Go Small Or Go Home Pt. 2

[F350Platinum]

Well, no silver this time, but I still had a fun day with Chase. Invited him down again for another shot at a really old place, he wanted to try out a new detector, I hope he will post his impressions.

Another warm day, sun was bright and it got into the 50s. Had great conditions for another relic dig. It's getting a little dry now but weekend rain will help.

I got there really early, hunted around for a long time, reminded me of my last post, 🙄 "Looking For Stuff In all the Wrong Places". By the time Chase showed up I really hadn't found much, so we went to a known hotspot, I switched to the 9" coil because there is a lot of iron there, and the relics started popping.

Ended up with some nice Tombacs with shanks, a watch key, a really nice button with gold still on it imported from England - W&G Chance, a great small rein guide and other bits.

At one point I got a 91 and thought "yay, Silver!"

Nope.

Instead I dug what I believe to be a sword crossguard. It has two different scenes on each side, and it's curved.

One side appears to depict a person with an animal, the other a person with either a farm implement or trident.

It's about 2.5 inches wide, so it was possibly a knife. Couldn't find the rest of it.

And last, the real surprise of the day, an extremely old and corroded button with shank that appears to have the number "28" on it, could be from the Revolution or an earlier conflict:

Huge shank, probably for a coat.

This is all I dug for trash, a little more than a handful.

We went to check another field before we left, it had slightly more modern stuff and added a lot of stuff to my trash pouch. I was surprised to only dig one buck ball.

[Chase Goldman]

Had a blast as usual, Bob.  That old, likely-British military regimental button was amazing to see first hand and the depiction detail in that sword or dagger cross-guard is just amazing and just plain interesting and puzzling to contemplate its purpose.

I'm putting together a separate finds thread for this hunt because, spoiler alert, I pulled out the Manticore for it's maiden voyage in the Relic fields this time out instead of solely using my trusty, tried, and true Deus 2 <gasp>.  So stand by for my first take on Manticore as a relic machine, coming up soon.

[rvpopeye]

Another nice sandbox hunt !👍

🥸 I think I saw a pocket knife on the right side of the junk pic ?

[HardPack]

1 hour ago, F350Platinum said:

One side appears to depict a person with an animal, the other a person with either a farm implement or trident.

Any British Naval or Royal Marines officers posted in the area. On the hand guards I’m guessing Neptune, trident and seal. Either way, I’d have to start detecting old Spanish Missions after dark to find that kind of history. Thanks for the post,

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, rvpopeye said:

Another nice sandbox hunt !👍

🥸 I think I saw a pocket knife on the right side of the junk pic ?

Yep.  You saw that correctly.  We're both getting a less selective as to what ends up in the trash/recycling scrap bucket these days based on the older relics these sites are producing: 19th and 20th century common household stuff (other than precious metal items, coins and jewelry and certain identifiable antique brass items such as thimbles), some brass horse tack stuff, and even old, fired musket balls are going to occasionally end up there, as well.

[Chase Goldman]

21 minutes ago, HardPack said:

Any British Naval or Royal Marines officers posted in the area. On the hand guards I’m guessing Neptune, trident and seal. Either way, I’d have to start detecting old Spanish Missions after dark to find that kind of history. Thanks for the post,

Many of the Colonists who lived in the area served in various branches of the British military (e.g., George Washington served as a young Britsh Army officer and travelled extensively doing land surveys for England).  So there are some opportunities to recover pre-revolutionary Royal Military uniform accoutrements from Colonial period house sites lost by occupants who were British military veterans, even if a military detachment was not posted in the area or any wartime action occurred.  There was limited War of 1812 military activity in the vicinity and we've recovered verified uniform parts from that era (though not at this particular site and the button Bob recovered seems to be much older than that perod).  And finally, we occasionally recover CW military relics although practically no notable CW activity occurred in the area, and these too, were likely lost by locals who were former CW veterans who returned with their military uniforms, equipment, and firearms.

[F350Platinum]

4 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Had a blast as usual, Bob.  That old, likely-British military regimental button was amazing to see first hand and the depiction detail in that sword or dagger cross-guard is just amazing and just plain interesting and puzzling to contemplate its purpose.

I'm putting together a separate finds thread for this hunt because, spoiler alert, I pulled out the Manticore for it's maiden voyage in the Relic fields this time out instead of solely using my trusty, tried, and true Deus 2 <gasp>.  So stand by for my first take on Manticore as a relic machine, coming up soon.

I'm looking forward to that as well, while I'm happy to just use the Deus in any form, it was cool to see another machine at play. Sure looked light. 👍

It's amusing that the D2, even in its heaviest form with the 11x13" coil, is lighter than the near lightest Equinox with the 10x5". Both find the good stuff well, when you get down to the 9" it's like waving a stick of Balsa at the targets with the D2, much appreciated on a 9 hour hunt like yesterday. But when the going gets big, it's better to use the 13", it's not going to miss much if there isn't much.

[F350Platinum]

6 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

Another nice sandbox hunt !👍

🥸 I think I saw a pocket knife on the right side of the junk pic ?

Yeah, I find a lot of those, usually so far gone they're not worth restoring. I do have a sword minus hilt that I'll get looked at someday, and I hope to rescue a cannonball if it's not dangerous. A lot of the musket balls are chewed by animals, it's like old chewing gum 😀

You're also right about this being a sandbox, the soil is very often sandy making it both easy to dig, and sort of frustrating when the chemicals used on it don't leach out fast enough. 400 years takes its toll regardless.

[F350Platinum]

6 hours ago, HardPack said:

Any British Naval or Royal Marines officers posted in the area. On the hand guards I’m guessing Neptune, trident and seal. Either way, I’d have to start detecting old Spanish Missions after dark to find that kind of history. Thanks for the post,

The possibilities are almost endless, this area was established in the 1640s officially, and for many years remained rather difficult to get to other than from the Northwest or by ship. It wasn't until the 1920s that major access was built across the rivers. Lots of British colonists called this an early home, and it has remained largely undeveloped.

Thanks for the clues as to where to look!

[HardPack]

1 hour ago, F350Platinum said:

this area was established in the 1640s

Finds as these sure puts a person I touch with our history and how far we have spread out since that time. 

6 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

we occasionally recover CW military relics although practically no notable CW activity occurred in the area, and these too, were likely lost by locals who were former CW veterans who returned with their military uniforms, equipment, and firearms.

I believe it may of been the owner of a scuba/skin diver outfit in Alabama that acquired a rifle from the CW that bore the initials of his great grand father. Regardless of what side your family found itself during the CW, could you imagine the meaning that would hold.