Fooleeze
Senior Member
So this is going to be a story, with plenty of pics, so read on if you dare!
I've got a local permission that was the site of a mid to late 1800s home. I've visited this site 3 times with a friend in the past 6-8 months. We've found some great finds, such as an 1830 matron head large cent, a civil war breast plate (Completely unexpected). There is a trashy area that must have been close to the home site, and was at least a dumping site for quite some time. We have pulled several early 1900s bottles and fragments out of this area.
This past Saturday, the hunting buddy and I revisited the site. We were focusing on this trashy area. In the trashy area I got a huge iron signal, I was curious so I started digging. After pulling my plug I revealed the side of some kind of stoneware / crock. So I called the hunting buddy over and we started excavating it. After uncovering the top we saw that it was an old brown stoneware jug.
We kept digging and we were completely shocked to find it to be complete! After pulling that out I was curious about my huge iron signal that brought me here in the first place. It was a large iron pot, like a dutch oven. Once I pulled that out of the ground I was excited to find the bottom of another white stoneware item just beneath the iron pot.
So we expanded the hole and kept digging. Low and behold it was another old stoneware jug and it, too, was complete with no breaking. Here are the three items just after pulling them out of the ground:
The iron pot was trash (Had a big hole in one side) but I took the time to clean up the two jugs and I'm very happy with how they came out:
I was so excited to find these, I would have never expected to find a complete jug buried in the ground let alone TWO of them. But this was within the first 60 minutes of our hunt so we kept moving. I started moving towards one of the existing houses on the site and I got an inconsistent low 80s signal on the AT Max. I cut my plug and opened it up, and the signal jumped to a much more consistent mid-80s signal. I pinpointed and stuck my hand-digger in and popped it out and my heart stopped. . . the first thing I saw was silver, the second thing I noticed was an inconsistent rim.
So I called my buddy over and nervously pulled it out and it was immediately clear, I had found my first ever spanish silver! I could see '1777' clear as day on the bottom. At a little under the size of a quarter, I believe this to be a 1 reale.
I was beside myself. Never had I expected to find a coin of this age in our area. Yeah, I've heard of people finding spanish silver in the midwest before, but it could never happen to me, right?
While those are the two most exciting finds, we weren't completely done. It was not too long after this that I ended up breaking my shovel. It was a cheaper shovel from Lowes that I've been using for 3 years, and it finally gave out and just broke. So the rest of my digs were with my hand-digger. But a little later I tripped over a mid 80s signal. I dug it expecting to find a modern quarter but to my surprise I found a nice old "925" silver ring with what I believe is an amethyst stone. (Sorry, no 'in the dirt' photos, but here it is anyways):
What a fun hunt. And for our 4th trip back, I couldn't believe we were able to find these items. So I'm certain there will be a 5th trip back!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Happy hunting!
I've got a local permission that was the site of a mid to late 1800s home. I've visited this site 3 times with a friend in the past 6-8 months. We've found some great finds, such as an 1830 matron head large cent, a civil war breast plate (Completely unexpected). There is a trashy area that must have been close to the home site, and was at least a dumping site for quite some time. We have pulled several early 1900s bottles and fragments out of this area.
This past Saturday, the hunting buddy and I revisited the site. We were focusing on this trashy area. In the trashy area I got a huge iron signal, I was curious so I started digging. After pulling my plug I revealed the side of some kind of stoneware / crock. So I called the hunting buddy over and we started excavating it. After uncovering the top we saw that it was an old brown stoneware jug.
We kept digging and we were completely shocked to find it to be complete! After pulling that out I was curious about my huge iron signal that brought me here in the first place. It was a large iron pot, like a dutch oven. Once I pulled that out of the ground I was excited to find the bottom of another white stoneware item just beneath the iron pot.
So we expanded the hole and kept digging. Low and behold it was another old stoneware jug and it, too, was complete with no breaking. Here are the three items just after pulling them out of the ground:
The iron pot was trash (Had a big hole in one side) but I took the time to clean up the two jugs and I'm very happy with how they came out:
I was so excited to find these, I would have never expected to find a complete jug buried in the ground let alone TWO of them. But this was within the first 60 minutes of our hunt so we kept moving. I started moving towards one of the existing houses on the site and I got an inconsistent low 80s signal on the AT Max. I cut my plug and opened it up, and the signal jumped to a much more consistent mid-80s signal. I pinpointed and stuck my hand-digger in and popped it out and my heart stopped. . . the first thing I saw was silver, the second thing I noticed was an inconsistent rim.
So I called my buddy over and nervously pulled it out and it was immediately clear, I had found my first ever spanish silver! I could see '1777' clear as day on the bottom. At a little under the size of a quarter, I believe this to be a 1 reale.
I was beside myself. Never had I expected to find a coin of this age in our area. Yeah, I've heard of people finding spanish silver in the midwest before, but it could never happen to me, right?
While those are the two most exciting finds, we weren't completely done. It was not too long after this that I ended up breaking my shovel. It was a cheaper shovel from Lowes that I've been using for 3 years, and it finally gave out and just broke. So the rest of my digs were with my hand-digger. But a little later I tripped over a mid 80s signal. I dug it expecting to find a modern quarter but to my surprise I found a nice old "925" silver ring with what I believe is an amethyst stone. (Sorry, no 'in the dirt' photos, but here it is anyways):
What a fun hunt. And for our 4th trip back, I couldn't believe we were able to find these items. So I'm certain there will be a 5th trip back!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Happy hunting!