The Sharpsburg Story

Well, now, I sure blew it on serializing this one, didn't I?

Left y'all hangin' for way too long.

Drifted off from the forums for two and a half months, and people are still interested in the story? I'm flattered. But also a bit embarrassed.

Please forgive the epic fail there.

But ... hey, wow! I see @BlueCole joined up! His ears must've been burning! Very cool happenstance! How've you been, Blue? Thanks for the update on the site. I couldn't remember the street names. Cruised around on Google Maps in Street View trying to find it, but didn't have any luck. I'll have to try again.

Part of what happened during my recent long hiatus was a big move. During the unpacking, I did find the stuff I dug that day, so I can hopefully photograph that and resume this story ... eventually. (After catching up on the backlog of stuff from my being away so long).

Really, aside from a couple of items, there isn't much more to the story. And they're not like earthshaking finds or anything, though the big find was unexpected and exciting (to me, anyway, and Blue too, I think). But if you're expecting a cache of silver dollars or Confederate gold, the conclusion of the story might end up being a bit of a letdown.

But anyway, I'll try to wrap it up when I can.

 

Thanks to @BlueCole's help with the street names, I've now been able to use Google Street View to find the site of the vacant lot where we were that day. I've marked the approximate location of my finds with arrows. (I only found two noteworthy items.) Apparently there is no retaining wall there like I had it remembered in my head. Just a small slope and a set of old concrete steps to the long-vanished house. The lot was a little higher off the street in my memory.

(2016 Google Maps image)



It is just a stone's throw from Steve's Pharmacy, which featured in Season 2, Episode 4 of The Walking Dead TV series. The TV show was filmed more than a decade after Blue and I were detecting there.

(2017 Google Maps image)





Anyway, I look forward to resuming the narrative soon. I was delayed by our major move, and I since everything was packed, couldn't find the items I needed to photograph for this story. I have since rediscovered them, so hopefully soon I can photograph them and resume the story. (I still do not have a computer or Internet set up in the new house, however, and have to use my phone for everything. Did this post from the computer at work.)

 

Very belatedly resuming the story from my last narrative post:

(OK, as the Street View photos in the post before this one indicate, there wasn't much of a retaining wall- just a bit of a slope. I had remembered it incorrectly.)

Blue's find was an old lead coat weight similar to the one pictured below, but darker grey in color. It had a numeral on it. 6, maybe. This would have referred to the size, I suppose. These weights were sewn inside clothing and draperies, as I understand it.



Soon, towards the back of the lot, I had dug another greyish, round target myself.

This is Target #1 in the photo below.

It too was greyish in color and had the appearance of a quarter-sized coin...

 

The greyish, quarter-sized disc was not, alas, a silver quarter. It was an old 10-cent trade token from the Atlanta Press & Radio Club, which I would imagine to be from the 1930s or '40s.

I have since been unable to find anything out about this mysterious token. It was struck in aluminum and did not fare so well during its decades of burial.

(Dunno what it is about me lately, with the bad focus in my pix. Sorry.)




It's intriguing, though. An Internet search turned up one example of a 1-cent token of this type, which was struck in copper or bronze, and which also appeared to have been dug. There is still an Atlanta Press Club, and an Atlanta Radio Club for amateur radio enthusiasts, though whether either had their roots in the "Atlanta Press & Radio Club" that issued this token, I do not know.

So this was item #1 in the picture diagram I posted earlier of the findspot.




And now for Item #2...

I resumed my sweeping around the lot with the detector. Closer to the street, I got a loud signal which read "quarter" on my detector's digital display, and registered at around two to three inches deep, as I recall. The signal was very consistent with what one would expect from a modern clad quarter.

I dug it, and as soon as I turned back the plug of reddish clay sod, a coin fell out of the plug.

It was not the brownish stained color I was expecting to see from a clad quarter.

No, it was plainly a silver coin, and a good sized one at that!

I could see the reeded edge, and through the bits of clay that still stuck to the coin's surfaces, I could see what appeared to be sun rays as part of the design. I thought it might be a Walking Liberty half because of that, because we all know that design features a sun with rays.

Here's a very crude mockup of what those rays looked like when they were peeking out from beneath the dirt on the coin I had just found.



What do you suppose it was? My heartbeat quickened.