paleomaxx
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- Upstate, NY
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I haven't posted much the past few weeks, but I've been trying out a number of new sites. As expected, most have been either hunted out or minimally productive. On Sunday I decided to take a break from that and continue a yard permission I've had for some time. It's a 1790's house with extensive grounds and I've found quite a bit of coins and relics from the second half of the 1800's so it's always been a fun spot to hunt. This time I decided to grid what used to be the orchard and pick up what I thought would be the handful of random drops. Instead I had a hunt that rivals most virgin cellar holes that I've found!
For starters I found three large cents during the course of the the grid, which would be an excellent day by itself. The newest is 1822, followed by 1817, and the draped bust is an 1805.
Not far from where the DBLC was found, I dug a copper with the faint outline of King George III. After some careful cleaning it actually turned out to be in pretty good shape:
I left the patina alone, which turned out to be a good move since the date (1773) was faint, but legible when held at the right angle. I almost never find these with a date! A few passes later I got another deep penny tone and dug up another thin copper. It also appeared to be a KGIII half penny, but it wasn't until I cleaned it up that I realized I had found my second Machin's Mills counterfeit copper!
Unfortunately the patina was flaking the second it came out of the ground. I stored it in a moist bag that I carry with me for just such occasions, but even back at home I still couldn't stabilize the patina and ended up just taking it all off. The reverse is still strong and thankfully has the non-regal 1787 date clear as day. The obverse is pretty much gone, but I'm still fairly sure the variety is Vlack 19-87c.
I also picked up a number of late 1700's relics and a fair share of buttons.
I love the design on the dandy and it's one of the nicer preserved ones I've dug recently too! I also found one complete shoe buckle and one partial:
I had hoped the other half of the broken buckle would show up, but no luck yet. It has a great pattern to it and looks like it was cast as opposed to carved.
I turned up a fair number of 1800's relics as well including the usual tack buckles, suspender buckles, and crotal bell. The doorknob was a surprise, especially considering it looks quite old to me. One relic in particular was a head scratcher:
The landowner and I were looking at it and couldn't make heads or tails of it, and it didn't become clear until I cleaned it up a bit more.
It's a strip of printing type! The font is incredible small and I'm still trying to make out what it says, but two blocks of words are definitely "New-York", the hyphen included. I may need a jewelers loop to make out the rest, but it seems like a section of newspaper column to me. No idea what it's doing here though as this town never had it's own newspaper.
The last relic is by far my favorite though. It was in the very first grid of the day and initially I just put it in the identify later bin thinking it was aluminum or some other scrap of metal. Once it was cleaned up I realized it was definitely silver and strong magnification revealed it had a hallmark:
Am I dreaming, or did I find a colonial silver posey ring? Here's the mark magnified:
It looks like the lion is the middle symbol, but the the two on either side are still filled with dirt. I'm not sure how to clean those out though, since they're absolutely minuscule; head of a pin sized at best. I may try ultrasonic cleaning, but what do you guys think? Is it the real deal?
For starters I found three large cents during the course of the the grid, which would be an excellent day by itself. The newest is 1822, followed by 1817, and the draped bust is an 1805.
Not far from where the DBLC was found, I dug a copper with the faint outline of King George III. After some careful cleaning it actually turned out to be in pretty good shape:
I left the patina alone, which turned out to be a good move since the date (1773) was faint, but legible when held at the right angle. I almost never find these with a date! A few passes later I got another deep penny tone and dug up another thin copper. It also appeared to be a KGIII half penny, but it wasn't until I cleaned it up that I realized I had found my second Machin's Mills counterfeit copper!
Unfortunately the patina was flaking the second it came out of the ground. I stored it in a moist bag that I carry with me for just such occasions, but even back at home I still couldn't stabilize the patina and ended up just taking it all off. The reverse is still strong and thankfully has the non-regal 1787 date clear as day. The obverse is pretty much gone, but I'm still fairly sure the variety is Vlack 19-87c.
I also picked up a number of late 1700's relics and a fair share of buttons.
I love the design on the dandy and it's one of the nicer preserved ones I've dug recently too! I also found one complete shoe buckle and one partial:
I had hoped the other half of the broken buckle would show up, but no luck yet. It has a great pattern to it and looks like it was cast as opposed to carved.
I turned up a fair number of 1800's relics as well including the usual tack buckles, suspender buckles, and crotal bell. The doorknob was a surprise, especially considering it looks quite old to me. One relic in particular was a head scratcher:
The landowner and I were looking at it and couldn't make heads or tails of it, and it didn't become clear until I cleaned it up a bit more.
It's a strip of printing type! The font is incredible small and I'm still trying to make out what it says, but two blocks of words are definitely "New-York", the hyphen included. I may need a jewelers loop to make out the rest, but it seems like a section of newspaper column to me. No idea what it's doing here though as this town never had it's own newspaper.
The last relic is by far my favorite though. It was in the very first grid of the day and initially I just put it in the identify later bin thinking it was aluminum or some other scrap of metal. Once it was cleaned up I realized it was definitely silver and strong magnification revealed it had a hallmark:
Am I dreaming, or did I find a colonial silver posey ring? Here's the mark magnified:
It looks like the lion is the middle symbol, but the the two on either side are still filled with dirt. I'm not sure how to clean those out though, since they're absolutely minuscule; head of a pin sized at best. I may try ultrasonic cleaning, but what do you guys think? Is it the real deal?
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