Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
My good hunting buddy Dan and I got back out yesterday and hit our new site for the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] time, and the first time since before Christmas. This place is very early and holds a high probability of containing colonial silver, although we had yet to swing our coils over a nice coin before today. Dan had been under the weather for a few days and wasn’t sure he could even make it out, but the lure of those early colonial relics was too great and he was determined to get out and hunt the entire day. We started out gridding where we left off in the field last time. It’s a large area with loads of iron, brick and black glass and it’s produced a decent amount of relics during the first 2 trips, but not that killer find we’ve both been looking for. About halfway through the hunt just as we were starting a new area Dan hollers over to me to come check out what we both thought might be a hammered silver coin lying in the dirt pile. Sure enough, it turned out to be an Elizabeth I sixpence and it was Dan’s first hammered coin, and likely from the 1500s at that. It was very exciting to be able to witness Dan making that find. Not to be outdone I soon dug a nice 1768 half reale only about 50 ft from where Dan’s coin had come from. And not long after that Dan pulled out another first – a rarely seen very tiny ¼ reale. I dug one of those about 10 years ago, but don’t recall ever seeing another one on the forums. The back-and-forth continued and not far from where I dug the ½ reale I got a promising signal and unexpectedly found myself holding a 1698 cob. And only a few feet from that I unearthed an early coin and an apothecary weight. So this was turning out to be quite a day for both of us. I also dug this small and very thin silver item that at first I thought was a coin, but after further examination I was pretty sure it wasn't. But Crusader recognized it from the pic as a rare British Commonwealth silver penny from the reign of Cromwell during the mid-1600s which was a shock as I had no idea (see link in his reply below). We soon finished up gridding that section, but since the sun getting low and we had to start making the long trek back to the trucks. Other than the coins we both dug a nice variety of other interesting colonial relics including lots of buttons, buckle pieces, and other early do-dads. My take for the day is shown in the pics below along with a couple shots of Dan’s coins. It was a super fun day and I can’t wait to return to what’s becoming a very productive site.
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Bill this is the one my friend found
