More Canadian Silver

Got back to the turned up site I mentioned yesterday for an hour or so and it was just as I had hoped. I found a nice 1939 Mercury dime and a little canadian silver 1880 five cent piece. Both of these coins were just inches below the surface. I know there is more there and I hope I have a chance to get back there before construction begins or whatever is going to happen. Also found live ammunition, a doll's arm, some kind of clay bead or marble, a tiny copper utensil, half of a skeleton key, and a large musket ball with verdigris that makes it look like a miniature planet earth.

Finally!

At last, the ground has mostly thawed and I have been able to get out here and there in the past few days. Some of this loot was found under a large pier at low tide, but most came from a nineteenth century cellar hole in Union.
Came out with a few good coins: a 1920 Mercury dime and a gorgeous 1870 Canadian dime, a 5-cent token from the 1800's, a unidentifiably worn large cent, and four wheat pennies. There is quite a selection of trinkets, too: a beautiful floral pattern brass button and a highly decorative little copper ring (I love the copper rings), a few simple brass/copper coat buttons and three stone/porcelain buttons, four buckles, one of which is a really amazing hand-hammered brass belt buckle, a fancy little ribbon clasp, pipe-stem, mystery devices and extremely large "shotgun shell" casings, a pocket-knife, some nice pottery shards and glass jar lids. Whew! All in all, a pretty successful few days hunts, considering I can really only get out in the early morning or evenings.

Mercury Rising

I have been working on a rooftop in Boothbay this week, putting some stone veneer on a chimney. The house is situated on this amazing point, flanked on either side by little coves, one of which is particularly sandy and inviting. I watched the tide go out all morning and I was thinking, wow, that cove looks just like a small boat landing. The home is located rather far out in the coastal williwags and there is no road leading down to the landing-cove anymore, but I had no trouble imagining some 19th Century lobsterman loading his boat up with wooden traps right there on that beach. Tide was lowest at lunch and I said to Damon, my business partner, "Let's get our food to go. I want to hit that beach for a few before we go back up on that roof."
I grabbed my machine and ran down the path to the water. After driving to the store, ordering food, paying, and driving back, there wasn't much time left for anything, but I was determined to get in at least a few moments. I swung the coil back and forth. Nothing. After a couple minutes, I thought that maybe this would be the first beach in Maine I had ever detected with not a bit of metal of any sort. Literally nothing, not even any muted "junk" signals from the E-trac. I checked to make sure it was on. Yep. Then a quiet, but solid signal in the 12 range, 12-30 or something. I suspected aluminum foil or a pull tab. However, out popped the first Mercury dime of the year! It's in rough shape, heavily weathered by the sea, so that I cannot even make out a date, but that's ok. There are more where that came from.