1850's house, eclectic group of relics including old Chinese wax seal stamp!

[mdakin]

Hello all, first post, thought I'd share my 2nd time out with my new eTrac, I'd call it a success.

I brought my 5 year old to a fishing derby yesterday, 5 hours of agony, not even a nibble between the two of us, and another 25 minutes listening to a raffle we didn't win. So, needless to say once the kiddo was at home and being entertained by someone other than myself, I headed back to this 1850's house I had hit near the end of last year. With the 5 feet of snow we had in Feb, there were some woods areas I wanted to get back to, and I'm glad I did. I have never found such an eclectic group of finds, just about everything I dug was pretty interesting.

The St Anthony religious medal is my first silver religious medal, these two are #4 and #5 found at this site. Not sure what the triangle one depicts, it has a little bit of the silver plate left on it.

Neat little OK Vender token, seems pretty old, anyone have a guestimate?

I'm thrilled with the lead army man, I've always wanted to find one like this, intact with paint. I'm assuming it's WWII era.

Interestingly enough, the toy bullet, and the intact 56/50 Spencer cartridge are the 2nd examples of each I've found at this site.

Lastly, the most interesting find of the bunch, the wax seal stamp, that I believe stamps LEE /006 it is a Chinese Foo Dog and I think it is unbelievably cool. The details are just amazing. Anyone have an idea as to its age? I can't imagine it being too old with the word LEE, maybe late 1800's, most likely early 1900's? When did they stop using wax seals?

Thanks for looking.

Jai

[mdakin]

More pics of the stamp

[jkress]

Welcome to American Detectorist mdakin. Glad to have you here.

Awesome bunch of finds you have posted. I really like the sterling charm, army guy and token. I recently found an army guy that looks to be from the same collection as the one you found. Very heavy, same 'feet' and painting style. Great bunch of wheats too.
But that wax seal is just incredible. Definitely has age to it. Some of the relic guys/gals will be able to offer a lot of help when they see your post. There is a very knowledgeable group of members here that are happy to help with questions.

Too bad the fishing was slow at the derby... but the metal detecting time more than made up for it. <:

Good luck on your next hunt.

[Carver]

Great finds all around there Jai!!!!!! Way cool wax seal Very nice religious medal too,,,,I've found a bunch of silver ones and don't have 2 alike,,,that one you found is very nice

[del]

well hello Matt and welcome to American Detectorist , glad you joined. that house is producing some very cool and interesting items still , can't wait to see some of them in person this tuesday night at the club meeting. its good to finally get out after all the snow we had over the winter huh. i won't speculate on the wax seal until i get to inspect it in person but does look like its has some age to it and it is a cool design too. congrats on a great hunt again Matt. |) |)

Dan

[Cheap Thrills]

Very cool finds . A nice variety for sure . thumbsup01 thumbsup01

[coinnut]

Hey Matt, welcome aboard I see you have been busy finding good stuff Bring it on down to the meeting and let us [s]take it[/s] I mean look at it rofl Nice finds my friend. |)

[odave]

Welcome aboard Matt ! Good finds thumbsup01 thumbsup01 thumbsup01
Look forward to more of Your finds thumbsup01 thumbsup01 thumbsup01

[mike l]

Welcome to the forum , nice old finds!

[mdakin]

Thanks all, glad to be here. I still haven't had any luck finding a resource to help put a date on the stamp. I can only find Chinese examples with the Chinese characters rather than english. I'll keep looking.

[coinnut]

I Googled early Chinese immigrant workers and learned a lot of them were here around 1850, for railroad work. I doubt yours would be much earlier than that. But it's a start on dating it. In that article it said the first wave was very traditional...so I would think any wax seal would have Chinese characters and not our version of letters. If you could find out when wax seals stopped being used, then you could have a time frame. I'm thinking 1880's-1900 as a rough guess.