Cache Hunting - Discovering A Hoard of Silver Hammered Coins (Story 14)
Our last field task was to make the place look like nothing had happened here. We filled all holes, leveled the ground and covered the spot with dry grass.
Misha Planting the Last-year Dry Stalks for the Spot's Natural Appearance
With all breaks for dinner, tea and cigarettes, it took Misha and I 16 hours to retrieve the coin hoard from the ground. Of course, if the buried cache was enclosed in a jug or pot, or any container that would not disintegrate over time, the process of its recovery would be easier and quicker. It would be a different type of cache hunting as well. In our case, we could not do it any faster, and did our best enjoying every minute of it!
After we arrived home, we separated all the coins from dirt by the easiest way possible. We used the kitchen tray for utensils, which was plastic and had holes smaller than an average diameter of silver hammereds, thus functioning as a sieve or screen. We filled the tray with the coins/dirt mix, placed a large basin underneath the tray to collect all dirt and ran water through the tray.
Kitchen Utensils Tray for Separating Coins from Dirt
Because the silver wire money coins were of the "960" milessimal fineness - the highest quality silver, they were neither oxidized nor corroded. It was the fastest and easiest coin cleaning we had ever done! As the dirt was washed off, the coins came out as shiny as if they had just been minted!
Coins Were Shining After Just Being Rinsed with Water
Now we were ready to do the last phase of the process of cache hunting, the most enjoyable - counting the pieces and sorting them out by the varieties. It took us a long while to complete this meticulous task. You can see all varieties of Russian wire money coins compiled in a hoard on the next page.
Oh yes, I almost forgot to tell you how many coins were in the cache. Out of all coin caches I had discovered so far, this hoard had been the biggest one!
2,700 Coins!
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