<p><strong>I went on a hunt with a metal detecting buddy to an old site in our area which had been settled in the 1700's.</strong> Being in a pretty obscure area it was ripe for detecting on such a nice day. I took my then fairly new White's Coinmaster and my tools as we hunted for several hours.</p> <p>There were loads of square nails at first and not much else until I got back to the area pretty near where the house once stood. At first there were two skeleton keys which were clearly from the mid to late 1700's so we decided to continue hunting until it began to get dark. Just before nightfall settled in I got what sounded like a fairly good hit. I dug down about 7"-8" and found what appeared at first to possibly be a very thin coin.</p>[split] <p>I cleaned it off as best I could and it seemed to have a compass type image on it. Too thin for a normal coin, I carefully wrapped it up in a sandwich baggy until I could look at it further. After cleaning it still looked to be compass directions until I took pictures of it. Then it made itself know, it was a cannon wheel with a faint image of a cannon barrel offset. I first thought it was a war of 1812 button since we had some activity in the area for that war.</p> <p>Later I was told by a collector that the button was a little older than what I'd thought. It was actually a Revolutionary War Artillery Uniform button from between 1777-1784. After some minimal cleaning to keep its integrity I donated the button to our local historical society. I was also then informed the buttons value even in its very worn state would be a minimum $600 to any collector.</p> <p>What a great historical find and thank you White's for helping to preserve our country's history which in many ways would have been forgotten.</p>