AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I got out to a promising permission yesterday for a couple hours, but as the hunt progressed, it seemed the site wasn’t going to pan out nearly as well as I hoped. An hour and a half in, and I had nothing but a dozen or more old copper fasteners and miscellaneous other junk.
The hunt got rescued first by a jumpy 15-16 tone on the EQ800. It wasn’t a great sounding target, inconsistent as I turned on it - I knew it had just as much chance to be more junk as a decent, masked find. After digging the plug, I ended up struggling to pinpoint and see the target, but I finally caught sight of a penny sized, extremely crusty coin - only my second ever Fatty Indian! It didn’t clean up well, but the date is barely readable as 1864.
Very soon after that, I got over another mid-tone, about 16-17 this time if I remember right. Thinking maybe it was another fatty, I dug down and was just as happy to see a small, domed button! Right out of the hole, I could see that it might have some interesting detail on the face of it - what I thought was a Viking ship was pretty easily seen even through the crud. I still just popped it into my “good smalls” pouch though, thinking it was cool, but probably not anything too exciting. Once I got home, I could see the lettering around the base of the dome was fairly prominent, and even a gentle rub with my fingers brought out the words “Vol Militia” across the bottom, then “New Hampshire” across the top!! The “Viking ship” turns out to be the ship on the Great Seal of New Hampshire! I was floored to realize I probably have my first true Civil War button!
The shank is broken on the back, and the backmark is a bit rough, but I believe it says “Scovill” for the manufacturer. And how cool for a New Hampshire Volunteer Militia cuff button to turn up in an Ohio field a century and a half or so later! Also goes to show how quickly a slow hunt or seemingly ordinary find can get extremely cool very quickly!
Out of time, I continued to swing a bit as I made my way back to the car, and finished up with an 1883 Indian in pretty nice shape - so overall, the last 30 minutes of the hunt ended up being pretty nice
The hunt got rescued first by a jumpy 15-16 tone on the EQ800. It wasn’t a great sounding target, inconsistent as I turned on it - I knew it had just as much chance to be more junk as a decent, masked find. After digging the plug, I ended up struggling to pinpoint and see the target, but I finally caught sight of a penny sized, extremely crusty coin - only my second ever Fatty Indian! It didn’t clean up well, but the date is barely readable as 1864.
Very soon after that, I got over another mid-tone, about 16-17 this time if I remember right. Thinking maybe it was another fatty, I dug down and was just as happy to see a small, domed button! Right out of the hole, I could see that it might have some interesting detail on the face of it - what I thought was a Viking ship was pretty easily seen even through the crud. I still just popped it into my “good smalls” pouch though, thinking it was cool, but probably not anything too exciting. Once I got home, I could see the lettering around the base of the dome was fairly prominent, and even a gentle rub with my fingers brought out the words “Vol Militia” across the bottom, then “New Hampshire” across the top!! The “Viking ship” turns out to be the ship on the Great Seal of New Hampshire! I was floored to realize I probably have my first true Civil War button!
The shank is broken on the back, and the backmark is a bit rough, but I believe it says “Scovill” for the manufacturer. And how cool for a New Hampshire Volunteer Militia cuff button to turn up in an Ohio field a century and a half or so later! Also goes to show how quickly a slow hunt or seemingly ordinary find can get extremely cool very quickly!Out of time, I continued to swing a bit as I made my way back to the car, and finished up with an 1883 Indian in pretty nice shape - so overall, the last 30 minutes of the hunt ended up being pretty nice
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), so all is just about returning to normal...until the next time I throw it out 
It happens once or twice a year - hopefully this will be it for 2019!
