Here's 1/2 reale I dug today here in N.GA

and they are rare up this way....Only my second one in this area.....But I had to pound this site to come up with it...it's a Charles the III so it's between 1759-1788...and as wore as it is I would guess it circulated till the civil war...That's the time period site it came out of...

It was just a slight chirp on my Tejon in a nail bed.....

I have a entrenching tool I use to chase ghost signal's.....And I have mounted a small but powerful magnet on the back and it helps a lot when picking through iron debris....you can see in the pic's how it porcupines up when stuck in dug holes chasing target's...

Thought I would share......

And remember when hunting hunted out spot's rust is a must!!!


By civilwarrelics at 2011-08-17


By civilwarrelics at 2011-08-17

I don't have to tell you how small half reale's are...
Thanks

Keith

Congrats Keith!
Good job poundin that site and not letting the nails beat you!

You nailed aHalf Dime! Very nice.................and...................yes............ most probably a Civil War drop. If you only knew HOW much was 'masked' under all that iron. Some iron you can hear/detect................some iron you cannot hear/detect. In either case.......it will mask most targets.

WTG Keith!!! Yes, I have to agree, it would be scary to see what we miss under all the iron in some of the camps we dig. Awesome half reale and yes they are small and thin!

Nice find Keith!

Yeah that darn iron.....if only we could see what it was masking

I'm suprised you didn't find it with the I.D. Edge you have as good as it is iron.

Cool find Keith!!! WTG!!!!

Welcome to the club Keith I have found (2) so far. YES, they are mighty thin and small. When I found mine, it was soooooooooooooo worn I actually started to chuck it into my trash pouch - I thought it was the round tab from a can or a slug. It was THAT worn. Of the (2) I found, the one in the link is actually the BETTER of the two if you can believe it.

BIG, BIG, BIG Congrats to you!!!!!!!!!! May that be the first of many

[forum.treasurenet.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2011 09:57PM by njnydigger.

Way to go Keith...I just wonder how many novice or unsuspecting detectorists may have actually thrown that away as you mentioned...I can easily see where they would call it TRASH. Ouch.

It's the other silent killer!!!!

This summer I have been doing a bit of digging of hunted out sites with the main aim of just digging it all....hunting small areas in house sites in all metal mode and the rewards are there...but it's an awful lot of digging but a wealth of knowledge is and has and will been gained....

I am just trying to see what I can get without getting the sifter out....

And believe me when I say there's still more in the ground in certain area's than has ever come out of the area's in all years combined....

Whatever someone might think they know about iron and masking is just elementary at best till a total site "cleansing" is approached...


right now (and this is just re-assuring) there's no way with current technology we can even get 20% of all the site hold's in terms of non-ferrous target's if the area is littered in iron debris.

I know it's old hat to you Tom .....I myself have studied the effect's of masking over many year's and tried different ways to hunt it ....But to any one who wants to really get to know interaction of iron/dirt/co-located target's I advise you to start a site cleansing attempt....Just pick a small area maybe 5'x5" in a nail littered area and remove every target your machine (placed in all metal or zero disc all metal) can hear as you remove the dirt....This is the best alternative once you get your site down to not producing...


Lots of info to be gained nothing to be lost.....

Keith

Kieth, don't forget the earth magnet. It will get all the little tiny specks of iron maskers along with the bigger pieces. As you know, lot of work digging and sanitizing a pit as not all of them produce, bring a lunch.

That is exactly what I do.........is a 5-foot by 5-foot area...........and with a Rare Earth magnet.

What is quite interesting is:

You dig a 5' x 5' area of dirt. Then.......... you detect the excavated pile of dirt and remove ALL detected metallic targets. ( Then....and only then.... a few non-ferrous targets become unmasked).

THEN.......... AFTER this effort............. you can detect NOTHING in the excavated pile of dirt. Now.........You FALSELY believe that there are no more metallic targets in the excavated dirt. Then........... enter the Rare Earth magnet. On your hands-and-knees........... you scrub/sweep/push the Rare Earth magnet through as much of the dirt as possible. Your hand and magnet become completely covered in iron rust flakes/flecks..... to the point where your hand looks like a bee-hive. You perform this several times in the dirt....... until the magnet results produce minimal Fe/iron. THEN.......... you make a pass over the dirt with the metal detector............. and magic appears to happen...... as SEVERAL non-ferrous targets come to light. Some small.... and some quite big.

Painful........ but PRICELESS.

And we (falsely) think: "" If I pass my coil over it....... I'll find it ""

Its surprising how much JUNK can come out of that seemingly small area 25 sq ft. Hundreds of various kinds of nails, screws and millions of fragments of iron. The metal detector is hardly even used until the first 5" are removed, the magnet and the shovel are mostly all that are used.
Painstaking...to say the least.

Like I stated earlier I am in no way up to snuff on Spanish Colonial coins by no mean's.....But both the Reales I have luckily managed to retrieve within a few miles of My home here in Paulding county GA are absent dates....or at least a positive date.....

But I have managed to close the window of time on them down to a 16 year span and that more than tickles me ...I know both mine has the bust on one side and the roman numeral III for Charles the 3rd....Well after some sleuth work the bust coins were not minted till 1772 and Charles reign ended in 1788 so there's my window...the 1789 have Charles the 4th ...

I am real happy with the dates ....that places them in the American Revolution time period ......And that means they circulated around during the founding of the Nation and went through the federal period and then to think was lost in another War on American soil by some poor soldier.....

Really makes you step back and think...How something so small was interwoven into something so big!!!!!!


I have pulled a couple of pieces of info off other sites here's the info I found fascinating ...



and here's some great info.......

"The failure of the United State Mint to produce an adequate coinage of its own perpetuated the circulation of Spanish coins for decades. Contributing to this problem was that the Spanish coins, which were frequently clipped and worn, were readily spent, while the federal coins, with their higher intrinsic value, were either hoarded or shipped overseas for recoining in Europe.



From the very outset, Congress established legal tender values for each of the various foreign pieces familiar to 18th Century Americans. It was hoped that this step would be a temporary one, but practical necessity mandated that their legal tender status be renewed time and again. It was not until the 1850s that the USA had enough domestic coinage in circulation to permit withdrawl of the Spanish issues, the only foreign pieces that still maintained a large presence.



Despite the loss it would incur on the underweight Spanish coins, the Treasury began redeeming these pieces in 1857 at a modest discount from their nominal face value. Given in exchange were the new small cents first coined that year as a replacement for the large copper cents and half cents, which were also being retired with the Spanish pieces. This program was renewed through 1860, and it brought to an end the circulation of these historic coins in most of the nation, though rural areas continued to utilize the old bits as late as the 1870s"

here's a page link for the info [www.coinsite.com]


Just thought I would share in my research...or for people who are having a hard time dating there's.....[metaldetectingworld.com]

Good info Keith..and............. I like your thought-process.

If reales are that rare in your neck of the woods, imagine how rare they are in California! But they do exist in the early Spanish mission settlement areas, and can be found in the earliest areas inhabited during the gold rush. I was hunting with a buddy one such area, and ten feet away from me he got an 1801 1 reale. I was lucky enough to find a Phoenix button on that hunt, but so far the reales have alluded me About 40 reales have come from this area, and an escudo. Most of them are from the mid to late 1700's.

Keep rockin' it Keith!

HH,
Brian

I would love to take a crack at some of those California Spanish mission's and camp trails''''

Maybe one day I can get out that way ....I would like to get me a Miner 49er' relic and West coast Spanish Artifact.....

The problems here in the Deep South there's plenty of Spanish missions sites in Florida ( there's a string of them across NFlorida and the panhandle) and South Georgia and even along the South Carolina Coast but the materials they used to make the missions was the Waddle and daub for most part and that's just clay and straw compound...so they are like looking for needle's in haystack's,,,,

I would think with the better building material's encountered in the western states that they would at least be easier to locate and trails can maybe? Probably ?Hopefully still be seen?

Me personally If I lived out your way I would spend great amount's of time in the back wood's of California...even those site's that have been hit hard have just had the surface touched....

I bet with the right combination of method's and finding what works on the site's and lot's of work and sweat ...An unbelievable amount of History could be extracted from the ground in any one of the so-called worked out site's....


I know you live there and now more about it than I do.....and I might be barking up the wrong tree but it just seems doable....I would bet you could come up with some great Spanish coins and religious item's...?????

Am I far off base???


On a side note to that .....we had some interior Spanish sites here in the deep south...as far as Tennessee ...I have very recently stumbled onto a site by accident more than anything that has a small amount of from what I can tell from research 16th century rose head Nails!!!

Keith

Keith

Hey guys -- this "using a magnet" thing on a pile of dirt that you have dug is fascinating. NASA Tom, can you point me to a "rare earth" type of magnet that you feel would be appropriate, that can be found/purchased online? I want to give this idea a try...

Steve

You can find them on e-bay..... and at reasonable prices. You will need N42 strength (at minimum)....... and I would recommend one with approx dimensions 1" x 2" x 4".........as it fits your hand better...... for swiping it through excavated piles of dirt.

(( I have also made much more lengthy posts about these magnets...... somewhere on this forum )).

I buy alot of magnets for business and r&d, the best place I have found for buying a single N45 mangnet @ a the best price is www.unitednuclear.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2011 02:36PM by Aaron.

Thanks NASA Tom and Aaron. I will look into these...

Steve

Tom told us a good story about an earth magnet, I'll sum it up from memory. It was in an old post.
He had it in his jean pocket and when getting into his vehicle it stuck to it thru the jeans. He was hanging there and had to ask a some guys to help him get unstuck. Now that's funny.

Small point I'm trying to make is; these magnets have a lot of power in them. Always know where you set them down and what's near them. Keep away from children and most adults. I keep mine wrapped several times in bubblewrap and in a plastic container. Keep away from pacemakers and defibulators, to be on the safe side.
You'll see.

Man guys, I did a bit of reading on these things...they sound kind of scary! The unitednucler site Aaron mentioned warned against having them even CLOSE to things like memory cards, hard drives, etc. Of course that makes sense, but I guess these things could even screw with my cell phone (or possibly even the detector?)

Steve

Somewhere on this forum..... I have a couple of long threads/reports as to the power of these magnets. They are quite dangerous to body parts......if you are close to other Fe metal parts. I would feel MUCH more comfortable carrying a revolver with the hammer cocked........ then to carry a fairly large Rare Earth magnet. With the pistol...... you "KNOW" the danger. With the magnet..... you do not 'see' the danger...... and it is somewhat unsuspecting. Extremely beneficial tool. Just be careful.

I think i picked mine up at DOC's out in Vegas. Dont even get two of them together. When it sticks to something you dont have to worry about loosing it.

Dew

NASA Tom --

I better do some searches of other threads you have done on these...as much as I hate to admit it, I'm clueless here...can't figure out what you mean by dangerous to body parts...unless you mean because they will literally make "projectiles" out of nearby iron pieces...

I better do some reading...!!

Steve

Mostly..... to fingers.