First a little bit about yesterday, where the family whet to the Celtic Classic, in Bethlehem, which claims to be the best Celtic music festival in the world.  It may be, but I’ve been to better  There is no question in my mind however, that it is the best free Celtic festival in the Mid-Atlantic area.  It was good, and we will probably be regular attendees going forward.

We, of course, went to see Barleyjuice, who nailed it in spades, and were by far the best Celtic rock fusion band we saw on the day, (and the only band on the day that we saw who managed an encore). But, an honorable mention goes to Girsa; we had not heard this band before, but will go out of our way to do so going forward.  A six piece all female outfit wielding the traditional Celtic instruments (including dueling accordions (are you kidding me?), but sadly, no bagpipes).  Good stuff tho — its online, check it out if you like this sort of music.

But, the highlight of the day was a band called Brother.  A fusion of Celtic and Australian tribal music with some electronic wizardry thrown in, but were not remotely close to sounding like an electronic band.  Are you kidding me?  A three piece outfit: polyrhythmic drums, bagpipe/guitar/vox, dithery-doo/keyboards/sampling/sequencing/playback.  Are you kidding me?  Incredible sound.  We’ll be doing more research, especially in regards to whether the online sound is as good as live, but its time to move onto the silver.

And the silver is this.  I didn’t expect to het out today, but I managed to, and found some abused silver.  Silver is rarely abused, but I got a couple of ’em today.  Check out the first one —

Are you kidding me?  I almost threw the thing in the trash pouch, as I thought it was an iron false, but I saw the parts of a merc on one side.

I worked on this thing for 45 minutes to get the iron crap off of it.  First thing I found was that the date was a 1916.  Next thing I found was that the condition was likely XF-40 (ex external damage), based on the lines on the fasces.  Finally, looking at the mintmark area, it was ambiguous as to whether there was a mintmark or not (and that is a big deal on 1916 mercs, for those who don’t know).  I worked the crap off the coin as much as I could, hoping for no D mintmark (as who would want their 16D to be this train wreck), and fortunately, as near as I can tell, there is no mintmark.

All I can say is that it is nice that the E-Trac can find such a coin encrusted in iron.

The other silver was better, but not much better.  A 1914 barber dime, also ferrous abused (as is evident in the pic below).  Also pulled a 1919 buff and 2 wheaties, 1916 and 1918.  This site has now surrendered 13 coins, all dated from 1905 to 1920.  Below are the two silvers and the buff; I’m too embarrassed to show the front of the 1916 merc; it is a train wreck.