Independence weekend hunts: First shoe buckle and canteen

[MangoAve]

Wednesday night I got out with Kevin to a park. Not much came up but I did pull up what I think is a pin/button. Unfortunately it was in my pocket when I was going into work the following day as I was going to take a pic with the USB camera and it fell out while taking my celly out to check the time, so no pic exists. When I went back out 20 min later when I realized I dropped it, it was gone. Someone snagged it. It was like a sunburst or flower about the size of a half dollar and appeared to be gold plated. Below the slot in the center it said GERMANY.

Since Friday was a negotiated holiday and the majority of people were going to leave early on Thursday, I jumped on the bandwagon and took a half day. After heading home I went to the cellar hole where I got my large crotal bell (1840). It is a challenging site because it's filled with trash, even modern trash because there is timbers still piled near the cellar hole. Also, the barns are cut into the hill side making that area challenging.

I started up the driveway. This was actually a house which the front door must have faced away from the road and the 'back yard' was toward the road. AND, the small depression which I assume is the privy was along the driveway up to the house. I found a propane torch tip opposite the privy and near the privy i found a copper pipe section. The hillside facing the street I pulled up some piece that looked odd to me. It made me think of an action figure robot head. I found a plated spoon, which on the back I was able to see a date after a quick cleaning. It was made by Rogers and is the A1 grape design from 1881. Across the driveway there was a cleared area and a ways back there was a hunting perch. Over in that area I found a butter knife edge, a disabled veteran association tag, a pocket knife, and a cut ignition switch. The crest on the knife looks like it was made by Utica Knives. I found a similar one but mine has both ends as metal. There seemed to be a trash pit behind a small hillside... which rivals Dave's trashy site truck. I believe there was a cab of an old pickup almost completely buried. Just a portion of it was visible. The disabled veteran tag turned out to be a dog tag. The back says who the dog belonged to. The guy's first name is Willard, which seems to be a name in the geriatric generation. The house number and road are not in the town listed on the tag, so I have to try and clean it and see if I can get accurate info and not "what it looks like".

http://pocketknivesblog.com/vintage-...cutlery-knife/

A ways away I did think a pile of rocks might have been a cabin site. I am not certain however on that, and down the hill a ways was a flat spot with a rock edging and iron. This showed there was someone here recent. I blame Dave for not filling in his hole. Pic is below. There was a '44 wheat in the driveway. On the front side of the hill where all the barns were I found some more trinkets. I pulled up my first shoe buckle just as Kevin was showing up after his work. It definitely was deeper than it read. In preempt, I DID try and check the hole for the 'tongue' portion and couldn't find it. I am uncertain if that part broke off which is why it was buried, or if it was deteriorated somewhere else.

The final thing I dug was a nearly complete harmonica on that same side of the property. However, before that there was a flat area and I pulled up some weird piece of flat copper. I found a rock shaped like an egg and looks covered in something like concrete. It reminds me of those beer steins with the metal at the bottom of the glass. One relic I dug is kinda special. I believe it was a target I saw last time and gave up on. This time I followed through. Kevin even went over it and said it looked like a good signal. Buried under a root, dirt, and rocks I pulled up a large item. Kevin said it was a Civil War canteen!! To be 8 inches down underneath rocks it is definitely at least 150 years old. I took a pic of the trash just for Dave. The side view mirror I believe is GM and there seems to be a part number to try and figure out which car it came from. The thing above it is a percolator and I like to believe the crank is for a vehicle older than a Model T. Those who like pics, here ya go...



Today we tried to get out again. The first place was a permission. I had asked the daughter of the owner, whom I went to high school with and was friends with both daughters on FB, before about detecting. Then it was a yes. Today, however, the parents said they were not done with their own detecting of the property (1745). We went up to am 1840 house which is odd as the front door faces the side of the house, not toward the road. A middle school friend used to live there at one point which is how I knew of it. The driveway is still unpaved to this day. The new owner, I knew the children from high school. Unfortunately he said he wanted to discover things on his own. He doesn't own a detector so I am unsure how he will do that for things in the ground. We checked a town property which used to have a library from 1892. It was a small parcel so we were done quickly. There was fill making it hard to find anything. Kev managed a 1919 wheat. We then went to an old camp site. For coins, only clad came up. Kev got a quarter folded into quarters. The 'what is it' item seems like a button. I think I saw it on this site a ways back but I don't remember the thread to search for it. It's square and there's a hole in the middle with a...heck... you can see from the pic. Both sides have an 'E' stamped and it's at opposite corners. I did get my first cub scout slide. I didn't even get one on the treasure hunting club's planned hunt for the boy scout park. This place did have the road lined with stone walls even tho there was no house on the 1868 map. Maybe I can locate an older map to see if one did exist at one time. Anyway, the other pics. The most silver this weekend was silverplate, but there is still a hunt for Sunday...