Hey Diggers,
I was looking at a German website for hiking trails in our area and stumbled across a reference to a French/Prussian battle in 1793. It's practically in the middle of nowhere and there is a hiking trail that goes across it. The website told hikers to be on the lookout for a large stone carved with the dates 1793/4. So off I went into the woods with my new dreams of finding tons of relics and buttons! I hiked forever to get there but stumbled across the carved rock by shear chance. I wanted to take a picture and realized to my horror I had left my camera in the car.
The battle site was a very pointed hilltop and you could see where the Prussians had created a "ring" fort of earth and stones around the crown of the hill (once again I would love to have taken a picture). I started swinging and was not getting any signals. Then I noticed large pieces of iron leaning against trees and on top of stumps. CRAP!
I changed my strategy and started swinging in hard to reach places. Bang, I got a nice looking blow hole button! Then a flat button. Then a couple musket balls. Then I got a very strange signal. It sounded like iron but the numbers were bouncing from iron up to foil! I dug down and at 8 inches found a cannon ball! (again no camera to record the wonderful moment) I put it in my pouch and it was so heavy I was walking at about a 10% angle! LOL.
I'm not sure what the valve looking thingy is. I'm not even sure it's from the battle. I welcome any ideas you may have.
Here's some pics. The cannon ball was quite rusty but I froze it overnight in the freezer and then just whacked it a couple time with a hammer and the rust just fell off. Thanks for looking and HH, Dave.
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