PDA

View Full Version : Friday hunt, a couple keepers.



Digger_O'Dell
11-26-2016, 09:31 PM
Hi all,
Got out for the day Friday despite the rain and snow off and on. The first stop was at an early 1800s settlement. I had hopes the park would give up something, but due to extensive terraforming I only found a piece of float copper and an old copper wheel hub of some sort.
Then it was off to an 1800s church and school site I've had a permission at. It's been pounded to death over the years by many others, but I had a few good finds I need the past. I had hopes that with the rains I would get better signals than the past several hunts where the ground was brick dry.
The first area was a swampy site where they finally mowed down the swampy grass. I know it's been hunted before too, but there used to be a foot path there leading from the church over a foot bridge nearby. Here I found a very deep stop watch frame and a cool old token which turns out to be a sailors luck charm. The design I found dates back to the 15th century, but has been used on tokens and charms until recent times so is nearly impossible to date.

56835

56836

After this it went back to the grassy field next to the church which gave up the goods in the past. Here I eeked out a Rosie and a merc, plus a late wheat.
Next place with only about an hour of daylight left just decided to try at the cemetery on the other side of the church. I was told it used to be the picnic area of choice a hundred years ago, and even had areas left unplanted to keep open area and to build an outhouse on. The bad part is there are low hanging power lines and big transformers that give off killer EMI. With some major tweaking I was able to get the CTX to behave somewhat and I was able to sneak out another merc, a 1904 IH, and a 1918 wheat by dark.

56838

56839

56840

The clad:
56843

BTV Digger
11-26-2016, 09:39 PM
That's a good Black Friday hunt by most standards and congrats! The token reverse (rider on horse etc) is indeed a common theme. Those are on some of the old Canadian Bank pennies from back in the 1850s as well as I was lucky to have found one. HH!

John

Digger_O'Dell
11-26-2016, 09:46 PM
Forgot to mention a 30 minute hunt Thursday morning on the way home from work. I've already pounded this place to death send am now working the fringes digging any repeatable non pull tab signal. This time I managed a couple steel back buttons.

56841

56842

Digger_O'Dell
11-26-2016, 11:37 PM
IH cleaned up exceptionally well:

56844

56845

Digger_O'Dell
11-27-2016, 12:59 AM
After better cleaning and polishing to get more detail I fid some research. After looking through literally hundreds of variations I finally got an exact match. Most varieties had borders and smooth edges among more obvious differences such as different waves. My token has no border, but does have a very old style reeled edge. Turns out my token even matches the square dimples in the curl of the waves and has the hole in the exact same orientation.
The match I found is listed on Ebay Germany and is dated 1800.

56846

56847

56848

56849

Reeded edge
56850

Mr. Digger
11-27-2016, 07:42 AM
Very cool charm. Hard to tell from the pics...what is it made of? Silver?

Digger_O'Dell
11-27-2016, 08:39 AM
Very cool charm. Hard to tell from the pics...what is it made of? Silver?

I wish it was silver! I'm not really sure of the material, maybe a copper zinc alloy? It rang up I think around 12-32. It was corroded similar to a nickel, but rang up much higher. Maybe has silver in it? There was trash nearby that may have skewed the VDI, so I'll do an air test tonight and see what it rings up as without any other influence on the reading. That will give a better indication of the type of metal.

Fire Fighter 43
11-27-2016, 07:50 PM
WTG Chris, you had a good Black Friday hunt. Congrats on the silver and other keepers. I'm going stir crazy milking this back issue of mine, it figures we are having a mild fall and I can not get out.

Digger_O'Dell
11-27-2016, 08:00 PM
WTG Chris, you had a good Black Friday hunt. Congrats on the silver and other keepers. I'm going stir crazy milking this back issue of mine, it figures we are having a mild fall and I can not get out.

Thanks Jeff, I feel your pain been there, done that. Let me know once you start feeling better, send me a PM or text. If you're interested, I'll take you out to that site I found with the cellar hole and we'll. Think it would be a great place for you to run the Deus. You probably will get much better results in the heavy iron than I can. Good luck, and get well soon!

wisconsin digger
11-27-2016, 08:12 PM
Nice batch of silver Chris, glad the weather is staying mild. I can hunt all day in these temps. WD

Digger_O'Dell
11-27-2016, 09:10 PM
I wish it was silver! I'm not really sure of the material, maybe a copper zinc alloy? It rang up I think around 12-32. It was corroded similar to a nickel, but rang up much higher. Maybe has silver in it? There was trash nearby that may have skewed the VDI, so I'll do an air test tonight and see what it rings up as without any other influence on the reading. That will give a better indication of the type of metal.

I did an air test and the token rings up at 12-31. Not sure what that means for alloy material. It's plenty heavy and has a nice ring to it when dropped on the table. My guess is a copper tin alloy.

groundhog53946
11-28-2016, 09:17 AM
Some nice keepers there Chris! Congrats

Sent from my XT830C using Tapatalk

MangoAve
11-28-2016, 10:46 AM
Nice finds, Chris. Good research on nailing down a date on it. I noticed right away the hole in it. Either it had been made a pendant or the hole was used to be put on a string, like LC were. If it was the latter, it'd prob narrow it down to late 1700 to mid 1800s. That IH is in great shape and that button almost looks like a coat of arms.

Digger_O'Dell
11-28-2016, 01:14 PM
Good research on nailing down a date on it. I noticed right away the hole in it. Either it had been made a pendant or the hole was used to be put on a string, like LC were. If it was the latter, it'd prob narrow it down to late 1700 to mid 1800s.

The info I've found is that these were often worn as pendants on heavy chain necklaces. The one for sale in Germany has the same hole. It also surprisingly appears to have the same die marks when I did a high zoom side by side comparison. I was even able to see the striations from hand making of the dies which look just like the ones I discovered on the 2 LCs I found. The evidence does strongly point to your estimated date range, probably on the earlier end of it.

aloldstuff
11-28-2016, 06:15 PM
Chris, that sailors good luck charm is the find of the day, love it. Congrats on the silvers and all the keepers.