xcopperstax
Silver Member
- Sep 3, 2018
- 2,508
- 4,872
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Max
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
On Friday I went to my woods spot with the infamous Silver Bandit. If the bandit can't find it, it isn't there. There was a decent amount of fresh snow on the ground so I was unsure we'd be able to detect. There were deer tracks and rabbit tracks all over the place. Besides a couple ox shoes that's all we found. Day over... and the owl that lives in the forest hooted a goodbye to us as we gave up the hunt so darkness could begin. We tried.
Sunday a future detectorist and I hiked into the Hockomock swamp in search of bigfoot. We saw no signs but we tried.
After the hike I drove to meet up with "darkman" Darkman had a spot that was woods now and was most likely farm fields going back potentially all the way to 1600's. There was way more snow out there than my spot on Friday. It looked like it would be useless to try but there we were. I was barely getting any signals as there was so much snow between the coil and the ground. First target I jammed my shovel into the ground. My heart sank as it was frozen completely solid. Eventually I hacked out an ox shoe. The unsung ox: Basically the bulldozer, tractor, pick up truck, house mover… etc. of yesteryear. A good sign that it was farmed. We wandered aimlessly occasionally finding a piece of garbage or a shotgun shell. The snow was a major hinderance. The only sign of life were some deer tracks and maybe coyote tracks. A large canine by itself out there? Probably a coyote. The light was fading fast so we made a loop to get out of the woods. Back on the trail I got an 81 signal. Most likely a penny or a clad dime... but maybe it was a silver dime! I started hacking at the ground. I went to the side of where the signal was so I wouldn't destroy whatever it was. It was like cement. I had to hack and punch through a good 5-6 inches of solid frozen ground. I was close to throwing in the towel yet Darkman spurred me on telling me it could be something good. I got the hole big enough to work with and then dug from the side and out popped a coin that looked like a copper! I was in disbelief. I cleaned it off and was delighted to see a left facing bust. It had to be a KGII... Nope it was a really nice CT copper! I scrubbed it a bit with my brush but wasn't making much headway. So I decided to pack some wet dirt around it to keep it from flaking. A piece of the dirt pack fell into the hole and I looked down to see a copper in the hole. Wait how was there a copper if I was holding one in my hand!
? It turned out to be a second copper! I was super stoked on these finds as Colonial coppers don't happen to me too often! I was on cloud 9! Darkness fell and we got out of there! ...What happened to Darkman you ask? He didn't find much so hopefully the next hunt brings him some finds!
After getting home it was time to clean up the finds. Copper #1 turned out to be a beautiful CT copper from 1787. It's the left facing mailed bust version. I think there are few hundred varieties of this coin. As they mixed and matched many different dies. It's hard to say exactly what it is when the reverse has so little detail. It had the nicest patina I'd seen on one of my finds. There was a small spot of crud on the obverse and I went to scrape if off with my fingernail. It was as if I'd punched a tiny hole in the surface of that perfect obverse. I quickly ran to get my renaissance wax and in the 30 seconds that I was gone the whole surface started to flake. Ahhh I was dying. I ended up putting the wax on and it looked like crap so then I tooth picked it with wax on it. Probably not the best conservation method. It still ended up looking ok but that was tough for me to watch it instantly go bad. It was like the characters in Beetlejuice when they aged rapidly.... The obverse of it was wasted but a date is still visible. The other coin was totally toasted. Gone. Who knows. I believe that it was sandwiched with the CT protecting the obverse. Almost as if one coin took the hit for the other. As I sit here at work I still think about these coins. In that haystack of needles covered in snow... what led me to that coin!? We may never know. Thanks for the hunt Darkman!
Shout out to all the New England TH'rs -Where there's a will there's a way.
Sunday a future detectorist and I hiked into the Hockomock swamp in search of bigfoot. We saw no signs but we tried.
After the hike I drove to meet up with "darkman" Darkman had a spot that was woods now and was most likely farm fields going back potentially all the way to 1600's. There was way more snow out there than my spot on Friday. It looked like it would be useless to try but there we were. I was barely getting any signals as there was so much snow between the coil and the ground. First target I jammed my shovel into the ground. My heart sank as it was frozen completely solid. Eventually I hacked out an ox shoe. The unsung ox: Basically the bulldozer, tractor, pick up truck, house mover… etc. of yesteryear. A good sign that it was farmed. We wandered aimlessly occasionally finding a piece of garbage or a shotgun shell. The snow was a major hinderance. The only sign of life were some deer tracks and maybe coyote tracks. A large canine by itself out there? Probably a coyote. The light was fading fast so we made a loop to get out of the woods. Back on the trail I got an 81 signal. Most likely a penny or a clad dime... but maybe it was a silver dime! I started hacking at the ground. I went to the side of where the signal was so I wouldn't destroy whatever it was. It was like cement. I had to hack and punch through a good 5-6 inches of solid frozen ground. I was close to throwing in the towel yet Darkman spurred me on telling me it could be something good. I got the hole big enough to work with and then dug from the side and out popped a coin that looked like a copper! I was in disbelief. I cleaned it off and was delighted to see a left facing bust. It had to be a KGII... Nope it was a really nice CT copper! I scrubbed it a bit with my brush but wasn't making much headway. So I decided to pack some wet dirt around it to keep it from flaking. A piece of the dirt pack fell into the hole and I looked down to see a copper in the hole. Wait how was there a copper if I was holding one in my hand!
? It turned out to be a second copper! I was super stoked on these finds as Colonial coppers don't happen to me too often! I was on cloud 9! Darkness fell and we got out of there! ...What happened to Darkman you ask? He didn't find much so hopefully the next hunt brings him some finds! After getting home it was time to clean up the finds. Copper #1 turned out to be a beautiful CT copper from 1787. It's the left facing mailed bust version. I think there are few hundred varieties of this coin. As they mixed and matched many different dies. It's hard to say exactly what it is when the reverse has so little detail. It had the nicest patina I'd seen on one of my finds. There was a small spot of crud on the obverse and I went to scrape if off with my fingernail. It was as if I'd punched a tiny hole in the surface of that perfect obverse. I quickly ran to get my renaissance wax and in the 30 seconds that I was gone the whole surface started to flake. Ahhh I was dying. I ended up putting the wax on and it looked like crap so then I tooth picked it with wax on it. Probably not the best conservation method. It still ended up looking ok but that was tough for me to watch it instantly go bad. It was like the characters in Beetlejuice when they aged rapidly.... The obverse of it was wasted but a date is still visible. The other coin was totally toasted. Gone. Who knows. I believe that it was sandwiched with the CT protecting the obverse. Almost as if one coin took the hit for the other. As I sit here at work I still think about these coins. In that haystack of needles covered in snow... what led me to that coin!? We may never know. Thanks for the hunt Darkman!
Shout out to all the New England TH'rs -Where there's a will there's a way.
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