Can You Imagine Finding this with a Metal Detector in a Tomato Garden?

Yes, I can imagine that.

What a thrill it must have been.

Some of my dig buddies have found amazing things.

For just one example, look closely at some of the silver my friend Tim Buck - who lived in New Hampshire - found in just two or three months during his last summer detecting (before he passed away unexpectedly).

His brief digging career was brilliant while it lasted, and I had the pleasure of going out in the field with him when he visited here. He plucked a 1799 half-real from one of my previously hunted sites.

Here's just a sampling of his final silver finds.

 

I'm sure they are. Don't know what happened to them, though, since Tim died not long after he dug them, and I don't think he had much in the way of family other than a girlfriend/fianceé, who looked me up to give me the sad news. I don't know if he left a will.

 

(Plausible) rumor has it that a 1766 guinea with Ephraim Brasher's "EB" counterstamp was once found right here in coastal Georgia, possibly on a site I know right here in my hometown. I saw a photo of the coin once, but cannot confirm where it was found. I do know that the site where it is rumored to have been found has produced British coins as old as the 1690s, and several early US coins including silver like a Draped Bust quarter.

Several surprisingly pristine Draped Bust cents, including quite a few S-166 pieces like this, have turned up in these parts.