Hi all. Most here know me already. My name is Barry and I run the Artifact Detecting Team charity hunts on the south fork of eastern Long Island, NY - hunts we do on colonial era properties all for the benefit of the local historical society. Yesterday, for a change, I was invited to someone else field on the north fork of eastern LI - both forks were settled in the 1640 time frame - I brought along Bob one of the trustees of the historical society and now an avid metal detectorist himself.
This particular field was about 250 yards down from an old Indian fort which is now a national historic site - as you can well imagine I was pretty excited to hunt this property...It was a gorgeous day and we were on the field by 8am. The person who had invited me had assured me that he had permission. Although the signals were scarce, the field was clean and large and I knew that eventually if there was something there we would find it. After about an hour, a guy pulls up in his pickup and starts walking towards me (I was the closest to him) yelling "what the heck are you doing?". Calmly I told him "we're just metal detecting - looking for old buttons and buckles - we have permission to be here, the guy over there, Jim, knows the farmer"...Well this guy proceeds to tell me that he is the farmer, the field we are on is a sod field and we're tearing up his fresh planted seed. You can well imagine that after he went over to have a word with Jim we got off that field in a hurry...
Fast forward to 10am. Bob and myself are back on the south fork at one of my fields. The last time I was on this field was a year ago and although it was a large field, there was a small section that had given up the goods. Bob and I headed straight for that section. In about 15 minutes of gridding a few rows I get a 12-36 signal on my E-Trac. Immediately I had a smile on my face wondering what goodie I had. Well I could not believe what I pulled out - the 1666 Spanish cob 1 reale size Potosi mint - WOW - I'm in the 1600's club - Holy s**t - I've found a few milled reales but the cob is amazing. To think - this coin was dropped by one of our earliest settlers - almost 350 years of incredible history and I just saved it.
Well the day may have started on a bad note but sure ended up with a song...
This particular field was about 250 yards down from an old Indian fort which is now a national historic site - as you can well imagine I was pretty excited to hunt this property...It was a gorgeous day and we were on the field by 8am. The person who had invited me had assured me that he had permission. Although the signals were scarce, the field was clean and large and I knew that eventually if there was something there we would find it. After about an hour, a guy pulls up in his pickup and starts walking towards me (I was the closest to him) yelling "what the heck are you doing?". Calmly I told him "we're just metal detecting - looking for old buttons and buckles - we have permission to be here, the guy over there, Jim, knows the farmer"...Well this guy proceeds to tell me that he is the farmer, the field we are on is a sod field and we're tearing up his fresh planted seed. You can well imagine that after he went over to have a word with Jim we got off that field in a hurry...
Fast forward to 10am. Bob and myself are back on the south fork at one of my fields. The last time I was on this field was a year ago and although it was a large field, there was a small section that had given up the goods. Bob and I headed straight for that section. In about 15 minutes of gridding a few rows I get a 12-36 signal on my E-Trac. Immediately I had a smile on my face wondering what goodie I had. Well I could not believe what I pulled out - the 1666 Spanish cob 1 reale size Potosi mint - WOW - I'm in the 1600's club - Holy s**t - I've found a few milled reales but the cob is amazing. To think - this coin was dropped by one of our earliest settlers - almost 350 years of incredible history and I just saved it.
Well the day may have started on a bad note but sure ended up with a song...
