rhedden
Sr. Member
Yesterday, I was able to go out into the mountains to a remote location that I hadn't been able to reach earlier in the summer due to heat and blackflies. I knew there were cellar holes on the county maps from the 1860s and 1870s, but it's not worth heat exhaustion and dozens of nasty bug bites to get there. Yesterday's relatively cool weather allowed me to find one of the cellars, and it was a large one with multiple rooms and a beautifully constructed well in the front yard. Not only was it a large house, but the grounds around it are large, cleared of rocks, and easy to detect. What a relief after visiting so many cellar holes that were either trashed by logging crews, grown in with brush, flooded with swamp mud, eroded by mountain runoff, or otherwise rendered unpleasant to detect.
I got off to a rough start, getting fooled by two consecutive "coin signals" that were in the +92-94 range on my Simplex+. No sign of crackling from the machine, small target, down two or three inches. I dug them out carefully, and I ended up with a pair of small, rusty can bottoms. Go figure. I would have bet my bottom dollar that both of them were large cents, so it's a good thing y'all weren't there placing wagers.
Moving on to the coins, I got an "obvious Indian cent" signal not too far away, and it was an Indian cent. Can't read the date. The ground was hard, and the coin was only an inch deep - a sign of things to come.
So I moved down toward the small brook, and just 12 inches from the drop-off into the stream bed, I got a +70-71 signal, maybe an inch deep, if that. Lincoln penny, right? No, my first Seated coin since the year 2000! It's an 1856 Philly mint dime, worn down to AG condition, and with a couple of dings on the back. I was careful recovering it, but it was buried in hard-packed gravel at the creek edge, so it got a few tiny scratches during the recovery due to the small rocks. I guess it doesn't matter on an AG coin that's worth $10 on a good day, but it could have been a key date or high grade coin. I'm a very careful digger, but still not careful enough.
The rest of the day produced two more heavily corroded Indians. One was so shallow it was basically lying on the surface. The other was maybe 2 inches down. None of the coins were deep at all. One of them is 1899, and I can't read the dates on the others. All three need a peroxide bath.
I also came up with a broken button (white metal) that looks too old for this site, and an Imperial Gold Colour button that makes sense for a mid-1800s site. I also recovered two mangled teaspoons that look like they are brass. No identifying marks on the spoons, but I'm assuming they're mid to late 1800s.
I've got several more trips to this site in my future. I spent five hours swinging, but I only covered two sides of the house and the ground by the creek. There are a lot of targets and it's slow going. I'm sure I'll find more Indian cents here, but will there be another Seated too?
I got off to a rough start, getting fooled by two consecutive "coin signals" that were in the +92-94 range on my Simplex+. No sign of crackling from the machine, small target, down two or three inches. I dug them out carefully, and I ended up with a pair of small, rusty can bottoms. Go figure. I would have bet my bottom dollar that both of them were large cents, so it's a good thing y'all weren't there placing wagers.
Moving on to the coins, I got an "obvious Indian cent" signal not too far away, and it was an Indian cent. Can't read the date. The ground was hard, and the coin was only an inch deep - a sign of things to come.
So I moved down toward the small brook, and just 12 inches from the drop-off into the stream bed, I got a +70-71 signal, maybe an inch deep, if that. Lincoln penny, right? No, my first Seated coin since the year 2000! It's an 1856 Philly mint dime, worn down to AG condition, and with a couple of dings on the back. I was careful recovering it, but it was buried in hard-packed gravel at the creek edge, so it got a few tiny scratches during the recovery due to the small rocks. I guess it doesn't matter on an AG coin that's worth $10 on a good day, but it could have been a key date or high grade coin. I'm a very careful digger, but still not careful enough.
The rest of the day produced two more heavily corroded Indians. One was so shallow it was basically lying on the surface. The other was maybe 2 inches down. None of the coins were deep at all. One of them is 1899, and I can't read the dates on the others. All three need a peroxide bath.
I also came up with a broken button (white metal) that looks too old for this site, and an Imperial Gold Colour button that makes sense for a mid-1800s site. I also recovered two mangled teaspoons that look like they are brass. No identifying marks on the spoons, but I'm assuming they're mid to late 1800s.
I've got several more trips to this site in my future. I spent five hours swinging, but I only covered two sides of the house and the ground by the creek. There are a lot of targets and it's slow going. I'm sure I'll find more Indian cents here, but will there be another Seated too?
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