Curiosity - What Is The Oldest Item You Have Ever Found?

[Dcraun]

Can I play again? Here is my oldest US coin. It's a 1798 Draped bust large cent. I also included a picture of my shovel marking where it was found. Notice the cut limestone blocks all that's left of an old structure.

[F350Platinum]

3 hours ago, Dcraun said:

Can I play again? Here is my oldest US coin. It's a 1798 Draped bust large cent. I also included a picture of my shovel marking where it was found. Notice the cut limestone blocks all that's left of an old structure.

Nice, DC. I dug one too this year!

Guess that's my oldest US coin too. 🤔

[Heavy Metal]

Awsome patina!!!

 

 

[Az_Ed]

I'm volunteering with an archaeology search in the southwest.  I've detected numerous artifacts from the 1539-1542 Franciso Vazquez de Coronado expeditions.  It is most interesting to work with an Archaeologist and see how they carefully document each and every artifact found, no matter how small.  Without professional qualified recording, the meaning, understanding, context and significance of the artifacts is lost to the world forever.  Helping with with this effort has really opened my eyes to the ramifications and consequences of metal detector artifact and relic hunting.

[Lost Scout]

6 minutes ago, Az_Ed said:

I'm volunteering with an archaeology search in the southwest.  I've detected numerous artifacts from the 1539-1542 Franciso Vazquez de Coronado expeditions.  It is most interesting to work with an Archaeologist and see how they carefully document each and every artifact found, no matter how small.  Without professional qualified recording, the meaning, understanding, context and significance of the artifacts is lost to the world forever.  Helping with with this effort has really opened my eyes to the ramifications and consequences of metal detector artifact and relic hunting.

That is so cool. I'm in a area where I get excited to find a cap gun from the 1950's. Would love to detect an area with older artifacts.

[blackjack]

On 4/5/2024 at 1:49 PM, Erik Oostra said:

The oldest thing I've found so far is older than white settlement in this region.. It's a Chinese coin dating back to the Ch'ien-lung Emperor who reigned from 1735 to 1796.. White settlement in the Townsville region and Magnetic Island didn't kick off until the late 1860s.. The Chinese sailor who lost his coin on the island might well have beaten Captain Cook (1770) to this part of the Coral Sea.. I wonder what the island's Aboriginal people made of all these weird visitors..   

The coin itself is not valuable, too many were made during this Emperor's reign.. But for me it's the pleasure of imagining this little coin's journey before my Foxy Noxy hit on it.. Or I should say: 'until it ended up in a box with other scrap junk'.. Before anyone panics, I gave it a spit and polish and sold it to a coin collector who bought it as part of a 'job lot' with some silver Victorian era coins.. 

When I first found this coin I thought it was a pendant or token of some sort.. But its remote location in the bush well away from tourist beaches made me think again.. Also some folk on this forum identified it as the real deal.. The coin collector likewise said it wasn't a token.. Anyhow, the little Chinese coin has finally found a home with someone who treasures it.. Disney eat your heart out..  

Thinking about what I just wrote and seeing the picture again make me kick myself for selling it..  

Good find Erik, hard to top that here in Australia, my oldest piece that can be dated is pieces of sheet lead from a whaling station that stopped working in the late 1830's, I also found a brass button and canvas eyelet at the same site. There is a lot of pieces of sheet lead at this site, can anyone tell me what it was used for ? As far as an undatable relic, it's a cutting or scraping tool, knapped from a piece of hard shiny jet black rock, I'm usure what mineral. I found it in the Weld river valley here in southern Tasmania. This was the route that the local first nations people used to access the west coast in summer. Maybe 40,000 years old ?

[Lost Scout]

21 minutes ago, blackjack said:

Good find Erik, hard to top that here in Australia, my oldest piece that can be dated is pieces of sheet lead from a whaling station that stopped working in the late 1830's, I also found a brass button and canvas eyelet at the same site. There is a lot of pieces of sheet lead at this site, can anyone tell me what it was used for ? As far as an undatable relic, it's a cutting or scraping tool, knapped from a piece of hard shiny jet black rock, I'm usure what mineral. I found it in the Weld river valley here in southern Tasmania. This was the route that the local first nations people used to access the west coast in summer. Maybe 40,000 years old ?

Shiny and jet black. If you were in the western US is say obsidian. It has a conchoidal fracture, glass like and used to make arrow heads.

Wasn't sheet lead used to cover the bows of ships?

[blackjack]

3 hours ago, Lost Scout said:

Shiny and jet black. If you were in the western US is say obsidian. It has a conchoidal fracture, glass like and used to make arrow heads.

Wasn't sheet lead used to cover the bows of ships?

Thanks Lost Scout it certainly looks the same and your description matches. Yes you are right about lead in fact I think they used it below the water line as an antifoul and to protect the wooden hull from teredo worm, but it is in small pieces and shows no sign of corrosion, It's certainly a good explanation. I wondered if it was used to line the oil barrels ? This was a shore based operation one of nine in the bay, Recherche Bay, on the far S/E coast of Tasmania. The whaling was done from longboats in the D'entrecasteaux channel between the Tassie mainland and Bruny island, ships would return to resupply and pick up the oil. This particular station used a natural granite shelf as a flensing deck, it's located at Snake point, just inside of Fishers point on the southside of the bay, near the old Pilot station, for those who like to look at places via google earth.

[Mike C...]

I beeped a 1797 large cent many years ago in Maine 

[Tyler]

Besides very old Native American stone tools, worked glass, and a mica cut out associated with the mound builders. I live near a lot of old native settlement sites. We also have a lot of colonial sites here. I’ve found copper kettle points. Copper that was cut to make arrow heads. Quite a bit of Spanish silver. Cuts and wholes. Some just pounded or sanded flat. 1773 Virginia half penny. A cut silver dates back to 1730. Lots of buttons from the 1700s. A lot of these sites overlap with Native American sites.