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Fur Trade & Gold Rush Sites In One Day!


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18 hours ago, Cal_Cobra said:

Dug a bunch of bronze nails/spikes.  I don't mind digging these, their not like square nails that litter most of our relic sites out west, these are hand forged bronze nails/spikes with old world forged rose heads.

Mid-19th Century buttons and buckles?  Yeh, yeh, I've found all that crap.  :biggrin:  But I've never even seen a bronze spike.  Now those are cool, and your small collection from just that one day shows some variety.

17 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

And I like your dagger hilt....

Where is that?

Seriously, great work from both of you, and that includes the research which allowed you to get your detectors over those historic finds in the first place.  Fun to let your imagination take over with images of what life was like in those far off outposts of 'civilization'.  And a few finds that you can't figure out until later (if ever) just adds to the positive experience, IMO.

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Another fun story and hunt and super saves from the Dynamic Duo! Congrats on the great finds! Thanks for sharing and I can't wait to see the results from your upcoming epic adventure. Cheers! 😎

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13 hours ago, strick said:

Nice work fellas. Those naval anchor buttons are my favorites lots of detail. Brian I’ll need to pick your brain on the e bike as I’ve been looking at them also. Those star buckles were popular back then. Found a couple that were broken off stars... but never a whole one yet. 

Strick

I like those early buttons too (this one is the Marines), and it's great to be able to date them.  It fits the site perfectly, 1840's-1850's.  We haven't found anything newer then the 1850's at the Buckle Village site.

Tom was the one that took me down the ebike path.  I started off thinking a little commuter ebike from Costco would do the trick (only had a 250W motor). It would be great if you're just riding paved roads to/from work with minimal inclines, but it became pretty clear that it wasn't likely going to live up to the job to haul my butt through off-road environments.  So I started researching them.  Tom was convinced that we needed fat tire ebikes, but I felt they were a bit extreme and extremely expensive so I started looking at regular mountain ebikes which typically had 500W motors,, but decided that Tom was right (shhhh 🤫 don't tell him I said that) and that the fat tire ebikes with 750W motors would effectively be electric dirt bikes for our needs, better suited for desert terrains, cow pastures, and areas that wouldn't have paved road access. 

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8 hours ago, Rick N. MI said:

A great hunt. Had to be a lot of fun there. How did the ebikes do?

I was impressed with them.  We took them off roading a bit and they did seem to do okay in muddy soft soil on inclines, but I'm sure mine would do better after I shed a few lbs 😏  I can see these being really useful for some of our detecting excursions, and fun to ride at home as well.  I like the peddle assist as you can still peddle them and get a workout, but you're not going to stroke out trying to go up a hill 🤕

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7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Mid-19th Century buttons and buckles?  Yeh, yeh, I've found all that crap.  :biggrin:  But I've never even seen a bronze spike.  Now those are cool, and your small collection from just that one day shows some variety.

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Yeah I like finding the bronze spikes with the rose heads, and the customized ones are interesting.  They had to hand make everything, so it's fun to find them. Square nails, not so much 😅

Where is that?

image.thumb.jpeg.7b6c22700e010dc66d44674da4c90223.jpeg

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I'm not 100% sure it's a knife/dagger hilt, that was a WAG, but not sure what else it would be? 🤔

Seriously, great work from both of you, and that includes the research which allowed you to get your detectors over those historic finds in the first place.  Fun to let your imagination take over with images of what life was like in those far off outposts of 'civilization'.  And a few finds that you can't figure out until later (if ever) just adds to the positive experience, IMO.

This post will probably look weird with the quoting I used, but I totally agree these oldest contact period sites in California are not only hard to find, and few and far between (most are now built over 😞 but it's almost an honor to touch the history these explorers left behind. 

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7 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Another fun story and hunt and super saves from the Dynamic Duo! Congrats on the great finds! Thanks for sharing and I can't wait to see the results from your upcoming epic adventure. Cheers! 😎

Thanks!  Hopefully the upcoming adventure produces more than rim-fires and square nails LOL We shall see. 

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10 hours ago, deathray said:

That marine button is killer! Bet there's more gilt to be had. You got any aluminum jelly?

Thanks, I like it too.  There may be more gilt, but it seems that the areas the lemon juice couldn't revive eroded past the gilt.  I have aluminum and naval jelly, I'll try a little aluminum jelly and see what happens.  Love bring these old buttons back to life.

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