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What's Your Strangest Finds?


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I have found lots really great things but few I can think of that I would characterize as strange. This comes close though. When I visited the UK back in 2010 for a couple weeks of hunting for ancient coins and artifacts I found a lot of stuff that at first glance meant nothing. I was told to bring everything back to camp, no matter what, because some really plain looking items could have great value or rarity. Some stuff I never knew what it was until I washed the mud off that night.

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I found this rolled up piece of lead and thought nothing of it, just put it in the pouch with my daily pile of stuff. That night Chris Meitiner, the guy running the show and an expert on local finds, told me I had found a possible curse tablet. The Greeks and Romans would inscribe a curse on a sheet or strip of lead, roll it up, and nail it to a door, bury it, toss it in a field, etc. The curse was usually to bring some form of harm on an enemy. Rolled sheets of lead were most common but strips like mine were also used.

It could be up to a couple thousand years old, no way to know for sure. Might even just be a rolled up strip of lead! I would have to unroll it to find out for sure, but am not going to do that. One thing for sure, whoever rolled that lead up and tossed it in the field would never have imagined it would end up traveling halfway around the world to end up on a unknown land on the other side of the ocean.

Metal Detecting Ancient Coins at Colchester, UK - 10/1/2010

Example of a Curse Tablet

Another Example of a Curse Tablet

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Two finds come to mind.  Two front teeth made out of porcelain set in a vulcanite matrix circa 1870.  found at an old mining site that cease to exist in the 1870's.

 

The second I didn't find but now have, is a very unique home made gold poke.  It is a 45-75 cartridge that is used as a poke when the carved wooden plug is pushed into it.  The plug is held in place with a copper wire wound around the cartridge.  The 5 nuggets found in it are still there.

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Very cool always wanted to find something like that.You allways here about it but you are the first i've seen who has.

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Weedoggie! I've found so many weird things, let me chaw on this one.

 

Sometimes them maryjuana growers hang fish hooks in the desert tress where they grow so as to catch officers in the eyes. Dagnabit bastards! 

Here be more on the hooks http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs1/1017/marijuan.htm. Keep your guard up in these areas! 

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