RIdirtdigger
01-18-2016, 12:50 PM
Tuesday morning I headed out for a quick hunt at a colonial cellar hole I had never been to before. I didn't have that long to detect because I had other things to do so I was hoping for a few nice finds in the limited time that I had. Site has obviously been hit before but probably not in several years. I dug some lead and a small gilt flower cuff button before getting a nice high tone right to the side of the cellar hole. Turned out to be an iron washer! I left that area and dug a pewter button and then went back by that same area and got an even better sounding signal less than a foot away from the iron washer. This signal was copper 2 & 1/4 FTY, an 1818 matron head with a hole in the Center. I'm guessing the iron target may have discouraged other detectorists from digging this signal. I'm glad I rechecked that area. That was basically my last signal there cause I had to go but I was happy with what I had found. Sunday morning I met up with Jarrod to hit a site I had found while researching during the previous week. I was a little worried the site might be hit pretty hard cause it was very accessible to people who knew it was there but I still had my hopes up. We get to the site, it's a nice old cellar hole, not on any maps, and with a nice area to swing. I turn on my machine and it starts going crazy! Turns out the batteries are almost dead. Luckily, Jarrod had some in his car so he ran back and got me some. Without him, the hunt may have been over before I even dug a target. The day started out slow, not much directly around the cellar hole but once I moved just a little bit away from it I started getting signals. Dug a few flat buttons, part to a shoe buckle frame and a brass ring thing that rang up like a copper. I decide to swing in an area with some pine trees and get a super high VDI signal ringing up 85-90 but very shallow. I figured it was going to be one of those bullets with the massive copper jackets as they ring up in that range. Boy was I wrong. I pull out a coin sized disk with the outline of an eagle on it, and I thought I may have had one of those "no cash value" tokens. I was wrong again. It was a seated quarter!!!! My first ever seated quarter and it was in really great shape as well. I Call Jarrod over and I'm sitting on the ground staring at it when I decide to rechecked the dirt lying to my side and there's ANOTHER seated quarter in just as good a shape! I was shocked cause I had never found a seated quarter before and now I had TWO in the same hole. I could have found nothing else the rest of the day and still been happy but it was still early and there was still a whole day of detecting ahead. Pretty soon after those seateds Jarrod gets a crotal bell and a pewter matron head large cent. I've never heard of counterfeit matrons heads before but that's a really cool find in my book. I ended up digging a copper as well ( # 3 & 1/4 FTY) an 1832 matron I'm pretty great shape. Besides that I dug a massive shoe buckle tongue, Jarrod got an iron shoe buckle and some other odds and ends. Overall great morning and great site, we both went home happy. My day however was not over. I met up with Sam a few hours later and I took him to some new sites in an area I had researched. First site turned out to be a very old cabin site, we found the barn and the chimney pile but we couldn't find a well so I don't know how they got their water. Not much iron here and not many targets although most of the targets were right around the chimney pile. Sam got a pewter spoon handle and a button and I got an eschuchion plate and an old buckle. These people were probably very poor and only lived here for a short period of time. We moved on to the 2nd site and after a lot of searching we found it but it turned out to just be a barn foundation and no cellar hole. There was a lot of surface trash in the area so we left pretty quickly. I took Sam to a site that was on all of the historical maps and was still occupied in the early 20th century. I expected it to have been pounded over the years but since it was occupied for so long I still expected there to be some targets. My prediction was correct, massive piles of iron and broken bottles but there were also plenty of signals. I dug my first Indian head of the year, a nice open top thimble, two flat buttons, a pewter spoon handle, lantern piece, and some other relics. Most of the stuff I dug was actually right next to the cellar hole so I have no idea how these targets were missed over the years. There was a lot of iron and I had the small coil on the at pro so that might have been the reason. Sam didn't find much here but I think his machine may have been acting up so that was the reason. Overall an awesome week!! Happy hunting!