Yesterday found a bizarre mix of stuff in a field.  I had hit this field a couple of times before, finding a reale, an old ring, and a button from the 1870s or so.

Yesterday I hit a section where I had found a few musket balls.  Found a few more (8 to be exact); are you kidding me?

And that doesn’t count the ones I didn’t dig, which was prolly just as many.  These things come in at CO 30-35 on the E-Trac, and nothing good that I’m looking for lives there except half dimes and half reales, and these had a bigger sound, so I felt safe in leaving a few for the next guy.  I’ve prolly found about 15 or so myself in this area over the years. Why so many in one spot?

When I posted this pic on Facebook, someone suggested they may be “canister shot”.

Who knew such a thing existed?  I sure didn’t.

Anyway, I think he is right, cause they are all sort of in one place, and they do look more that color than lead that has been in the ground, and these were supposedly tin or tin-plated, tho one is definitely lead.

So, this is a Civil War era weapon.  Who knew such a weapon would have been fired in Chester County, PA?  I wonder under what circumstances?  You’d need a pretty big gun to fire off one of these things.  I have found no other old relics in the area.  Very weird, and kinda cool when you think about it.  Problem is, the area where these things are is at the corner of the field, so I’ll never find anything else to help solve this mystery.

Anyway, about 15 feet from this area was the most beautiful deep silver quarter sound you’d ever hear.  You think of all the cool things it could be, like bust or seated, and all the lame things it prolly is, like a copper buckle or toasted large cent, and you are digging, digging so carefully not to hit it with the digger, and what you get?  A 1962Q.  Are you kidding me?  It is the last thing I expected to find in an old field near these canister balls.

Yes, you can be disappointed when finding silver.  But, silver coins are hard to find, so you always take them.

I then proceeded to find a war nickel, which came in at CO 24 or so on the E-Trac, (usually they come in at 15), and a 15 gram 10K white gold class ring dated 1975.  All in the same field.  Very bizarre.  I will try to return the ring, but in past experience, that has been hard.

Found 2 silvers today, as well as a pair of silver blings.  2 hour hunt at a new site for me.  Just a small park in a small town.  Maybe, at best, a 5 silver site.  Prolly will come it at 3.  We’ll see.

Found the merc in the first 5 minutes, under a large nail; the nail was on the surface, and the merc was just a half inch down.  Q was found on a deep enbankment, as were the 2 blings.  Some people go to a park and start in the middle; I go to a park and start in the most awkward sections, usually the sides.  It worked today.  It often works.

This is my 6th hunt of the year.  A mix of old and new sites, including a ruin near my house that produced a merc.  No other silvers from those sites, so I’m at 3 for the year.

Its nice to be back.  That said, I will prolly only spend about 10-20% of the time hunting as I did in the past.  I will also prolly only blog month end summaries, unless I have a fantastic day.  I expect to spend about 70% of my hunting time in random fields, cause even tho you never find anything, it is just relaxing (and BTW. my last random field a couple of years ago netted me a very nice bust half, and a pair of seated dimes next to each other, so you don’t always don’t find nothing, but you get the idea; when you don’t find nothing, it can end well :)).  My goal is to find 15-25 silvers this year.

I still love park and school hunting, and figuring this and that out about these places, and where they were.  During my hayday, I found 1227 silvers over a 4 year period at such places.  Its just you run out of such places with 45 minutes of where you live.  There are only so many.  I don’t think I’ve found them all, but I’ve found a good number of them around here; maybe I’ll find some more, we’ll see, but the odds of that seem low.

But, that is not why I took a pause.  I took a pause cause I wanted to write a puzzle hunt.  So that is what I did, and it is cool.  If you figure it out, you even find silver.  The problem is, there is no real audience for this sort of thing.  But, I did it anyway, cause I wanted to.

https://www.puzzlemaze.org/games