2 Big, Beautiful Silver Coins Not Frequently Found In The Pacific Northwest

[Zincoln]

I had the opportunity to put in several day of detecting with a good friend here in the Pacific Northwest.  We were spending our time hunting some of the earliest activity in our area.

We had a fantastic hunt in general with a number of nice Victorian era coins and doodads, but our little day adventure off of our standard beaten path produced a bucket lister for me, and a surprising, and even rarer coin for my partner.

I have been looking for my Seated Half for over 12 years now as has my hunting partner, and I've spoken with several of you about how I've found a number of old halves, but none seated.  Last Friday was my lucky day.  Was exercising the D2 when I got a choppy signal in a promising area.  Imagine my surprise and elation when lady liberty was staring at me from the bottom of the plug!  1859-O.  Needless to say I wasted little time in rubbing it in, and OregonGregg was a tad put off at seeing me pull my top priority coin from where it's likely been for the last 160 or so years, while he was still going to have to wait.  

As I was continuing the search, my partner called me over from about 20 feet away to inspect his choppy signal.  One of those that typically is common junk, but was on the high end of the scale, and after digging the half, it was going to be dug.  I turned away and a few second later, I heard an exclamation and some excitement of his own.  While he was convinced he had another half, I peered in the hole and immediately knew it was much bigger.  Both minds immediately went to a Seated or Morgan dollar, but a quick inspection proved it to be much more uncommon in our area.  Imagine our surprise at his 1846 8 Reales!!  I've only seen a couple of these posted and know they are much more common in Mexico or in our South western states.  Darn cool regardless, and a heart stopper falling out of the plug!  Way to go Gregg!!  With his permission, he asked me to post.  

[TheDeepseeker]

Well done Zincoln. A couple of beautiful finds you have there. I often think too when I see finds like that, just how upset someone would have been in 1859 to suddenly realize they had lost a half dollar. The buying power back then must have been enormous compared to the average wage at the time?

[Jim in Idaho]

Absolutely incredible! Congrats to both of you. I can't believe the condition of that Reale coin!

Jim

[okara gold]

Congratulations to both of you guys! I'm sure you won't be leaving that site too soon!

[JCR]

Well done, both of you.

[mn90403]

Excellent plugs to be sure.

[1491]

Wow! Congratulations!

[EL NINO77]

Zincoln, I'm glad you're still lucky with nice coins...and that Oregon Greg is also doing well... Two nice Silvers...!!!
....And most of all I'm glad you're both fine and can still go out detecting.. I've been thinking about not posting on the forum for a while now..
I'd be very happy if you could post more often about your detection stories and results... because they've always been interesting as well as informative...👍

[Zincoln]

7 hours ago, EL NINO77 said:

Zincoln, I'm glad you're still lucky with nice coins...and that Oregon Greg is also doing well... Two nice Silvers...!!!
....And most of all I'm glad you're both fine and can still go out detecting.. I've been thinking about not posting on the forum for a while now..
I'd be very happy if you could post more often about your detection stories and results... because they've always been interesting as well as informative...👍

Hello El Nino,

Yes, it's been a while.  Good to hear from you, and thank you.  I have fallen victim to often finding things that aren't 'extraordinary' or don't have an interesting backstory, and therefore not posting.  I thought this post w/ the 8 reales might spark some real interest as they don't show up very often on any forum.  

I'm still at it, and Gregg and I get out 1-2 times per year on a detecting adventure that typically last around a week.  We've been trying our luck in Nevada, Idaho, and of course Oregon.  It's been getting harder and harder each year as the old sites we hunt or locations we find don't have anyone replenishing the sites😂

Over the last year, I've spent some time with a couple of new detectors, a Manticore and a Deus 2.  Still use my V3i with some frequency, as I did last week.  I parted way with the Manticore for several reasons, and didn't find it to my liking overall (and frankly, from a feature and results perspective, wasn't much different than my V3i - on dry land).  The D2 has proven to be one I'll keep and will likely replace my D1 machines.  I am just in sync with the operational behavior and response of the D2, and I'll never stop using the V3i in certain situations.  

I'll work to do better and provide a little more frequency in my posts!  Thank you for the prompt.

All the best.