nice day at Granny's .. a small rub of Elmer's or Krazy glue may help on the crumbler :skullflag: Dawg
 

Ok I gotta ask. What is a no-see-um. Any way nice digs. Beats hunting down at the shore any day. I never much cared for shore hunting. It reminds me of tot lot hunting.
 

The 1722 is not too bad a shape:occasion14:

Without checking the book, I'm pretty sure they all had copper plugs so it can't be a Tin issue.


And besides that, they do not look like that when dug, more resemble pewter and are not green.
 

i've dug a couple of william III halfpennies that came up green rang up with low vdi- shotgun shell territory.
i've also dug a few that were in the indian head/wheat penny range, probably because they
were so worn out. i think the super low vdi is due to the alloy, but i couldn't tell you what the alloy would be.
nice three copper day!
 

Neil, if I had not seen this with my own eyes I would not have believed it! I didn't even believe my own half dime when I dug it with my own 2 hands!

A very lucky day. I had a great time and these kinds of hunts are what make this hobby worth coming back to.
 

That is awesome Neil! There has to be more stuff there. Do you have a weight on the Wm III?[email protected] has a tin example.
 

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That is awesome Neil! There has to be more stuff there. Do you have a weight on the Wm III?[email protected] has a tin example.

The one with the low nickel-like VDI (I am fairly sure it is a Wm & Mary Halfpenny) weighs 113 grains, while the other weighs 117 grains. I told Ben that I did not want to go with him next time. It is his family property and he deserves the finds for himself.
 

Awesome!!!!
 

Neil, very nice hunt for both of you and I agree on letting Ben the next hunt or two on his family's property to himself, he needs to find that 3rd early colonial coin! I am not surprised by the low reading at all, if you are making it to the next club meeting, I hope to make this one and if I do I would like to see all three of your coppers and do some readouts on my Explorer SE Pro for a comparison with my William III and KGI coppers I am doing a study on.

Don
 

Neil, very nice hunt for both of you and I agree on letting Ben the next hunt or two on his family's property to himself, he needs to find that 3rd early colonial coin! I am not surprised by the low reading at all, if you are making it to the next club meeting, I hope to make this one and if I do I would like to see all three of your coppers and do some readouts on my Explorer SE Pro for a comparison with my William III and KGI coppers I am doing a study on.

Don

I will try to make it, but it always falls on the night after my local historical commission meeting which I need to attend this month.
 

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