Hit some colonial cellar holes with my friend, Ron, yesterday. It was a struggle for most of the day as three of our planned sites were choked off with vegetation.We switched over to an improvised back-up plan and hit three sites that we had been to previously.
These back-up sites gave up a few buttons and not much else until late in the day. At the last hole, I found probably one of my best finds ever. It's a Serpentine Side Plate for an English Trade Musket.The Dragon or "Serpentine" design for side plates was used almost exclusively on trade guns for North America and indeed had come to mean to the Indian that the article was genuine.
It's almost complete but has some weakness in the center and on the screw hole towards the tail. I can see why these are not found complete very often. It's also bent in the center but I'm sure it would break if I tried to straighten it so I will leave it as is.
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