A Couple Of Days Of Relic Hunting

[schoolofhardNox]

I had some fun hunting a couple of 17th century English home sites, that were located on an earlier Native American site. 2 days hunting, with the first day working with field school students teaching them how to detect and the use of metal detectors for their Archaeology work. I was a bit surprised since all we could find that was relevant were 3 pieces of lead. All the detectors had issues and the GPX had weird spike sounds sporadically killing the threshold. 🤔 I thought it may be the storm that was coming in later in the day. Day 2, the noise remained, so talking with the owner of the property, I asked him where the nearest electric fence is, and his reply was …. right over there! 😡 He was gracious enough to turn off the fence and the GPX worked better than ever. I did not take photos of everything found, but some of the finds included 4 musket balls, 2 scrap pieces of brass, some eyeballed pieces of early pottery, a silver decorative buckle and these 3 items….  cylindrical lead shot (no it’s not a sinker 🙄), an early 1-piece brass button (cat on it?), and a surface find quartz point. (maybe Levana – around 1400 years old. 🥰) I planned on doing a bit of water hunting, but I never got around to it. I may head back there one more time next week to finish off areas I wanted to do. It was fun just getting out. Finding the time lately to do anything other than home and work stuff is almost impossible, so I was grateful to get some time off.

[Doc Bach]

Good stuff HardNox! I really like that triangle a lot any quartz points or artifacts are super rare everywhere.The one piece picture button is very nice also, and wow a lead shot! I thought that was a grinding or hammer stone thanks for posting.

[JCR]

That sounds like a real interesting & fun opportunity. I had never even heard of cylindrical shot. That must be very early. About what diameter is it? Was it used in a fowling piece?

[Valens Legacy]

Great hunt and some great finds to show for your hard work.

Good luck on your next hunt and stay safe out there.

[F350Platinum]

Wow, if you're going to find a button, that's the one you want to find. 👍 is it silver or silver wash, or Tombac? Buttons with animals on them were usually hunting jacket buttons.

You mentioned a silver buckle, would like to have seen that.

I have an underground power line in my yard, the Equinox goes nuts over it, but the D2 was pretty good. I say "was" because my new RV has built in cellular and wifi for remote control, and I've added 2 more cellular cameras. 🤣 Glad I strip mined it a long time ago.

[Rick N. MI]

Great hunt. Looks like fun. The triangle piece looks like an arrow head.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Very cool finds, sohN, I imagine it's a nice change of pace to do some more archeological work, well done!

[schoolofhardNox]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:01 PM, Doc Bach said:

Good stuff HardNox! I really like that triangle a lot any quartz points or artifacts are super rare everywhere.The one piece picture button is very nice also, and wow a lead shot! I thought that was a grinding or hammer stone thanks for posting.

Thanks. Zero effort in finding that point 😄 Just had to look down.

On 5/27/2023 at 9:56 PM, JCR said:

That sounds like a real interesting & fun opportunity. I had never even heard of cylindrical shot. That must be very early. About what diameter is it? Was it used in a fowling piece?

Thanks. We find cylindrical shot occasionally, especially from the 17th century sites. Later on, round ball were available, so less odd ball lead is found. Not sure on the diameter but roughly around the 50 ish range. Used in smooth bore muskets.

On 5/28/2023 at 3:00 AM, Valens Legacy said:

Great hunt and some great finds to show for your hard work.

Good luck on your next hunt and stay safe out there.

Thanks. Next hunt  up is this Wednesday at a 17th century meeting house... It will be the last hunt there until possibly next season, from what I understand. We'll see if I get lucky.

On 5/28/2023 at 4:14 AM, F350Platinum said:

Wow, if you're going to find a button, that's the one you want to find. 👍 is it silver or silver wash, or Tombac? Buttons with animals on them were usually hunting jacket buttons.

You mentioned a silver buckle, would like to have seen that.

I have an underground power line in my yard, the Equinox goes nuts over it, but the D2 was pretty good. I say "was" because my new RV has built in cellular and wifi for remote control, and I've added 2 more cellular cameras. 🤣 Glad I strip mined it a long time ago.

Thank You. The button is brass, no gilt left, but an odd black dirt on it. I don't think it's 17th century, but probably early 19th century. One piece , so I'm guessing 1820's give or take. I did not get a chance to see the back side very well as I had 15 minutes left in the hunt and I just hit a hot spot. 😄 The silver buckle was probably 1900's and looked like a decorative horse buckle...solid silver but not nearly what we were looking for.  As for the electric fence, i was very shocked on how much it messed with the GPX. I knew it would cause depth loss, but it was the way it made even shallow targets seem like interference. I missed 2 round ball, that button and a couple of other shallow targets, the day before at that same spot. Once the fence was off, the targets screamed.

On 5/28/2023 at 9:00 AM, Rick N. MI said:

Great hunt. Looks like fun. The triangle piece looks like an arrow head.

Thanks. These hunts are the best since I can detect leisurely, without any stress.  Yes, that's a quartz point  - they say around 1400 years old.

On 5/28/2023 at 1:21 PM, CPT_GhostLight said:

Very cool finds, sohN, I imagine it's a nice change of pace to do some more archeological work, well done!

Thank you. I love to hunt beaches and cellar holes, but these hunts are more fun in some ways, even if I don't get to keep anything but the trash 😅 I get to detect places that are usually off limits, so that's kind of cool too. At this part of my life, I just want to enjoy the hobby as long as I am able.

[rvpopeye]

Nice permission . They even shut off the fence !

3 cool items in the finds pics  , all never before seen by these eyes .🧐 !