Mystery Copper

Back to yesterday’s site.  The weatherman claimed it was getting up to 48 today, but it didn’t even feel close.  No sun, and a biting chill wind.  Felt like it was 28.  Well, at least I’m fortunate enough to detect now as others deal with snow, so I should stop whining about the weather.

I’ll whine about Chester County coppers instead, as that is a favorite topic around here.  Pulled this treasure today.

What’s interesting about it is that it is larger than a large cent or your typical British George II/G III copper.  Its a hefty 17.54 gr, 32mm diameter, and 2mm thick.  Its diameter, at least, is consistent with a couple of the more exotic coppers in the early pages of the Redbook.

(And I swear, before I looked in the Redbook, when I put it under water, it seemed there was a bust with a weird neckline and unusual hair, and the typical wreath on the back; features exactly consistent (along with the diameter), of the birch cent.  It even appears to have lettering on the edge, tho I can only make out what looks like one or two of the letters.  There are only 8 or so known of them, so its not that — amazing what the mind will do when it tries to fit ambiguity.  Too bad I’ll never know what it is (and you don’t want it to be something that rare, cause you feel even worse that it is so abused).  Oh, and if you are a copper expert a know a copper that fits those measurements, please post a comment.

As for silver, continued to work the grid in the same direction per yesterday’s entry, and made up a little on the whacked dime/quarter ratio, pulling 4 rosies, 3 of them barely legal.  We’ll take em.

And the rest of the hunt produced a pic that is even harder on the eyes than that copper.  A massive pile of clad.  Yuck!  That’s $5.50 worth of dirty money.  Are you kidding me?  I haven’t dug that much in a very long time. (Just an interesting fact for those reading who are not detectorists — just those 4 dimes above are worth over $8, compared to that junk below (of course its about the sport, not the money, but I figured I’d point that out for reference)).

I guess that it is statistical revenge, cause up to now, this site has had very favorable clad/silver ratio, but I wasted alot of time digging it today.  Problem was, they were mostly deep and iffy, and many sounded good due to nearby trash and perhaps the added effects of the heavy mineralization.  You gotta dig ’em, and it is painful. You don’t know how many times I was certain I had a silver Q. And, speaking of the Q’s all 13 I dug today were dated 65-71, most 65-67.  Are you kidding me?

Also pulled a silver ring (the one on the left).  The silver cub scout ring on the right was pulled yesterday; forgot about it yesterday’s writeup.

As for working the site, its sort of in who knows? mode now.  I pretty much finished up the last of the most promising section today (which, BTW, took me right into the heart of where the old timer’s halfs supposedly were, got about 3 or 4 good, deep half dollar signals, but lots of wasted adrenaline, as it was all junk).

So, we got a few loose ends here, the section I think is filled/dead, and acres and acres of expanding away from the hot area into nondescript fields.  I got to at least clean up the loose ends, and try a couple of days expanding into those fields, especially given that copper, but it may have given up its last silver today.  Lets hope not, but we’ll see.  43 tho, ain’t too bad.

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