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New Jersey vacation/MD adventures

Nailfinder85

Full Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2019
Messages
155
Made it home this afternoon after 2 days on the road and a nice night in WV to wrap up a 9 day trip to NJ.
I won’t bore you with the family stuff but as a long time relic hunter and local history enthusiast growing up in jersey chasing arrowheads wandering every plowed field I could find and bugging everyone’s grandparents (including my own) over the years I have a pretty good idea of the lay of the land in years past. Old home sites, stores, bars, marinas and shipyards. My time was limited so I went for the BEST. We had a family vacation agenda to uphold and I was chomping at the bit to swing my detector over ANYTHING. I remembered stories of an old home that had a store in the basement, late 1800s, but the home was there first. By the early 1900s there was a small store behind the home with eventually one hand crank gas pump. Heard word of a bank attached to the store or next to it but haven’t been able to get to the bottom of that....yet. Rest assured I’ll keep researching and be to continue my digging. It took me 5 minutes to dig my first mercury dime(1917). Then the wheat pennies, 1 and 2 at a time. 1895 IHP in the driveway near where the gas pump stood. Soil was light and sandy, pure sand in some spots after the grass layer, which had the mercury dimes like you ran them through a sand blaster, clean as could be but very warn. Coins in the sandy stuff was consistently 8” deep. Other areas were gravel/topsoil that held a lot of moisture and produced several warn down IHPs and wheaties. 1913-45 on the wheats, most of them 1913-23. Probably 35 total. All the coins in the top soil/gravel layer was 4” and corroded. I’m sure you all understand this better than me. Mind you this is near the shore and salt probably plays a factor even though this site is inland about 30 miles from the ocean and 1 mile from a bay. I’ll provide more details after another 40 years of detecting it. Most of the coins came from what would have been the store front in the separate building behind the home. Understandably so and it was a blast, my dad is learning a brand new equinox 600 and he is still there digging coins, probably as you read this, he is digging away. Purchased a bounty hunter pioneer 202 off of an old friends garage wall and my 12 year old daughter took a whopping 10 minutes to start digging IHPs and then a really cool broach that we have yet to identify. We spent 45mins-1 hour a day digging 5-10 coins a day and a few relics, an old brass bell, shipyard tool tAg. I wish I could tell you more about the readings of my finds but I use a bounty hunter and it is pretty basic, ihps read like 1cent or s-cap. Merc dimes are 10cent.......I look for solid signals that don’t bounce around and I was borrowing my daughters brand new....I mean old dusty pioneer 202 that reads depth, this is new technology for me::::::insert laughter here::::::: On second to last day after being rained out a few days I head for the old home that has been added to over the years, but two walls are the original foundation and I was not disappointed. I get high silver readings and assume it’s nails or tin from home additions and move on. I find a buffalo nickel at the 8” mark a few feet from the foundation and a few more wheats. Before dark I couldn’t resist the nagging and head back to my silver spot. While my dAd an daughter work away at the out building/store I sink my shovel in next to the home heading for the standard 8” depth(I’m using my bounty hunter SS2) remember, no depth reading and my daughter is over digging ihps as fast as you could clean them off for her, so good luck getting the pioneer for a minute. I dig one good scoop along the old foundation, fairly easy digging in the soft soil and dump it aside not looking because the good stuffs at 8” right? Nope. Nope. I see the edge of a big round coin............


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I see the size of this disc and it’s bigger than any coin that I know of and grabbed it up. This soil is so soft and clean that coins would fall out of a plug and slip through fingers, making it tricky, especially for three beginners. As I grab it I hear metal on metal sliding and realize there is 2.[emoji15][emoji15]. Quite astounded I jump to my feet rubbing the face of the coins with my thumb like a genie was going to come out. “Awesome!! What the hell is it!?” I thought. I quickly grab the detector and swing her a few times revealing 2 more in the hole. But all at only 3-4”. I didn’t think about it much but went straight for my phone in the house and started looking up barber dollars [emoji23]. The day before we found a barber dime(1900) and it resembled it. Morgan dollar comes up and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t what was in my hand. 1 1899 and 3 1921. As rumor has it the home belonged to a wealthy family before its current owners and our theory is it was either hidden or stashed in the mid 1900s but probably spent a long time not in the ground. We are all very amateur and I’ll be the last person to play mr know it all but we all agreed that the wear and tear on the coin along with the depth was not consistent with the rest, but they are also bigger and not as likely to sink if they were laying flat. They were on edge the best I could tell but I expected them so much deeper that they were out of the hole and flipped up before I knew it and the other 2 were just under them where I scooped so they had to be all pretty close together, but I’m not sure how they were laying before I disturbed them.(lesson learned). I’m new to this and willing to listen to theories. With the sandy soil most coins were clean and the top soil in some areas stained the coins kinda dark but really easy to clean. Anything that came out of the gravely topsoil was corroded but still identifiable. Few IHPs in rough shape but most stuff was clean especially the silver. Baking soda water and a toothbrush, and a few toothpicks/wooden skewers. Trick i was taught by ToySoldier for cleaning coins everything came up great and we are still sifting through research, values and IDing. We were excited and killed us to leave but can’t wait to go back. If I recall any more tidbits I will and I’ll do my best to upload pics. It seemed there was some skepticism from some folks, not sure what to tell you.[emoji2371]


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Congrats on some fantastic hunting and finds .Your play by play and photos are excellent . I can still feel a bit of the thrill I had every time I think back
on finding my silver dollar several years ago .
 
Thanks! Probably Won’t happen much in my metal detecting career


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I should include that this was not nearly all the finds or coins. Just the best or cream of the crop as they say.


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I should include that this was not nearly all the finds or coins. Just the best or cream of the crop as they say.


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The specific style of the possible brooch looks to me like Art Nouveu. That started during the end of the Victorian era and ended in the 1910s. So, perhaps 1890 to 1920. That would be consistent with the coins, too.

I'm also leaning towards the decorative end of a hat pin. I like that idea a lot, especially if you can't see any way it would have attached from the back like a brooch would. If it's a hat pin, then there would just be a long metal pin attached to the middle of the back or directly off the bottom.

If it is a brooch, it's likely that a gemstone would have hung from the bottom.
 
The specific style of the possible brooch looks to me like Art Nouveu. That started during the end of the Victorian era and ended in the 1910s. So, perhaps 1890 to 1920. That would be consistent with the coins, too.



I'm also leaning towards the decorative end of a hat pin. I like that idea a lot, especially if you can't see any way it would have attached from the back like a brooch would. If it's a hat pin, then there would just be a long metal pin attached to the middle of the back or directly off the bottom.



If it is a brooch, it's likely that a gemstone would have hung from the bottom.



I will surely be back to look for the gemstone however I could not find any pin or any way of attaching that piece to anything or even a mark where there was a pin. I am stumped on it but I believe you probably have a much better idea than me. I believe the era is correct. Most of it was late 1800s to early 1900s. I’ll keep researching, thanks for the help buddy!


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My guess is that someone sat against the side of the house, and the big-heavy coins simply fell out of their pocket...probably in tallish grass, and then never realized they were missing till later, and had no clue where they went.

Because it's next to the foundation, less traffic, and moisture, means less vibration and softness to settle through, hence the lower depth.

Cheers! and AMAZING finds!

Skippy
 
Wow a 3 Morgan spill is just incredible! I need a Morgan, not sure when that will happen though, too me forever to find a peace dollar. Big congrats!
 
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