🥇 BANNER French Colonial-1752 silver, cut silver, knee&shoe buckles & silver Auspice Maria

Scrappy

Gold Member
Mar 6, 2014
9,204
14,019
17th century
🥇 Banner finds
7
Detector(s) used
Minelab CTX 3030 & XP Deus
Primary Interest:
Other
French Colonial-1752 silver, cut silver, knee&shoe buckles & silver Auspice Maria

It’s been a while. Winter had me busy doing other activities but I finally got out and went on a road trip. I happened to have some great research and dropped in on a site that I don’t believe was ever touched before. There was nothing. No cleared ground, foundation, or anything...just woods. With no stone nor brick, I believe the house was of Earthfast construction, common to that area back in the 1600’s and 1700’s. I gridded and found the site iron within a 1/2 hr. I started with a few flat buttons...all nice and old. Then a solid silver cufflink half.
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360284.078671.jpg
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360304.061523.jpg

Then I got a great signal and spoiler alert, thought it was a copper. Here the video...

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360322.212872.jpg


And the rest...
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360341.332996.jpg

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360505.504400.jpg

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360521.572167.jpg

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360540.124188.jpg

Also found a pit filled with clam shells.
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360566.312609.jpg

And the smallest Georgian buckle I’ve ever dug.

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360701.260951.jpgImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360710.030859.jpgImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360723.382442.jpg

Turns out the coin was a 1752 French 1/2 ecu. A welcome change to the usual Spanish variety commonly found. Unfortunately this home burned sometime in the early 1800’s so the link and Ecu were are fire damaged. Here are the cleaned up pics...

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360826.193857.jpg
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360837.943135.jpg

Auspice Maria cufflink, essentially a monagram of the Virgin Mary. It’s considered catholic religious art and often found on many colonial French artifacts. (Thanks for the insight and info A!)
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360866.931609.jpg

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360903.471980.jpg
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360916.556158.jpg

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360930.590378.jpg

And a knee buckle with iron chape attached.ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360941.858588.jpg
ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553360981.548181.jpg

And some great dandies, cone, and a nipple button...ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553361074.458611.jpg

Also found a draped large cent (not pictured). What a great time. I’ll get back there one day but this was a very productive 3.5 hour hunt. Enjoy!

Steve
 

Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote 93
Two works. JUST FANTASTIC!!!
 

Nice research and finds. Early French silver in the US is banner worthy imo and colonial silver cufflinks not too shabby either

I agree! Colonial French is very difficult to find and this is my first 18th century French silver. I’d found a copper sol up in Maine with Ahab but you could probably search Tnet and not find too many Ecus. Thanks for looking
 

Well well well....welcome back old friend. Pretty crappy hunt to get back on the board with don’t ya think lol? Great job buddy. Warms my heart to see my bud back on the old dirt. I just plugged in the Deus to make sure she’s ready to go. You inspire me bud....like the wind beneath my wings

Hello old friend, so glad to hear from you again....
What can I say? I got a bit lucky but I think that the detecting gods just felt bad for me. So I hope they feel really bad for your overworked arse today, and you kill it on your hunt.
 

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1553452196.722724.jpga pic of the Draped bust large cent all cleaned up.
 

Some nice finds Scrappy. You always post some very cool finds. Liked the vid too. Congrats!!

Haha, Happy you enjoyed the video. I was completely convinced it was a copper.
 

That's a awesome site you found, beautiful silver and buckles, congratulations on all the historical saves

Thank you. With the thickness of the woods I didn’t think I had a very good chance of finding the site, especially with no tell tails. I lucked out.
 

Congrats on a stellar hunt Steve. Good to see yo back to digging and posting. Love the cufflink, the French silver and the buckles. i have found a few of those little breeches buckles.
 

Love that cufflink, the coins are awesome too. I've got to get out soon, been too busy catching fish.
 

Steve were there snakes in the plane ?
Who puts snakes on a plane ?

If Samuel Jackson heard you butcher his quote like that to avoid getting censored, he’d slap you with a black mamba
 

Your research paid off big time. I would be happy with anyone of those saves. Congrats.
 

Congrats on a stellar hunt Steve. Good to see yo back to digging and posting. Love the cufflink, the French silver and the buckles. i have found a few of those little breeches buckles.
Good to hear from you Steve. It’s good to be back. That buckle was certainly small. Often I’ve heard they’re for breeches or boot cuffs when they’re that small. But this one is the smallest I’ve ever seen. Do you have any the size of a dime??
 

Good to hear from you Steve. It’s good to be back. That buckle was certainly small. Often I’ve heard they’re for breeches or boot cuffs when they’re that small. But this one is the smallest I’ve ever seen. Do you have any the size of a dime??
Steve, I have three that are about the size of a dime. I only had one handy that I could photograph with a dime, but I had a picture of another with a small oval cuff link beside it and the other fancy one is about the same size. They all have the curvature of a shoe or knee buckle.
_20190326_074846.JPG 11-9-13 002.jpg LittleBuckle1.jpg.jpg
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top