paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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Finally found a colonial spot that hasn't been hunted out! Based on the local maps this site was abandoned in the 1860's, but the relics were almost entirely 1780-1830 so it may have been a secondary unoccupied house for the later part of it's existence. The only drawback to this spot is that it's surrounded on three sides by swamp so the soil is pretty soft and moist. Almost every target was 6" down or more, but once I figured that out I was on a hot streak!
Not a ton of signals, but the buttons were mostly tombacs which is always a good sign. I did find an intact Georgian shoe buckle, although it's as plain as they can be. The bridle rosette is pewter thickly plated with silver and quite nice even if it is missing some sections. Where this site really shined though was the coins!
The very first coin was a Spanish half real and I rinsed it in a nearby creek to reveal my first (non-counterfeit) pillars and globes type:
Not just that, but a clear date of 1744 so my second oldest silver ever!
It took awhile before the next coin popped up, but it was another colonial:
As you can see the ground wasn't too nice to it, but the 1771 date is legible, and surprisingly it actually is a regal KGIII half penny which I don't often come across. I did also stumble on a more recent copper:
An 1831 large cent! Nice clear signal and the date wasn't obliterated so I was happy. The last coin was the one that shocked me. It was a button signal and when I got it out of the plug it looked just like a flat button with the shank missing. A quick rub and I could see the standing figure with the bow, which I recognized as the Massachusetts seal. I swear I thought it was an early Massachusetts militia button which I was pretty pumped about, but when I turned it over to see the back mark, I instead saw the eagle...
A 1787 Massachusetts half cent! Granted the ground wiped out a lot of the detail, but there's no mistaking it and believe it or not I was able to determine the die paring. It's a Ryder 1-D which is listed as R4, very scarce. This was the last major state copper that I hadn't found an example of and I never expected to find a half cent since they're so rare.
Massachusetts was the only state to mint the coins themselves as opposed to franchising out the minting to a private operation. They had expected the coining to generate a profit, but after a little over a year of operation an audit revealed that they were spending twice as much as the face value in coins minted so they allowed the mint to run until it ran out of copper in 1788 and abandoned the effort. Based on their records, Massachusetts only minted 100,000-115,000 half cents in total and 61,000-80,000 in 1787. This could very well be my best coin find for all of 2020 and definitely the highlight so far!
Not a ton of signals, but the buttons were mostly tombacs which is always a good sign. I did find an intact Georgian shoe buckle, although it's as plain as they can be. The bridle rosette is pewter thickly plated with silver and quite nice even if it is missing some sections. Where this site really shined though was the coins!
The very first coin was a Spanish half real and I rinsed it in a nearby creek to reveal my first (non-counterfeit) pillars and globes type:
Not just that, but a clear date of 1744 so my second oldest silver ever!
It took awhile before the next coin popped up, but it was another colonial:As you can see the ground wasn't too nice to it, but the 1771 date is legible, and surprisingly it actually is a regal KGIII half penny which I don't often come across. I did also stumble on a more recent copper:
An 1831 large cent! Nice clear signal and the date wasn't obliterated so I was happy. The last coin was the one that shocked me. It was a button signal and when I got it out of the plug it looked just like a flat button with the shank missing. A quick rub and I could see the standing figure with the bow, which I recognized as the Massachusetts seal. I swear I thought it was an early Massachusetts militia button which I was pretty pumped about, but when I turned it over to see the back mark, I instead saw the eagle...
A 1787 Massachusetts half cent! Granted the ground wiped out a lot of the detail, but there's no mistaking it and believe it or not I was able to determine the die paring. It's a Ryder 1-D which is listed as R4, very scarce. This was the last major state copper that I hadn't found an example of and I never expected to find a half cent since they're so rare.
Massachusetts was the only state to mint the coins themselves as opposed to franchising out the minting to a private operation. They had expected the coining to generate a profit, but after a little over a year of operation an audit revealed that they were spending twice as much as the face value in coins minted so they allowed the mint to run until it ran out of copper in 1788 and abandoned the effort. Based on their records, Massachusetts only minted 100,000-115,000 half cents in total and 61,000-80,000 in 1787. This could very well be my best coin find for all of 2020 and definitely the highlight so far!
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