Recent hunt,

Old California

Full Member
Jul 16, 2006
221
18
Central California
Hello TreasureNet Comrades,

Recently detected with a few friends (Rick, Ray & Rob) and also had the pleasure of meeting Rays wife Julie, A wonderful day detecting with friends....It was a last minute call from Rick and thanks to two other friends we were able to detect a particular area known to give up reales and other mission era finds.

Below are my take for the day, The first picture is the chopped seated dime on top of a good seated, About tossed this in my trash pouch thinking it was a piece of twisted metal until I got a glimpse of a number which happened to be the year (1873). At first, After we realized it was a coin we thought it was a quarter piece of a 1/2 dime and later at home after cleaning up the finds I realized it was a seated dime instead.

Several of the finds are 4 flat buttons, One of them a Gilt button. One underwear button and other types of buttons. Despite the broken shank on the Gilt button a beautiful specimen non the less.

One of the pictures is a close up shot of the chopped seated dime and two tiny nugget size relic finds, The larger strip of band below the chopped dime appears to have a thin layer of gilt. Maybe trim used on a miniature wooden chest?

One of the circular finds in the upper right corner is a Black Powder cap, So I've been told as these generally surface from older areas such as this particular site.

The pic of the ammo, Well everything but one piece is some form of old ammo. A few are smashed but one piece of lead which appears to be a smashed musket ball and isn't has the name JOSE stamped on, My guess is as good as anyone's what it may be?

The last picture, Is a display I made and handed it over to one of the property owners last week who allows El and I to detect here. Not allot of finds but a few key finds showing this was indeed a popular adobe site back in it's day.

Below are the finds from past hunts inside the display,

One No.(29) Phoenix button,
One rare (1830-40) Mexican soldier button,
A few flat buttons,
One Chinese cache coin,
Two seated coins,
Skeleton Key,
Square nails,
And several pistol and musket balls grouped together across the bottom.

Sorry but for protection of the site had to Highlight the location on the display,

Thanks for looking,
Paul (Ca)
 

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Paul, I know you worked HARD for those. Anytime you find a gilt button along the El Camino Real area (approx. Hwy. 101 corridor) of CA, means that it could just as easily have been a reale. Those gilt buttons simply do not turn up at sites that date to after the 1850s, IMHO. Nice job!
 

Thanks Tom,

What I have found on some Gilt button finds is they appear to be regular flat buttons (same shape) and I won't know until getting home and after cleaning them up the gilt finally starts to show, They can easily pass as a Flat button but when the sparkle of gilt starts to shine through that brings a smile from ear to ear well at least it does for me :)

One thing I've notice of this particular adobe site it is not giving up the smaller 1/2 dime size Gilt/flat buttons found in the other nearby adobe site of yours, You know the site you took me too a few times and I found that 1835 Bust half dollar. Different size gilt/flat buttons are coming from two different nearby areas? I mean one site has the larger (quarter size) gilt/flat buttons while the other nearby site has only the (1/2 dime size) gilt/flat buttons.

It didn't occur to me until recently and I have mentioned this to El and Rick, Later on I'll post the two different size buttons both from two different sites but are nearby to one another.

Thanks again Tom,
Paul
 

Paul, I have never noticed any difference in the styles of buttons from either of those 2 sites. Seems they give up a random sampling each, of various sizes and types.

On a different note: I call any of the buttons that have backmarks on them "gilt buttons". They'll say a variety of things like "treble gilt" "London fine", "superfine" "orange quality", etc.. etc.. blah blah. Then there are plain flat buttons that say nothing on them at all. I just call those "plain flat buttons". They are just as old as the gilt buttons. In fact, they can even be older. Gilt button backmarks didn't start till the late 1810s.
 

Tom,

Thanks for pointing that out both sites appear to be giving up different size gilt/flat buttons of various sizes and types, I have not experienced this and only find the larger types of flat and gilt buttons and not any of the smaller type from site No. (2) which is the site we hunted Saturday.

With site No.(1) I've only found the smaller types of flat and gilt buttons not any of the larger type as on site (2). Didn't notice this until recently and I addressed this to Elbert and Rick there must be a reason?

No biggie as you say various sizes are coming from both sites it's just I haven't experienced this so it got my curiously going :icon_study:

Paul (Ca)
 

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