Featured The Orangeburg Story

Dunno. Guess I'll have to make that up as I go along, too.

 

All right, let's see if we can't wrap this absurd pink elephant of a story up.

Breakfast and shower, maybe, first.

 

...

The homeowner's eye returns to the bottom of the strongbox. In the fluorescent lighting of the garage, he sees something gleaming there. Despite this object still being mostly submerged in the sludge in the corner of the box, it captures the light with a bright golden gleam.

Later he will find the first of the Spanish Milled Dollars in this corner of the box, and will nearly cut his finger on some broken glass hidden in the muck. At this stage he has not yet lifted out all of the rest of the bundles of currency and found the old Mason jars underneath, but he is about to start encountering the jagged pieces of the ones that broke.

As yet unaware of the scattered pieces of broken glass hiding in the muddy bottom of the box, our homeowner practically lunges toward the gold-gleaming object and thrusts his hand into the silty sediment to snatch it up.

...

 

Intermission. You may now guess at the identity of the object he is about to pick up, if you want to.

(You almost certainly won't be right.)

Or we shall resume after another few posts.

 

@Milesofwho - you're actually a bit closer to the truth than you probably expected to be.

Now remember, after 128 years buried in the ground, that brass doorknob you posted would actually be a dark brownish-green color.

But not if it was gilt brass, like the artifact that is about to be revealed. (Which also happens to have a convex, domed shape, though not really like a doorknob and nowhere near as large.)

Gilt brass is gold-plated. As gold is resistant to corrosion, it is still bright when found, usually, even in conditions as harsh as seawater immersion.

I've dug gilt brass Civil War buttons that came out of the ground all nice and golden-looking.

Speaking of which, it's time for me to resume typing, isn't it?

 

...

Reaching into the muck and narrowly avoiding a cut finger from a piece of submerged broken glass he doesn't see, the homeowner picks up the gleaming object. His heart races as he is sure he has now found a gold coin.

But as soon as it is in his hands, he can tell that it is not flat, like a coin would be. It has a domed, convex feel to it, and it seems to be a uniform button.

On the face of it, there is a ridiculously ornate Old English letter "C", with curlicues and flourishes, quite similar in fact to the one engraved on the top of the strongbox.

"More crazy Klingon lettering", he thinks to himself.​

He does not recognize this as a letter "C". As rendered, it really looks more like an Old English "E". So the homeowner does not realize he has just found a "manuscript C" type Confederate Cavalry button.

(*As it happens, there were also Confederate buttons with an "E" - for the Engineers.)


Image credit: Harry Ridgeway, relicman.com.


Soon he finds another button, and another, and more tarnished silver coins, as well as bits of broken glass. At this stage he is blindly plunging his hand into the muck with growing excitement - and scratches his thumb on some broken glass, nearly cutting it - but has not yet lifted the largest mass of sodden currency and paper out of the box, to discover the unbroken jars underneath.

The gilding on all of these buttons is intact and beautiful, and though the bare brass backs of them have darkened, the buttons are in exceptional condition. They will later prove quite popular with collectors when sold, though not as much as some of the coins.

Most of the buttons are of that "Manuscript C" cavalry variant, but there are also several with a palm tree on the front of them. These bear the Palmetto crest of the South Carolina state seal, which the homeowner, himself a South Carolinian, recognizes.




Image credit: Harry Ridgeway, relicman.com.


What he does not recognize is the "H T & B MANCHESTER" backmark on the buttons, which indicates they were made by the firm of Hammond, Turner, & Bates in Manchester, England, and were smuggled into the Confederacy through the Federal naval blockade.


I once experienced the joy of digging one of these!


So much of the backstory of these objects remains for him to discover, and he will study the history for the rest of his life, long after most of the treasure is sold. He will keep a few pieces, however, and those will be passed down to his descendants for a few generations. The story of their discovery will become embellished over time (much as it has here) - and garbled - but such is the nature of stories and legends.
...

 

I think most of the regular issue CSA belt plates were plain brass - I've seen dug examples that tend to be rather dark. But I'm sure there were gilt types of some of the officer belt plates.

In any event, there were no belt plates in this imagined version of the Orangeburg Hoard (though I was tempted to add some).

There were buttons aplenty, though only of the "Manuscript C" Cavalry and Manchester-backmarked SC State Seal types.

(It was also very tempting to put some CS Navy and other rare buttons in the strongbox, but like I said before, I'm trying to imagine this as realistically as possible.)

 

My local relic buddies here are all about the CW military relics first and foremost, though since they're bushwhackers who find the long-forgotten, remote, obscure, and unexploited sites, they also happen to be the guys who dig the coolest coins! And Colonial relics as well.

 

My local dig buddy Billy R is one lucky schmuck!

Of course he has the mad skills, too. Detecting and relic hunting ain't as easy as some folks like him make it look. I've done enough of it to know!

 

Yes! It can happen, under certain "sweet spot" conditions here, in well drained sandy soil. But only sometimes. MY first (and presently only) dug Draped Bust cent is a corroded slug. But I've seen some amazingly pristine ones found by friends.

 

It's also kind of ironic that I found a SC State Seal button here in Brunswick, GA, when I have yet to find a GA State Seal. Twice I've had people dig GA State Seal buttons right next to me. One of those happened in Asheville, NC, oddly enough. And my friend who found it (@Aethelred) dug it up less than a foot away from one of my plugs, where I'd found a 1917 Buffalo nickel only moments before. That was a fantastic yard. The old house on the site dated to circa 1869, but a Confederate campsite had been on the lot prior to that.