Steve Herschbach Posted December 25, 2016 Share Posted December 25, 2016 You may have noticed when digging around old cabins or campsites that Hills Brothers coffee cans are pretty common. It turns out they can be used to get a rough idea of when the site was in use by noting slight differences in the designs of the cans over time. It was so useful in Alaska that BLM put together a booklet showing can designs from 1900 - 1963 that they could use as an aid in dating Alaska cabin sites. You can download it for free at https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/ak/aktest/ofr.Par.57416.File.dat/CoffeeCanFieldBook_web.pdf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasong Posted December 25, 2016 Share Posted December 25, 2016 I made a fairly comprehensive video on dating sites via tin cans in general, not just coffee cans, last year. If anyone is interested. For some reason it got almost no views but it's a real useful skill to have for research to be able to date the various different kinds of cans you find out there so maybe people outside the gold prospecting realm can get some use out of it? 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GB_Amateur Posted December 25, 2016 Share Posted December 25, 2016 12 hours ago, jasong said: I made a fairly comprehensive video on dating sites via tin cans in general... Excellent video, and of course appropriate to many branches of metal detecting. I always try and determine the age of finds, not only because, as mentioned in the video, to improve one's knowledge -- leading to improved quality of finds -- but also because I enjoy history. Sometimes we're lucky enough to have dates (besides on coins), often patent dates. Most of the time, as in the video, it comes down to figuring out when an item was in common use. One of my favorite trash finds in parks is the ring-and-beavertail pulltab, which dates its loss to the 1965-75 time window (as Jason mentions). Because older detectors weren't so good at discrimination, these should have been dug up back in the 70's-80's and even 90's. Even with today's detectors, because the r&b pulltab shapes vary (with bending and broken off parts) the ID can vary enough to overlap coins, especially if you're in a site which might have the full range of 19th Century US coinage. Bottom line is if you find trash others should have found, then either you're doing something different (and better) than what they did, or they haven't even been there. Win-win! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathray Posted January 1, 2017 Share Posted January 1, 2017 This is why you have my favorite forum Steve! Thanks. Btw Jasong, my buddy sold some cone tops for good $$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caprock Posted January 1, 2017 Share Posted January 1, 2017 Staying with the can theme, here are some circa 1855-65 French sardine cans from California gold rush camps, similar cans also turn up on Civil War sites, notice soldered-on brass labels and jagged knife opened tops. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivers rat Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 Love the Napoleon the 3rd on the tin this guy had an ego problem.................he struck gazillions of coins......... tin 1 :Les sables d olonne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Sables-d'Olonne tin 2: la rochelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rochelle The brands seems to have disappear.................... RR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeO2digger Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Am new here, but love digging the old cans, specialize in pre WWII trash, mostly Beer but also other tins... One man's trash is another man's treasure! Enjoy! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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