TulsaPllTbFndr
Jr. Member
I found this silver "julep" cup on February 4th, 2018. It's probably in my top 10 best finds with my metal detector(found with Garrett AT Pro w/ the 4and1/2" Garrett Super Sniper coil).
It was very cold and windy that day and I was out hunting a freshly bulldozed lot where an old house had just been torn down with two of my good diggin' buddies, David and Travis. The neighborhood it was in was pretty old for our area. Most of the houses went in around the late 1890s and early 1900s. The last few years this neighborhood has been going through re-zoning so a lot of the houses and buildings have been getting bulldozed. It's been a regular hunting ground for us and just about everyone in the city with a detector, haha! The area has produced oodles of quality finds for many people these last few years, including for myself and my buddies. The house lots out here also tend to be very trashy even after bulldozing so you have to work slow. We had only been on the lot maybe 10 minutes when I got a screaming beer can-like signal at the back of the lot, which would have been where the backyard meets the alley. Remember, this was a freshly scraped lot where we expected signals to be shallow and mostly trashy. Since I was on a back lot fence area I expected a beer can or some large mangled hunk of typical back-fence-fodder(you know the spot). I know sometimes those areas can be good for old bottle/trash dumps but I wasn't holding my breath. I stuck my shovel in and popped out, from not even an inch down, what I immediately thought was a rather newer looking Campbell's Soup can. Utter disgust. But, I'm a completionist and I decided to clean the dirt out of it so I could smash it and put it in the pouch. That's when I noticed an odd rim... then a familiar patina... the dirt was wiping away cleanly too... I turned it over excitedly to the bottom and saw some words! I rubbed the mud off gently and what I saw was, "Shreve Brown & Co. Boston Pure Silver Coin"! I still wasn't sure what I had exactly but I was pretty sure it was at least a big silver cup. I went into a private frenzy of thought, excitement, and panic all at once. I ran over to David and Travis, shoved it into their hands and demanded, in what probably came out sounding like some derranged broken language, to tell me what the hell it was that I had just found. They read the words on the bottom aloud, "...pure silver coin..." I snatched it and stumbled down to my truck with my headphones still on my head dragging my machine behind me on the ground by the cord. I'm sure I seemed like some bizarre real-life Golem consumed by the greed and fascination of a treasure. I had to see it in safety. I had to get it into the truck. The first two photos are from that exact moment in the truck. I almost felt like if I didn't photgraph it that instant that it may just turn to dust and blow away. After we settled down and I got "The Precious" put away we went back over to thoroughly check the hole. We ended up getting lots of signals from the hole and so we dug it out to reveal a small bottle dump/trash pit. No other silver was found but an indian head, some early wheats, a token of some sort, couple marbles, and a few decent little bottles were found. I included a couple pictures of David and Travis digging out the pit and some of those bottles. The rest is history.
Turns out the cup was the real deal. Made by the Shreve Brown Co. out of Boston in the 1850s from coin silver! The final pictures are an example of the same cups in excellent condition. Mine is the same size as the bigger of the two in the example photos. Four inches high and weighs 3.97 oz!
After a lot of research I was later able to contact a renown silver smith from New England who said he could restore it for around $600.00 dollars and he told me to insure it for about $1,000.00 after restoration. I haven't had the funds for that yet but I hope to one day. Either way, I love it. It sits prominently in one of my display cabinets. I'll always cherish it and everytime I pass by the cabinet I'm reminded of the memories and the excitement of finding it.
It was very cold and windy that day and I was out hunting a freshly bulldozed lot where an old house had just been torn down with two of my good diggin' buddies, David and Travis. The neighborhood it was in was pretty old for our area. Most of the houses went in around the late 1890s and early 1900s. The last few years this neighborhood has been going through re-zoning so a lot of the houses and buildings have been getting bulldozed. It's been a regular hunting ground for us and just about everyone in the city with a detector, haha! The area has produced oodles of quality finds for many people these last few years, including for myself and my buddies. The house lots out here also tend to be very trashy even after bulldozing so you have to work slow. We had only been on the lot maybe 10 minutes when I got a screaming beer can-like signal at the back of the lot, which would have been where the backyard meets the alley. Remember, this was a freshly scraped lot where we expected signals to be shallow and mostly trashy. Since I was on a back lot fence area I expected a beer can or some large mangled hunk of typical back-fence-fodder(you know the spot). I know sometimes those areas can be good for old bottle/trash dumps but I wasn't holding my breath. I stuck my shovel in and popped out, from not even an inch down, what I immediately thought was a rather newer looking Campbell's Soup can. Utter disgust. But, I'm a completionist and I decided to clean the dirt out of it so I could smash it and put it in the pouch. That's when I noticed an odd rim... then a familiar patina... the dirt was wiping away cleanly too... I turned it over excitedly to the bottom and saw some words! I rubbed the mud off gently and what I saw was, "Shreve Brown & Co. Boston Pure Silver Coin"! I still wasn't sure what I had exactly but I was pretty sure it was at least a big silver cup. I went into a private frenzy of thought, excitement, and panic all at once. I ran over to David and Travis, shoved it into their hands and demanded, in what probably came out sounding like some derranged broken language, to tell me what the hell it was that I had just found. They read the words on the bottom aloud, "...pure silver coin..." I snatched it and stumbled down to my truck with my headphones still on my head dragging my machine behind me on the ground by the cord. I'm sure I seemed like some bizarre real-life Golem consumed by the greed and fascination of a treasure. I had to see it in safety. I had to get it into the truck. The first two photos are from that exact moment in the truck. I almost felt like if I didn't photgraph it that instant that it may just turn to dust and blow away. After we settled down and I got "The Precious" put away we went back over to thoroughly check the hole. We ended up getting lots of signals from the hole and so we dug it out to reveal a small bottle dump/trash pit. No other silver was found but an indian head, some early wheats, a token of some sort, couple marbles, and a few decent little bottles were found. I included a couple pictures of David and Travis digging out the pit and some of those bottles. The rest is history.
Turns out the cup was the real deal. Made by the Shreve Brown Co. out of Boston in the 1850s from coin silver! The final pictures are an example of the same cups in excellent condition. Mine is the same size as the bigger of the two in the example photos. Four inches high and weighs 3.97 oz!
After a lot of research I was later able to contact a renown silver smith from New England who said he could restore it for around $600.00 dollars and he told me to insure it for about $1,000.00 after restoration. I haven't had the funds for that yet but I hope to one day. Either way, I love it. It sits prominently in one of my display cabinets. I'll always cherish it and everytime I pass by the cabinet I'm reminded of the memories and the excitement of finding it.
Attachments
Last edited:
Upvote
9
