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F350Platinum

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  1. Thanks Cap'n, even returning to my original permissions has been doing me a good turn. Went back today and didn't get much again, it was cloudy and colder and rained, so I took my wife out to dinner. 😀 At least I got a coin, some jewelry, and a button. The barrel tap is pretty cool too.
  2. Wow Cap'n, nice hunt. 👍 I'd call that place "The Land Where Time Moved On", but albeit desolate, here we are. Beautiful photos and great story. Love that you found a Merc in all that nothing! They do like to hide under bushes tho. 🤔 Many of your bits are cool as well, especially the jewelry and the old marine band harmonica which looks like false teeth 😀 that hair piece is a work of art! No need to bribe me with the Spanish, guess I've been doing ok in that category 😎 Relic Reaper is for those that went to leave iron behind but hear it all. In coming up with the Reaper, I wanted something that would pretty much bypass iron by letting me decide. All I ever seem to read are complaints about iron falsing, but after fiddling a bit with what made sense to me, opening up discrimination and not notching anything stood out as a way to let the chips fall where they should. I noticed Silver Slayer was very good at that, so I expanded the theme but eliminated the notch. I don't have that problem anymore, eliminating one of the two abundant materials in most of my sites. A slight turn to a 90 degree will almost always cause that audible "dive". Guess it works well in PWM too, I try that from time to time but switch back to square. I'll be trying it in Culpeper in a week or so, we'll see how it works there. If I dug the iron I pass on, I'd have quite the collection of horse and ox shoes, but also enough plow parts to build a destroyer. 😀 While we don't have a lot of rocks here, I believe the clay and marl are enough to snap the toughest stuff. That and in some cases over 400 years of farming. Great post! 🏆
  3. Thanks VL, sorry you are in a situation where there's nothing you can put off to get some detecting in. 😪 Retirement was the key for me. One of the great things about these large places is that so many have their eyes on the prize, and they don't bother to put in the effort to do some long range scouting. I've found many hotspots this way, and surely will find more. You can walk right through one or around it, I've seen it happen. Sometimes comically so. 🤣 I really want to get the message out there that stuff doesn't magically appear (well not always), you have to sometimes put in significant effort.
  4. Thanks Jim, I'm not complaining, it was a relief to get anything after 3 hours of absolutely nothing. 😀 It was also great to find a large cent with identifiable marks on it, and I never tire of digging buttons. 🙂 Yesterday I wasn't feeling all that great due to being house bound with bad weather, I have a bit of a heart condition that affects me more when inactive. I stayed in that spot hoping that the pocket hole these "sharp shins" often make was larger, even dug some nearby iron to eliminate masking. With over 400 years of history occurring in this farm, I know I will again find something spectacular. 👍 just gotta get my coil over it.
  5. Thanks, it's been quite a while since I found a cut 1 Reale, this 2 is my first I think. I have a few bits in my collection now. 🙂 I'd really like to find a whole one.
  6. Yeah, it sucks to be me 😎 thanks RVP. 🙂 Seriously though, it's hard to keep the adrenaline up enough to walk all that and get nothing, I wasn't feeling all that great today. Thankfully I got a great hit as soon as I got out in the second field, so it was all worth it. I would have been happy with the button! Just probably wouldn't have posted it. 🙄
  7. Thanks Jim, not many finds up here, thought I'd go out and get some. 🤣 5 miles of walking for 3 things is a bit rough.
  8. Beautiful day here in sunny VA, I was excited to get out early this morning to go to a place I haven't been to. Today I used the Deus 2 and 13", but now I have lowers for all the coils so I brought the 9" with me. Little ol' 40 acre farm across from one I have hunted and didn't get much. Followed all the hunting tricks I could, this field must have been cleared and managed by mechanized farm equipment, there was absolutely no sign of anything colonial or even Victorian. Stayed there 3 hours and walked 3 miles, got nothing but some junk and a 22-250 bullet shell. I thanked the farmer for his generosity and left. 🙂 Next up the really big farm, I have to park about a half mile or more from where the farmhouse stood near an old barn and silos. These two fields are side by side, part of the same plantation, and I have permission to both. The big one isn't too far from here but the house and barns are. Well I never got there - again. 🤣 The minute I set foot in this field I got a great target, and I stayed in that area for the rest of the day. Got a lot of trash today from both places, even some iron, as the ground is drying out despite the rain, and iron tends to false more or so it seems. 🤔 Guess I made ya wait long enough for the haul, only got 3 things today, after walking 2.3 more miles over 3 hours. My first target was the Pistareen, a 1/4 cut silver 1720s-1740s 2 Reale: Here's the reverse: You can see the "II". It was an 85, thought it was a penny. This is what the whole coin looks like: Walked along the line between the fields, got a 95 which shocked me, and dig this 1852-ish 🤔 large cent. Here the reverse, certainly enough details on this one but it's not round: Here's this one: I wish it was that nice 🙄 Got a fat flat button last. Keeping the silver streak alive, and this is the first 2 Reale bit I've found.
  9. Worse, they'd have to be available from a UK dealer or online store.
  10. The earbuds I have aren't made anymore, they were discontinued. I don't like putting things in my ears anyway. 😀 Sorry but I don't have a current recommendation, someone else might have one. 🙂
  11. I am going to do a "Farm Hunting 101" post soon, but I won't diagram my permissions 🤣 I think I wrote in my post about using apps and websites that at best you'd end up in jail if you find the place... 😀
  12. Thanks RVP, I know, y'all are getting a heap. Used to live near Worcester. Can't say I miss it. 🙄 Despite it being the second warmest winter on record here, it's giving us a little kick today on its way out. We have had snow in April here too. Getting the high winds and the 40s and 30s. Bright side is it'll be in the 60s later this week, so back to the fields I go, racing the farmers now.
  13. This is really nice, and I intend to put all my settings in it before updating the D2... Hopefully 🤣 Thanks y'all! 👍
  14. Here's a quick screenshot from this article done in 2001 regarding coin cutting: And here is the link to that PDF again, we discussed this a long time ago. 😀 https://www.academia.edu/31971759/THE_COLONIAL_NEWSLETTER_When_Cross_Pistareens_Cut_Their_Way_Through_the_Tobacco_Colonies
  15. Thanks GB. 🙂 I've been looking for methods of cutting coins in colonial times, haven't found much other than mentions of "sturdy shears" or "chisel" as a regular method of coin cutting. It was most interesting to find that the "tobacco" colonies were mostly cutting coins. I did happen to stumble upon a massive account of colonial coins that may interest you: http://numismatics.org/digitallibrary/ark:/53695/nnan48359 It's huge, it describes all of the currencies used in colonial times.
  16. You usually don't find most of the parts of a watch in a farm especially. Nice! I have an old Howard watch some somewhere, I think mine is gold filled. Thanks for posting!
  17. Thanks much LC. The half Reale is kind of typical for the area, a couple of which I've found with tooth marks in them, possibly animal but reportedly human 😀 The Merc took a beating from fertilizer. It's a shame they destroyed a "Lodge Scent" to cut whatever it was they were cutting. 🤣 Can't help it that name is clever. 🙂
  18. Thanks Doc! 🙂 The first coins I ever found in this area (about 200 feet from my front doorstep) were cut Spanish Pistareens. The next coin was an 1805 half cent not too far from that. I also picked at least 3 half Reales from that field. It's a field above a landing where all sorts of commerce occurred, but no historical record of it exists, just some names. Researching cut silver is what led me to this conclusion, I could be wrong of course. This field traded through many hands, I got all my intel on it from the farmer whose family has owned it since the 1940s. They told me of a steamboat captain who lived and was buried there, horse racing, and I worked with a descendant of one of the owners before the farmer who also had a farm here. It's a river peninsula surrounded by water with deep ravines all around, but at least 200+ acres of farm. I'd like to investigate more but the farmer appreciates my discretion, as do many of the other people that have given me permission to search their property. The other issue is that a large portion of recorded history for this county was lost many years ago to fire.
  19. Thanks GB. I read a long time ago somewhere that they usually used a knife or chisel and some sort of hammering device (not many rocks here so possibly a tool) to cut coins. Reeding coins was a result of unscrupulous activity, shaving bits off and/or cutting them inaccurately. 😀 An iron or steel anvil is a possibility of course, but you could throw a coin on a log, and probably not bend the coin. 😁 Copper being a softer metal probably took it easy on the cutting tool. The varied lengths of the cuts imply a knife blade over a chisel. I admit it is speculation, but I think a pretty good guess. 😀
  20. Thanks Cap'n, took me a while to think of a snappy title. 🤣 I'm always happy to add another half Reale to my collection. Winter doesn't want to leave here without a final kick or two, it's been great this year though having a lot of 60 degree days since November. Almost forgot what winter was except for the cold snap at Christmas where it got down to 9. 😀 It's heading back to 60 in a couple days, but it's a race to get detecting in before they plant the fields now. I'm looking forward to spring and summer camping trips, much easier on my feet!
  21. Thanks JCR. A couple of previous hunts here weren't as interesting, but braving the weather was worth it.
  22. Thanks Strick! 🙂 My photos are pretty much extreme close-ups, the hole is a pit but doesn't go all the way through. The other amusing thing is the tooth marks in it from people biting it to see if it is real. 😀 I don't mean to downplay a Spanish silver find, but my favorite is the early large cent used as a cutting board to make change from silver coins, it's kind of a "Rosetta Stone" for what was going on there. Farther back in the field there are some buried iron pots with oyster shells and there were lots of buttons there. There must have been some pretty large gatherings but not as large as another place I have a couple miles up the road. I've found other evidence such as thimbles and lots of horse tack, all stuff that cherry pickers seem to leave behind. Very few silver coins have come out of here, 2 mercs, an SLQ, 2/3 of a Trime, and this one Spanish coin. There is a lot more to cover, it should give me random good finds for quite a while, I'll just have to put the leg work in. 🙂
  23. Thanks Colonel, were it that I was in the shape I was in my Army days. 😵 Recovery is much slower of late 🤔
  24. Thanks VL, you threw down a gauntlet recently, so I had to pick it up. 🤣 You're an inspiration. 😉 Shame that relic hunting season is almost over for me. This one has been phenomenal.
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