As a child, I was always fascinated by stories of treasure. My father would take me to old foundations to explore, and I remember hoping and praying so hard that I would find something special. A few square nails and an old roofing hatchet were the only items in my collection, but at 8 years old, they were treasures! I guess, sometimes, we never really lose that part of us. My passion for history only became stronger as I got older, and last spring, at the age of 33, I bought a Minelab E-TRAC. From the second I hit that power button, I was hooked! Over the past year, I have spent countless hours researching our local area. I've downloaded books, performed a crazy amount of web searches, overlayed many maps and have even lost a few pounds searching for cellar holes on foot. Through all of this hard work, I was able to positively identify four Loyalist homesites that used to be a complete mystery as to their whereabouts, and gain permission for all four. During the first spring with my E-TRAC, I dug several 1797 Cartwheel pennies, State Coppers and A gorgeous silver shoe buckle. During this time at site #1, I really became 'one' with my E-TRAC! On to site #2, which I had no idea would be the one to blow the top off my 'wish list' and ultimately deepen my passion for this amazing hobby! I hunted this site hard over the past three months. I pulled a handful of 1700's coppers and one silver...a 1902 Canadian "fishscale" 5 cents. At that point, 1902 was my oldest silver...and I cherished it!
One week ago, on June 2nd, I had an hour that I could do some detecting after the honey-do list was completed. I was slowly making my way through an iron infested strip, about 12' wide and 200' long. I was using Two Tone Ferrous with an open screen and manual sensitivity 20. After about 20 minutes of painful iron grunts, The E-TRAC made me stop in my tracks. I got a "chirp" and "thunk" signal...reading 11:46. I was definitely intrigued, as I thought it could be a coin! I pinpointed the target with the E-TRAC and the size seemed to be about right for a coin. I dug the plug, stuck the pinpointer in, and AH HA, there it is in the side wall. I thought it was the top of a pop can. I popped it out, and almost fell over backwards!! Staring up at me was a beautiful 1807 8Reale! I immediately went home, as I was too excited to do anything else...in fact I was so excited, that I left my pinpointer back at the site! That night, I worked a night shift and was run ragged. I got home at 7:20AM and went to bed...NO WAY! I went detecting! The first target came just 20 minutes into the hunt. An 03:35 at 7" down. Dug down, moved away some dirt and a rim became visible. I pulled another 8Reale only 3' away from the first one I had gotten the day before! A few minutes later, I got an 03:35/36 again! I thought No way!!! It pinpointed a little funny, bigger than a coin. I dug the plug, took some dirt out and whatever it was, was still in the hole. Moved some more dirt....and I saw another rim...no wait...TWO RIMS!! Two more 8Reales in the same hole! I finished off that row of my grid and moved to the next one. Four feet from the last hole, I got an 09:41, a little more shallow than the previous targets. In my experience with targets in this area, the large coppers often read identically to that, so naturally I was expecting one. NOPE! Another 8Reale!! That makes 5 8Reales in a 12'x12' area! The dates are 1790, 1791,1798, 1807 and 1808.
This is the find of my lifetime! I was so excited that I literally kissed my E-TRAC! Memories of my childhood flash into my head every time I look at these incredible coins. I can't describe the feeling exactly, only that it's like every Christmas morning as a child, all rolled into one moment. I need to thank my wife for being so patient, my Dad for how he raised me to appreciate the history under our feet, my friends for their support, Minelab for designing such an incredible detector and the Loyalist who dropped a treasure cache of 8Reales for me to find! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO! Thank you all for taking the time to read my story. Good luck out there, and HH! Chris PS-I caught the last 4 8Reales on video, but as it was my first time videoing, there are broken into 3 parts. I will provide the link for the second video, where there were two 8Reales in the same hole. Videos 1 and 3 are also on my channel. Edited version will be available later this month.
Chris - Canada
