RIdirtdigger
04-12-2016, 03:24 PM
Early last week I got a message from a fellow detectorist named Brendan who lives in Mass, saying he had a good spot up in his neck of the woods and was wondering if I wanted to hit it with him. Having hunted with him once before last summer, I was more than happy to accept the invitation. The place didn't really produce but I did score a 1939 Mercury dime at a nearby church he had permission to. That was on Wednesday after school. Friday after class I headed out to a spot I thought there was a cellar hole. I get there and after searching couldn't find one. Knowing nobody would take the time to clear out this area and make stone walls, I decided to start swinging and hopefully find some kind of cabin site. I find an area near two rock piles that has the highest concentration of iron. Right next to a tree I get a high tone. I thought it was gonna be an ox knob or something but I pull out a huge pewter disk. I instantly recognize it as a counterfeit 8 reale based on the size. I then proceed to pull out two more each five feet away from the next! All are dated 1766 and look like they never saw a day in ciruculation. My guess is they were made here at this site and that a counterfeiter inhabited this cabin site. All of the other stuff I found was basically within 100 or so feet of the reale spill, some targets being 1-2 feet from each other. There is no doubt in my mind this was virgin site. The amount of targets in such a small area cast away all doubts. All of the relics are mostly in the 1760-1780 range which leads me to believe this site didn't last very long. Only item found outside this date range was my first ever blow hole button. I never did find a well which is puzzling but also probably explains why this site was never hit before. There is a natural spring close by so that could be the reason. Overall great site. Saturday I met up with Brendan again but this time took him to a patch of woods with over 10 cellar holes that I've done pretty well at in the past. We hiked out butts off and must have hit close to 10 sites. I found 23 buttons a personal best for me, and every single site produced targets, something that doesn't happen very often. Also scored the smallest thimble I've ever seen and my first ever shoe buckle chape with only one spike. No coins though. Overall great day and Brendan found around 10 buttons as well. Sunday I did my usual weekend hunt with Jarrod. I had high hopes for the sites but they ended up being disappointing. First site was a poor site, and quite odd as the celar hole was built nearly at the edge of a cliff/ledge. Scored a dandy and two matching tombacs there. 2nd site was also a dud but gave up two buttons. The third site which I had really high hopes for turned out to be hammered. I scored a cuff link and one button. Jarrod didn't find anything worth mentioning sadly. Some days are frustrating like that. I then headed over to CT by myself hit one site I had been wanting to hit for several weeks now. Well I ended up hitting 5 sites as I kept on running into them on both my walk in and out lol. They were all hit pretty hard but still were filled with buttons as that was basically all I dug out of them. Overall on the day I dug 18. Not bad. I'm satisfied with the weekend, probably never gonna find an 8 reale spill again, counterfeit or not. HH