How My Christmas Morning Went!

[SwiftSword]

With everyone sleeping in, I had a couple of hours to spend in the woods here in eastern Mass. My 18th century spot is pretty picked over and very trashy, but it seems every time I go, I come back with at least one good thing. It's close, and pretty, so that's where I went.
On the suggestion of a friend I ran my Deus II in Fast 40, full tones. Never used that program before, but I find I really like it. It hits brass and copper really hard, and gives a very distinctive tone for aluminum. 

The first good signal was a strong, operatic 96. For a hot minute I thought I had a colonial coin. It turned out to be a 1788 Conder token in excellent shape, nothing like the colonial coins I've found there before. I have no idea how it ended up here in the US. Supposedly they circulated here, but only in very small numbers. However, they were popular collector's items from the get go. I'm thinking that odd notch at precisely six o'clock might have had a loop soldered into it, and this was dangling from someone's watch chain.

 

Next came my first 1940s safety razor, the kind grandpa used to slice up the bath towels when he was drying it off. Thanks to stainless steel, it came out pretty much the way it went in. It lists patents underneath which were issued in 1929 and 1930, and expired in 1946. Once I got the cap off, it revealed itself as a "Gem Micromatic clog-pruf" safety razor. Made in the early 1940s. One of the little hinge bits was corroded and fell out. I'm going to see if I can get a replacement. Who knows, I might even try shaving with it!

Now the fun part. This hollow thing with tentacles had me stumped. I had no idea what it could have been, and when the good folks of reddit told me what it was, I didn't believe them. But sure enough, it is the quillon of a smallsword. A child-sized smallsword. Apparently these were popular toys in colonial times. I wonder at the level of anxiety this may have caused colonial era mothers, and how many accidental stabbings occurred. "You'll poke thine eye out!"

Here's a two-foot long example with a silver hilt. The quillon is pretty much identical.

Naturally there was a spoon, a rusty little adze, and a bunch of trash. The garter snake was a bonus surprise at this time of year.

 

 

[fogrider]

Well done. Just goes to show that even heavily hunted areas can still produce nice finds.

[Doc Bach]

Fantastic day and finds in my book.

[Geologyhound]

Nice finds!  Apropos for your moniker… Was that the stock fast 40 in full tones or did you make any additional modifications?

[rvpopeye]

You found some cool stuff !

The child's sword got me thinking (uh oh) , I wonder if self defense was a more serious thing in that time period and children , especially well to do ones , were trained as part of the home team due to whatever marauders were currently a threat ? 

Fencing has been around a long time also..  

[SwiftSword]

35 minutes ago, Geologyhound said:

Was that the stock fast 40 in full tones

No other changes other than frequency check. Oh, and I like high square tones, but I don't think that affects anything. 

[SwiftSword]

55 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

self defense

I don't know, but I don't think that would have entered into it. A knife or a small dirk would be more practical for a kid. 
children back then were treated as small adults. They wore the same clothes, were expected to observe the same manners and habits, etc. Their toys were often regular adult tools and objects, just on a smaller scale, with no particular allowance for safety etc. An interesting question is whether toys like this sword would be restricted to higher strata of society, or if any kid could play "officer".  

[rvpopeye]

Or that ^

[F350Platinum]

Great hunt, Swiftsword! 👍

Here's some more info on your token:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces15446.html

It has a rarity index of 36, I like Numista for that. Love the sword hilt and the razor, those are all in very good condition for the age.

Odd to see a snake this time of year, that one probably didn't get the memo 😏

[SwiftSword]

He didn't seem too happy, very sluggish. But the forsythias are blooming in my yard, I guess global warming is confusing for all creatures.