Scabby Jack
Jr. Member
One boy's passion for history has the whole family involved
Brice Stump, DelmarvaNow 6:38 p.m. EST January 10, 2015
"It takes a lot of patience to do this, because for every good find you have, there might be 50 holes dug only to find trash pieces, like can tabs, shotgun shell casings or rusted pieces of farm equipment."
When Bobby Grangier's metal detector went crazy with whines and whistles, the 10-year-old boy knew he had found something special in the mud near his feet.
Was it trash iron or treasure?
It would be a good day indeed, because the junior detector had hit the jackpot on Virginia's Eastern Shore. On the beach of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline, Bobby found a treasure hoard.
Within minutes he found a coin, smaller than a thumbnail. Yet the detector said there were other targets to be dug. His fingers squished the mud from one coin after another found in a 3-square-yard area. The boy was in detector heaven as the whining machine exploded with activity, hit after hit after hit.
Almost dizzy with exhilaration, Bobby found coin after coin, until the detector went silent after revealing the location of 48 coins.
When he washed off the dark copper discs, Bobby knew they were unusual. He had made one of the most unusual discoveries on the Shore in finding a cache of Roman and Greek coins dating to about 500 AD.
Dale Clifton Jr., known as "Delaware's Treasure Man," is owner of DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum in Fenwick Island. He has been working with Bobby on identifying the artifacts he finds. Clifton said the discovery of so many ancient coins in one location is unprecedented on the Shore, though he has found a number in the Lewes area.'
"I think they were probably a curiosity collected by ship captains who shared them with their children and grandchildren, who may have played with them and lost them or buried them as their 'treasure.' Over the years they are discovered," Clifton said. "In the 18th century their value was really in the copper content, not the age of the coin or country of origin."
"Apparently they were once buried on land near shore and were washed out on the beach. Dale said it was uncommon to find so many because they would usually be melted and turn into Colonial coinage," said Bobby's grandfather, Ronnie Grangier.
"Dale also said they may have been children's 'pirate loot,' buried for safe keeping," added his mother, Sarah.
"You never know what you will find"
That discovery was made this past summer. Now Bobby is exploring the field next to his home in Perryhawkin.
His grandfather and grandmother, Bonnie Grangier, and his mother hovered around the metal detector as Bobby swept the circular wand over a potential hot spot. A sudden burst of tone indicated a "hit," a site worth excavating where gold, silver or copper might be found several inches below the surface.
What can rapidly become an obnoxious, piercing, annoying, grating sound, much like that of a theramin, or a police car siren, is sweet music to the treasure hunter's ears.
Under the moist, rotting roots of corn stalks, Bobby slipped the sharp edge of his shovel deep into the black earth. Somewhere, in an area about the size of a slice of bread, there was hidden treasure.
He scanned the first clump of dirt removed from the shallow hole with back and forth swipes with his metal detector. The hoped-for whine of the electronic wonder, indicating that a metal object was in the clump, failed to sound. When he dipped the circular wand back onto the hole, the detector's tone indicated something was still hidden just inches deeper.
It was a tense moment for the explorer. He scanned the second clump of dirt knocked free from the shovel. Sure enough, the metal detector whistled with excitement. Something of value was hidden in the baseball-size piece of earth.
With bare fingers, Bobby crumbled away the coating of dirt when suddenly a thin disc was revealed. In the palm of his hand he cradled a worn, smooth, copper English coin with a date of 1772. He may have been the first person to touch the coin since the owner lost it more than 200 years years ago.
The soft-spoken youngster, with the thrill of discovery brightening his dark eyes, yelled, "Mom, it's like a coin off the Faithful Steward."
The Faithful Steward was an English ship that went down in the Atlantic in 1785 and was said to have been carrying 400 barrels of half pennies and gold guineas. For decades, coins have washed up on the shoreline just north of the Indian River Inlet, south of Rehoboth Beach, now famous as "Coin Beach."
Who would have thought treasure was hidden in a cornfield in the heart of Perryhawkin in Somerset County?
"I'm like his assistant," his mother said with a proud smile. "I do a lot of the research with him learning about the things he finds. Really, it has been incredible. I also try to find him places where he can search.
"It takes a lot of patience to do this, because for every good find you have, there might be 50 holes dug only to find trash pieces, like can tabs, shotgun shell casings or rusted pieces of farm equipment," Sarah said. "You keep goin' because, on that 51st hole, you might find something really cool. You never know what you will find."
"We found a button off a uniform worn by someone who worked for the Baltimore Rail Road out here," Bonnie said, "and a big Colonial button. We've also found tractor parts and lots and lots of iron junk, beer cans, all kinds of stuff."
One boy's passion for history has the whole family involved
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