My First Spanish Silver!!

Hey everyone!  I recently took a road trip to do some detecting with the “Pennsylvania Boys”, my buddies Keith and Tracy and my new friend Ethan.  It was a beautiful day, although it was blazingly hot in the sun by the end of it.  We all had a great time, and came away with a nice pile of relics.

We were detecting the site looking for Civil War relics, and we all found quite a few.  The bullets were a mixture of dropped and fired rounds, mostly three-ringers and William’s cleaners.  Much to my surprise, a little more than half (11 out of 20) of my three ring bullets had a Washington Arsenal star base stamp.  My favorite is the high-impact Minie ball with the star base clearly visible.  Another interesting first for me is a William’s cleaner type one with quite a bit of the zinc washer still intact.  These typically corrode away with ground action, and finding the zinc remaining is rather uncommon.

One interesting byproduct of hunting for Civil War relics is that the soldiers marched, camped, and fought on the existing infrastructure of the day.  It’s not at all uncommon to find artifacts that predate the Civil War mixed in, sometimes by 100 years or more.  I found five civilian buttons that predate the war.  The heavily corroded button is my first pewter button, which unfortunately lacks any front design.  My favorite button that I found was a highly ornate tombac button with a star motif.  The picture doesn’t do the level of detail any justice.  Ethan also found a great button, a massive pewter button with what I think looks like a nautical motif.

I found the end of a very decorative spur, and I’m not sure about its use or age.  It clearly doesn’t look military issue, but I don’t know enough about them to say if it’s from the Civil War era.  It has the right look about it, though, and war found in the right area.  Any help on that one would be most appreciated!

The find of the hunt for me, though, was this cut Spanish silver pistareen.  This is my first Spanish silver, and my oldest coin to date by a long stretch.  Although the date portion of the coin has been cut off, there is enough present to determine a date range.  We can see most of the word “PHILIPPUS”, referring to Spain’s King Philip V, who ruled from 1700 to 1746.  Foreign silver, especially Spanish silver, dominated the Americas for colonial trade, and all the way into the middle of the 19^th century.  The face value on the complete coin would have been 2 Reales, with 8 Reales being equivalent to one dollar.  UPDATE: I received a reply from colonial silver expert Bill D. on a detecting forum, who further narrowed down the mint date of this coin. Because the assayers mark is present k. This piece, the coin was produced in Mexico City between 1733 and 1746.  Thanks for the added information, Bill!

So how did it end up as only a fragment of a coin?  Because the value of the coin was in the silver weight, making change for a purchase was often done by physically dividing the coin into pieces.  The famous pirate “Pieces of Eight” refers to the subdivided pieces of an 8 Reale coin.  In this case, the full 2 Reale coin was divided into four ½ reales (5 cents worth of silver for a pistareen) at some point in order to make change.  With such complicated monetary exchanges, I have no idea how they kept it all straight!  Fortunately that came to an end in 1857 with the passage of the Coinage Act, which forbade the use of foreign silver coins as legal tender.  As it turns out, this wouldn’t be the only Spanish silver for the day – Keith also pulled a cut silver milled pillar reale coin towards the end of the hunt!

Thanks so much for reading, and thank you to Keith, Tracy, and Ethan for a fabulous day of detecting and fellowship.  I had a blast, and I can’t wait to get together again soon!

Silver Spoon Update

Last night I posted my recent finds to a number of detecting forums that I frequent.  I highly recommend posting your finds on such websites, because the large user base can provide an incredible wealth of crowdsourced historical information on just about any topic.  As it would happen, I received an alternate ID for the maker's mark on my silver spoon, and after some more digging (hehe) I believe this to be more accurate.

I'm now confident that the spoon was crafted by Henry White of Fredericksburg, Virginia sometime before 1827.  So it's not a colonial relic, but an artifact of the early American south.  The next goal would be to definitively connect the monogram to the family who I believe the spoon belonged to.  It's a long shot, but the research will be fun anyways.  Another avenue of research would be to specifically ID the unit camped where the spoon was found - but I think that will require more literal digging.  Looks like I've got some work to do!

Colonial Silver - Spoils of War?

Hey ya'll!  I know it's been a while.  I still have some cool stuff from way back in January that I haven't posted up here... but I'm working on it.  But I just had to share this latest hunt with you all!  I tried three new spots with my friend Dustin a few days ago.  The first two didn't pan out, but persistence pays off!

I ended up with quite a few Civil War bullets, mostly Colt pistol.  I'm not sure what the small carved bullet on the right started out as, but I always like finding carved lead.  The three bullets on the left are for the Merrill carbine. We're hoping that we can use these less common (though I'd stop well short of saying rare) bullets combined with what we know of the site to narrow down whose camp we are in, of the several units who were known to have been in the area.  The camp probably extends outward in one of three directions, but we will need permission from other landowners (and less vegitation!) before we can fully investigate.

As for brass, I found my second kepi hat buckle, two button backs, one incredibly fragile General Service eagle button, and two early flat buttons.  One is a large copper button, fairly thin and plain.  The other is a smaller, probably a bit later, and has a nice silver wash.  It should clean up well.  Dustin also found a beautiful silvered colonial dandy button with a star design, as well as some more Civil War relics.

Ok, enough suspense, on to the REALLY good stuff!  My find of the hunt was this plow damaged silver spoon.  Although the condition leaves a lot to be desired, It's one of my favorite recoveries of my detecting career.  I searched for more pieces of the spoon bowl, but the ones I did find were scattered over a surprisingly large area by farming activity.  The spoon handle has an ornate monogrammed letter "A".  From our research into the site beforehand, we knew the family that owned the farm during the war lived in a nearby home since the late 1700's... and their surname started with that same letter "A".  I think it is highly likely that the two are connected, but of course we will never know for certain.

The spoon is also hallmarked by the maker on the back - the letters "HW" in a rectangle with triangle cutouts on the sides. UPDATE: We initially thought this spoon was the work of a New York silversmith, but it turns out it was crafted more locally.  It was made by Henry White of Fredericksburg, Virginia some time prior to 1827.   What an incredible hobby!!

I'll close with one last bit of speculation.  I do know approximately where the home site is located, and it is down the road a distance from the field we were detecting.  It's likely that the early flat buttons we recovered were from farming activities in the fields over the years.  It's also quite possible that the colonial spoon was lost in that field in a similar manner - the owners were having a meal in the field and it lay there for the next 200 years.  But is there another explanation?  I do have one primary source document that mentions that the house was looted by Yankee cavalry during the war.  The stolen goods were returned, but is it possible that this silver spoon was taken as spoils of war and left in camp?  I also know that the cavalrymen who did the looting were armed with Merrill carbines.  So there is some evidence that lends credence to this theory.  Of course, it is all speculation, and we will probably never know.  But it is interesting to think about.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates on past (and upcoming) expeditions into our nation's history.  Stay safe, happy hunting, and God bless.

DIV Blog - Day 7: Big Brass in the 11th Hour

Wow, what an ending to DIV week for me!  I started out the day working a small camp area with Phil and Josh.  We were having some good results, digging a lot of brass and a few bullets. Josh had two wonderful finds - a pair of Maine state seal coat buttons! I did alright, recovering two knapsack hooks and a few bullets.  Phil was pulling eagle buttons from that area all day, and got into a fire pit just before lunch.

We paused to attend the BBQ lunch and view the finds displays.  I put my case on display, even though most of my finds were fairly ordinary.  I recovered a much larger quantity or relics than I have in past DIV's thanks to the GPX, but I still didn't have any one particularly noteworthy relic.  There were some truly amazing artifacts on display.

After lunch I helped Phil dig out his firepit, which looked promising, but only had eight rivets and a lot of barrel bands.  I decided to follow Keith to an area known for rare Confederate bullets, hoping to luck into a good one.  As with any known Confederate area, this one had been detected to death, and signals were hard to come by.  I did find one fired pistol bullet, but that was it after lunch.  The wind was bitter cold, and I decided to head in.  Keith stayed put, and was rewarded with a rare Confederate 69 Nessler with the GPZ.

I made my way back towards the truck, detouring to check on Phil and Josh.  They were continuing to make good finds in the area, so with an hour and a half left to hunt, I turned on the machine and started wandering.  A few minutes later I got a bullet tone, not loud, but not super faint either.  I was probably a bullet, but could possibly be a smaller shallow nail.  I cut a plug and started pinpointing.

With nothing on the pinpointer, I widened the hole. The signal was stronger in the hole, but still nothing on the pinpointer.  Phil saw me struggling and came over to check it with his machine.  After investigating the signal for a moment, he agreed - "down".

Josh came over to see what the fuss was about, and I told him not to worry.  It was probably big farm iron junk like I had dug so much of in the area.  He stayed to watch anyways, and I dug down and down to about a foot and a half.  When the target popped out we all jumped back and exclaimed. It was a big piece of lead backed brass.

I snatched it from the hole to check it out.  What I had found was a US artillery rosette, which would have attached to the horse's bridle, one on either side of the head.  This one is the more rare M1862 rosette, preceded by a standard bullseye rosette and replaced by the M1863 USA intertwined model.  There was a bit of ash in the hole, so Josh and I quickly opened it up to investigate but found nothing else.  By the time we were finished, my hunt time was about over.  What a way to end!

DIV Blog - Day 6: Hunkered Down

Today started out rainy, but gave way to what turned into a beautiful day of relic hunting.  I went back to the spot I found the Eagle D cuff button yesterday to hunker down and work the area more thoroughly.  That spot was loaded with relics, and I didn't have to move far all day to recover a nice variety of finds.

My favorite brass find of the day was probably the Eagle I coat button that cleaned up with loads of the original gilt still attached.  I also recovered three other general service coat buttons, knapsack parts, a scabbard finial, and a war date Indian Head penny.  The large, round, brass object is the top of a powder flask, another first for me.

As for bullets, I was very happy with both the quantity and variety of those recovered.  In addition to a number of standard three ringers, I also dug colt dragoon pistol, Richmond labs colt pistol (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), ringtail sharps, gardners, and enfield, and two carved bullets.  Last but not least, I found one cool iron relic that I really like - an old key.

There's only one more day of DIV week, and it has been a blast.  I still haven't gotten that one special relic yet, but I have been blown away with the GPX's ability to find so many artifacts in the red clay.  And as we all know, the next signal could be the one!  Speaking of which, congratulations to my friend Josh on his incredible find today, a confederate frame buckle.  Way to go, Josh!  Wish us all luck on the last day of DIV tomorrow!

DIV Blog - Day 5: Here, There, and Everywhere

Unfortunately, yesterday's pit dig quickly proved anticlimactic today.  In very short order the use layer gave way to solid clay in all directions.  Bottles were being dug in holes around me, but it wasn't meant for me today.  I did get two more bullets from the hole, though, which I guess is a nice consolation prize.  This morning I spent surface hunting through the scattered rain in the same general area where I started, finding three eagle coat buttons and a few bullets before lunchtime.

The rain gave way to heat after lunch, and my friend Dustin invited me over to a spot where he had an incredible bullet haul the day before.  As we were about to get detecting, we were joined by Phil, Josh, and Keith who happened to be driving by and spotted us in the field.  We all immediately started finding bullets - except for me.  Dumbfounded, I went to check a signal of Phil's to discover that I could hardly hear anything, even in an air test with a bullet on the ground!  As it turns out, I had flipped a switch on the front control box out of position, and completely ruined my chances.  With the settings back in place, I started finding bullets along with the rest.  There seemed to be one pocket of dropped bullets, with fired bullets littering the hillside.  Phil picked up 20 fired bullets in short order, and we all found at least a few.  We came to the conclusion that this had been a firing range, and while digging deep bullets can be fun, we decided that we would change venue to a place where it would be more likely to find brass targets.

Our next spot was checking out some of the recent logging activity on the farm.  I did get into one little pocket of relics, including this great little Eagle "D" dragoon cuff button.  It's in pretty rough shape, but it's a first for me and I'm very happy to have found it.  Besides that small area, though, we all had pretty poor luck, finding lots fence wire strewn about by the equipment but no relics to speak of.  Another change of scenery was in order, and we ended the day in the shadow of the historic Farley House (above).  I did manage to find a few bullets in here as well, but that field has been heavily detected in the past.  Overall it was another great, albeit very tiring, day at Brandy Rock Farm!

DIV Blog - Day 4: Best Button Day

Day four of DIV week was the first of the four day hunt at Brandy Rock Farm.  I decided to follow my friend Sham out to a spot on the farm that he assured us would produce some Yankee relics.  I wasn't exactly sure where we were going until we crested the hill to reveal the area known as the Wisconsin Camp.  I was a bit disheartened, as I had searched this area heavily at the last DIV using my DFX with very poor results.  But now I was packing the big guns - a Minelab GPX thanks to Keith over at Fort Bedford Detectors.  My first signal out of the gate was a three ring Minie ball with a solid signal, and I knew I was in for a good day.  I barely moved from my initial spot, because the relics just kept on coming.  I ended up with a total of 24 and 1/2 bullets, another incredible day for lead.

What really got me excited, though, was the number of brass targets I recovered as well.  This included a record for me of eight general service eagle coat buttons.  I also found my very first kepi hat buckle, a J hook, a cap box finial, several belt studs, and a brass thimble.  The two iron objects at the top of the picture were mysteries to me, but my friend James identified them in the field as rifle parts.

While surface hunting on the hill, I watched my friend Barry get into three different fire pits.  He was well rewarded for his efforts with a beautiful eagle brestplate right at the end of the day.  I also got to watch Gerry, who I had just met, dig his very first Civil War bottles in a pit he located while probing in the same area.

I managed to find a pit of my own right at the end of the day, but there wasn't time to explore it.  So tonight I will do my best not to dream about what lies beneath.  It could be nothing at all... but I imagine I will have visions of plates and bottles dancing through my head!!  Wish me luck in the morning!