Ghost town/stage stop trip with Tom_in_CA

Tom, his friend Tony, and I went on a 2.5 day weekend detecting adventure a couple of weekends ago.

First up was a civil war era encampment that the Union Army frequented that seems to pork out lots of buttons and lead, a few relics, and very few coins (which seems really odd?). Id' say that by now, between Tom and I alone, that we've dug well over 600+ conductors there, of which only two were coins. No belt or cartridge box plates, no bit bosses, only one company letter, no regiment numbers, seems odd, but I'm not complaining, I enjoy finding civil war era buttons and lead, and heck we don't even have to go back east Even though research seems to indicate this was mainly a cavalry camp, this is the first button we've found that actually had a cavalry C in the shield. Also that little bit on the bottom right, is actually a two piece button, the front seems to have some kind of goldstone that they polished out a letter "S" and left the rest matte finished. It's a tiny button, if it hadn't had a button loop on the back, I'd likely thought it was a bit of junk - lol





Does anyone know what this is? It was a heck of a signal, some kind of cast bronze/brass decorative thing, we're thinking it could be part of an old gun (see above next to the buttons for a size estimate)???

It definitely has a pre-industrial revolution era hand cast look to it like items we find at late 1700's/early 1800's Spanish era sites.





The next site is one that I've known of it's existence for ten years, but it wasn't until I brought Tom out on a ghost town trip, that we discussed the site, and decided to get serious about locating it. It took lots of research time and a few trips to the area to finally find the X marks the spot location. Now that we have, it seems to be a virgin site, all but forgotten to time.




This was the highlight of my finds, one of 56,000 minted, considered the key date Seated Liberty Quarter, sans the Carson City issues:



Thanks for looking and HH,
Brian



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2017 06:57PM by Cal_cobra.

Brian, awesome pix. For those who aren't making the connection: See Brian's prior post on the "before" pix of that quarter. Several folks chimed in on the "clean" vs "don't clean" question. As you can see, if came out quite nice. NOT that it's perfect. There DOES seem to be some "kiss" evident. But most certainly it is no worse than the prior black condition, IMHO.

If it strictly came down to selling, then just as many potential buyers would bristle at the black, as opposed to any that would bristle at this end result. So to me: It's AT WORST a move sideways. I think Brian did a good job at conservation of the coin. Given the condition it was in, and the risk involved.

I thinking that if he sent it in for slab/grade, it would come back with "environmental" notation. But as for "cleaned", I think he has left nearly zero trace of that. And ... to be honest , even the "environmental" could be worse (we've all seen worse). Thus .... what do you guys think ? $3k ? $5k ? etc...

thanx for the followup Brian !

Beautiful coin, and many other good finds.

Thanks for sharing.

Very nice artifacts! Congrats on the great finds. The piece you asked about. Perhaps part of a sword or bowie knife guard? Hard to see it as a gun part. Any signs of wear on the bottom of the swirl like it had been a foot for a lamp or some such?
Lovely coin! Looks perfect for what it is. It's worth whatever someone will pay.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

ncwayne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
The piece you asked about. Hard to see it as a gun part
> . Any signs of wear on the bottom of the swirl like it had been a foot for a lamp or some such?

> Wayne

My thoughts exactly NCWayne

like a foot to a lamp, furniture piece, etc

ncwayne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Very nice artifacts! Congrats on the great finds.
> The piece you asked about. Perhaps part of a sword
> or bowie knife guard? Hard to see it as a gun part
> . Any signs of wear on the bottom of the swirl lik
> e it had been a foot for a lamp or some such?
> Lovely coin! Looks perfect for what it is. It's wo
> rth whatever someone will pay.
>
> Wayne

Thanks Wayne.

I cleaned that decorative cast metal mystery piece a bit and took a closer look. Under a 10X loupe I can't see any obvious signs of wear on the bottom of the swirl end. Underneath the flat part they left the casting rough, so it was likely mean to face down. It's probably a decorative foot or possible part of a handle from something, like a candle holder or lamp, but it's 1700's or older all the way. It's hand cast, all the designs were tooled by hand, and all the detail was done by hand. This area was also a camping spot for emigrants going west, so no doubt they brought all their family possessions with them, so I could see this being from a candle stick, lamp or maybe fancy knife (starting to doubt knife though), or who knows.

-Brian

The seated quarter turned out very well!

Congrats on all the C.W. finds.

Detecting since Feb, 2010
E-trac with 18"x15" SEF, 13" Ultimate coil, Pro coil, Minelab 8" coil, 4.5"x7" SEF, Sunray target probe
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AWESOME !!!!

Nice going! I have only dug a handful of plates in Calvary Camps here in Virginia. Mostly sling buckles , bat wings, Company letter's are not common finds!