Back to the church-Lock, latch, and more.

[Digger_O'Dell]

Hi all,
Just spent more time at the old church, but now have move to the back yard area that appears to have once been livestock area for a short period, then wooded before that. I managed to soon find a couple shotgun brass casings that I was later to identify as being from around the 1900-1909 period, which shows me I'm in the right area! But soon I was mislead into digging many great silver type signals (12-44/46) showing from 7 to 10 inches, only to find shallow aluminum wire. Grrr....

Not much for coins but a lot of zincolns near the surface, but a couple surprisingly deep! I was about to end the morning and work towards the car when I got this deep signal that almost blew my ears off giving me a 12-48 to 12-49-last time I saw that was when I pulled my Franklin half, so I got real excited and dug real carefully. I was quite surprised when i ended up almost a foot down and pulled out a big heavy round bronze object with a key hole. Researching it later I found it is the front plate of a very old padlock! Just wish I could have found it whole... Still a nice find though. I also soon found an old latch with ceramic knob close by before I called it a morning.



This is what the whole lock I found looks like.

[Lodge Scent]

Cool. That plate came from a heavy duty lock !

[chief5709]

keep at it Digger! that lock plate looks old

[Digger_O'Dell]

Just found an identical lock dated 1880 used on the Union Pacific RR. Identical to above pic, but shackle was stamped UPRR.

[CTTodd]

Thats old stuff. there should be more there.

[aloldstuff]

Oh yeah, that lock plate cover is cool. I also wish the lock was whole cause the pictures you posted of the whole lock would be a great addition to any collection. I agree, you are in the right area, keep going back.

When I 1st got into detecting a guy with a very high end detector told me no matter what you spend on your detector.....they all lie....your aluminum wire.