My first 2 real

McCDig

Silver Member
Jan 31, 2015
3,753
9,039
Baltimore, Maryland
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1
Detector(s) used
Fisher F75
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
After a long drive back home from a weekend in Virginia, we unpacked (my wife did most of that) and I headed out at 5PM for a late day hunt. Arrived at the site and was detecting by 5:30. I walked along field edges and managed a modern quarter, sort of a tease to get an 83 in a corn field, but that's what it was. I tried another field that I had not searched much before, doing a back and forth search, getting closer to the road, but came away with 2 headstamps and an old bullet, very white. Swung all the way back to my truck and then drove over to my last site of the day. In the waning light of sunset I got a promising signal after making about 8 passes in a grid search. From about 10 inches down came out a coin ball with silver rim showing through. The size of the coin told me it was likely Spanish and, in fact, it is a 2 real from 1788. This makes first Spanish coin I've dug from this site and the fourth silver coin.
The coin is very worn and these pictures do not show all the detail that is evident. Diameter is 25.5 mm.
2Reale.jpg

I've also included a link to the video of the dig:
Thanks for checking out the video!
 

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Upvote 34
Smokey, most iron sounds I pass over, so there are things in your list that I'm missing. It is the buttons, coins, brass and lead that I'm picking up on.
 

One of the most loved things I found this year was a piece of the neck of a 400 year old Bellarmine jug, originally made in Germany and sent over here in the first quarter of the 17th century. Was digging an aluminum can in Queen Anne's County and it popped right out of the ground. I was so stoked. 400 years old. Main reason for the excitement was that I went with my mom and little brother, both of which are gone now, on archaeology digs, a lifetime ago. We found newer junk. Nothing this old. They all would have had a cow if they saw this little piece of pottery. Dates to the time of Captain John Smith and Pocohontas, the lost colony of Roanoke and Lords Calvert and Baltimore and Henry Hudson and all those cool people.
 

Thx J.Cache! Agreed! The diameter alone would not have been enough had it been totally slick.
 

Check out nicola white's YouTube channel. She finds occasional pieces of the Cardinal Bellarmine pottery along the Thames.
 

Did not read all the replies, but good job on a GREAT FIND !
Like one of the other early posters in this thread I haven't got one of those for 3 years now (shake fist).
I know they are hard to find, myself I was spoiled a bit by a certain site that gave me 2 nice ones ( 2 reales) in one hunt back in 2013, I now know how lucky a year I had. 3 Years now, no Spanish ?
 

I like her channel. Now, note to self, must dig Spanish silver, must dig Spanish silver. Repeat. With several trips to the Eastern Shore this year, kind of surprised I didn't find any, and only a few pieces were found by others.
 

Thx Rick! Yes, we should be able to walk to the spots that yielded Spanish silver. Three for me so far, two in Baltimore City and this one in Baltimore County (Maryland).
 

It got to be there, Smokey. Short of good maps, grid searching has proven to be an approach that yields finds.
 

Great work, not easy at 10 inches, WTG!
 

Sweet 2-real, finding them never gets old, congratulations! :occasion14:
 

Thx bill_wabo! The Fisher F75 with a NEL tornado coil seems to find deep targets.
 

Thx Professor! I hope to return to the field tomorrow to continue my gridding. Stay tuned.
 

Nice old silver, congrats!
 

Really cool find! Still on my bucket list, glad you got one!!
Congrats and HH
 

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