SwiftSword

These are the keepers from the last two weekends! I was absolutely over the moon with my first Walker. What a rush! Silver has been slow in coming so far this season, but that same spot also yielded a '46 Rosie, a sterling spoon, and a sterling thimble. Today and tomorrow we're getting a Nor'easter, but I sure hope to be able to get back there this weekend! 

Also, I've started filming my hunts and set up a youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PlanetDirtMetalDetecting. I've done two episodes so far, and I'm learning as I go. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback you might have for me! 

Happy Hunting!  

With everyone sleeping in, I had a couple of hours to spend in the woods here in eastern Mass. My 18th century spot is pretty picked over and very trashy, but it seems every time I go, I come back with at least one good thing. It's close, and pretty, so that's where I went.
On the suggestion of a friend I ran my Deus II in Fast 40, full tones. Never used that program before, but I find I really like it. It hits brass and copper really hard, and gives a very distinctive tone for aluminum. 

The first good signal was a strong, operatic 96. For a hot minute I thought I had a colonial coin. It turned out to be a 1788 Conder token in excellent shape, nothing like the colonial coins I've found there before. I have no idea how it ended up here in the US. Supposedly they circulated here, but only in very small numbers. However, they were popular collector's items from the get go. I'm thinking that odd notch at precisely six o'clock might have had a loop soldered into it, and this was dangling from someone's watch chain.

Next came my first 1940s safety razor, the kind grandpa used to slice up the bath towels when he was drying it off. Thanks to stainless steel, it came out pretty much the way it went in. It lists patents underneath which were issued in 1929 and 1930, and expired in 1946. Once I got the cap off, it revealed itself as a "Gem Micromatic clog-pruf" safety razor. Made in the early 1940s. One of the little hinge bits was corroded and fell out. I'm going to see if I can get a replacement. Who knows, I might even try shaving with it!

Now the fun part. This hollow thing with tentacles had me stumped. I had no idea what it could have been, and when the good folks of reddit told me what it was, I didn't believe them. But sure enough, it is the quillon of a smallsword. A child-sized smallsword. Apparently these were popular toys in colonial times. I wonder at the level of anxiety this may have caused colonial era mothers, and how many accidental stabbings occurred. "You'll poke thine eye out!"

Here's a two-foot long example with a silver hilt. The quillon is pretty much identical.

Naturally there was a spoon, a rusty little adze, and a bunch of trash. The garter snake was a bonus surprise at this time of year.

Found in Eastern Mass. This coin had no circulation wear, you can even see the grooves on top of the stars. It probably went from the mint straight into the ground, where it proceeded to rot.
There was plenty of corrosion above and below the original surface of the coin. I used my fossil prep skills and tools to expose the black patina without going through it. It's very brittle and as thin as the skin of your teeth. It was gone in many places, though, with a gritty, rusty layer of corrosion on top of a spongy layer of verdigris.
The colors effectively camouflaged the coin's features, so at the end I used some watercolor lamp black in alcohol to tint the surface. Once dry, I applied a sealant similar to Renaissance Wax and called it good enough. Total time was about three hours, and I haven't done the reverse yet. There is, of course, no numismatic value to this find, but I don't find largies that often, so at least I'd like them to look their best 😄

Starting point

mechanical cleaning finished

After tinting and sealing. 

Yesterday I picked up some tools and other items at a house here in Eastern Mass. The house was 19th century, with a nice, seemingly untouched yard. While there, I casually asked the owner if he'd mind me bringing my detector over to see what I might find. He didn't mind, so out came the machine. The large front yard was filled, and a bust. The two side yards made up for that.

I found the coin purse handle first, with an IHP rusted into it (which I didn't realize until I got home). There were a bunch of wheaties in the general vicinity of it. The back of the yard featured a little brick outdoor grill. The area in front of it was clearly used extensively - the toys and four of the seven silvers popped out there, plus more wheaties. The other silvers and the rest of the keepers were distributed evenly through the rest of the yard. Naturally by silver #4 the fever had kicked in and I was hyperventilating for the rest of the hunt 🙂

I mostly used the Sensitive FT program on the Deus, because iron and trash were very dense. All the silvers were fairly shallow, but not nearly as clear as I would have liked, even with hi square tones and an equalizer adjustment, probably because of EMI and/or all the trash. There's a chance I missed some. I'll probably go back at least one more time, and try the 11x13 coil, too.

FYI, I recently got the over-the-ear style headphones for my Deus II and have noticed a marked improvement in my finds. This may not apply to everyone, but my hearing is going and I feel the standard headphones are letting in too much background noise. The cans are good at blocking that out and letting me make out the fainter tones. My already low situational awareness is, of course, entirely gone 😄

I've been returning to the same spot in the woods for a couple of weeks now. It has yielded three buckles whose style dates them 1650s - 1720s. Just yesterday I joked that the place hides a colonial coin with my name on it, so imagine my delight when it popped out this morning! It rang up a faint, scratchy, ferrous, variable 72 on the Deus II, 9" coil in Deep HC/high square tones. To be honest, it wasn't a signal I would have ordinarily dug because I have a bag full of iron bits that sounded just like that. However I hadn't really had any decent signals, so what the heck. Right off the bat I was pretty sure I'd found a coin, but of course I couldn't tell what kind until I got home. So my head was buzzing with all kinds of Georges when I hit a very similar signal. That turned out to be a beautiful largie, only my third one to date. The coin is caked in crumbly verdigris, but seems to be largely intact underneath, with perfect detail. It'll take a very long time to clean it without overcleaning, so I might leave it for the winter.  

So here is my new favorite find, my 1692 William & Mary "Bawbee" Scottish sixpence: 

I need not mention what an appropriate find this is for this time of the year, and just 20 miles west of Salem, MA to boot! 🎃
 

A better preserved example: 

And the largie: