West Jersey Detecting
Gold Member
I'm winding down both the detecting season and the site, as the finds become scarcer and scarcer but social distancing may keep me going as long as I can just to get outdoors a bit in these crazy times we're living in.
This particular site has a home that still stands from the family of early settlers to my area, built around 1800, but the family was there for more than 100 years prior. Last spring I stumbled across what may have been the previous home, or a barn or another structure, as I have found broken bricks, hardware, and over 20 coppers and some Spanish silver, all ranging from at least back to 1680's (probably earlier), with the most modern dated 1806. Most of the finds were in an area of roughly one acre. As the signals get scarcer, I tend to dig more of the deep "iffy" signals, and glad I did this time, digging a jumpy "hot rock" type of signal reading 11 inches deep on the T2. After digging a plug, the signal cleared up a bit into the button range. It was every bit of the 11 inches deep, which is pretty amazing for a 2 gram, penny sized coin! It's a Louis XIV, 2 Deniers coin from France.
Unlike farm fields, where the finds are scattered over large areas, these types of homestead sites have concentrations of coins & artifacts. They must be worked in small areas, over and over again, gridding as much as possible. The vegetation grows back differently every season, opening up sections that were too overgrown before, so next winter I may be able to get into some other sections that I couldn't reach. I also moved a large number of branches and limbs, which led to a few more tombac buttons.
This particular site has a home that still stands from the family of early settlers to my area, built around 1800, but the family was there for more than 100 years prior. Last spring I stumbled across what may have been the previous home, or a barn or another structure, as I have found broken bricks, hardware, and over 20 coppers and some Spanish silver, all ranging from at least back to 1680's (probably earlier), with the most modern dated 1806. Most of the finds were in an area of roughly one acre. As the signals get scarcer, I tend to dig more of the deep "iffy" signals, and glad I did this time, digging a jumpy "hot rock" type of signal reading 11 inches deep on the T2. After digging a plug, the signal cleared up a bit into the button range. It was every bit of the 11 inches deep, which is pretty amazing for a 2 gram, penny sized coin! It's a Louis XIV, 2 Deniers coin from France.
Unlike farm fields, where the finds are scattered over large areas, these types of homestead sites have concentrations of coins & artifacts. They must be worked in small areas, over and over again, gridding as much as possible. The vegetation grows back differently every season, opening up sections that were too overgrown before, so next winter I may be able to get into some other sections that I couldn't reach. I also moved a large number of branches and limbs, which led to a few more tombac buttons.
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