First hunt after the freeze in Holland!

[woody50]

22 January Forgot to say, I was lucky to get out at all yesterday, today its raining buckets.... the whole day!
23 January, 13:30, still raining, no detecting!

Finally could get out and dig in the ground, it's thawed out now. Close where I live a farmhouse was demolished,
so I knew where to go. The farmhouse was from the 19th century (many of those had been rapidly built, and were
nowadays is bad condition), but there were farmhouse previously on the lot for centuries past. In the past I had
found two small pieces of a beautiful round gold hanger there which was from the 15th or earlier century, so my
hopes were high. But I saw pretty quickly that the ground had not been dug deeply, only a few pieces of 17th
century pottery and a piece of tile from the early 1600's was laying on the surface. But I still wanted to search,
it has been a long time since I had done that.

The farmhouse was of the 4 sided type, the type were built around a heavy wooden 4 sided construction, which
provided the backbone for the house. Because the rest of the house was in very poor condition it was removed.
The only thing left was then the 4-side wooden construction. It was moved in back of the lot and will be used
later to construct the new 'farmhouse type' of house.

Here a photo of the site with the 4-sided wood construction moved away a bit, a drawing of how the 4-sided
wood construction was used, and a typical 4-sided farmhouse.

I searched for about a hour, it was still cold and rainy. But I had pretty good luck with the finds, most of the time
I can only find a few things at such a site, but this time I was more lucky and there were a few nice things. Found
4 coins, all from the 17th century (earliest 1602), a clay marble, two pipe cleaners, a nice knife handle, a great
button and a knife blade in almost perfect condition (17th century). Only had to use a little electrolysis on it and
then dried and perserved it.

My finds

The neat button is from the "Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart" (Maritime College School) which was constructed in 1781.

This the the school (college) building, still in use in Amsterdam

And a photo of the 2 pipe cleaners and knife handle

 

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[woody50]

Woody,
you are the man! Way to go, what are the coins? Keep it up, kane 23

The coins are not so old, all appearing to be 17th century, of which we find the most. The reason is
that in the 17th century Holland ruled the world on the seas, and was very rich for one century. So
most coins we find are from that period. If I get them cleaned I will post a photo. One I can see the
date of, its almost clean, 1602.

 

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[archaeon]

Thor (Old Norse: Þórr) is the red-haired and bearded[1][2] god of thunder in Germanic paganism and its subsets: Norse paganism, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Continental Germanic paganism. The god is also recorded in Old English as Þunor, Old Saxon as Thunaer,[3] as Old Dutch and Old High German: Donar, all of which are names deriving from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *Þunraz.
wikipedia: Thor (hammer symbol)
Most surviving stories relating to Germanic paganism either mention Thor or center on Thor's exploits. Thor was a much revered god of the ancient Germanic peoples from at least the earliest surviving written accounts of the indigenous Germanic tribes to over a thousand years later in the late Viking Age.

Thor was appealed to for protection on numerous objects found from various Germanic tribes and Miniature replicas of Mjolnir, the weapon of Thor, became a defiant symbol of Norse paganism during the Christianization of Scandinavia.[4][5] Thor was gradually demonized by the growing influence of Christian missionaries. After Christian influence was cemented in law, traces of belief went increasingly underground into mainly rural areas, surviving until modern times into Germanic folklore and most recently reconstructed to varying degrees in Germanic Neopaganism

 

[Bavaria Mike]

You had an awesome hunt and finds! Great pictures and I sure enjoyed it. HH, Mike

 

[dfx willy]

woody i dont know what to say but WOW willy.

 

[AKiwi]

Woody, it must be so good to be able to dig such old coins etc. In NZ we have very little old stuff, but its the thrill of the chase......not knowing what will turn up

 

[woody50]

Woody, it must be so good to be able to dig such old coins etc. In NZ we have very little old stuff, but its the thrill of the chase......not knowing what will turn up

Yea it is nice. But really I have become spoiled in one way over the years (my wife things more ways ),
I only try to research and search sites that have had human activity from the 17th century or earlier, and occur
in cities or towns. Two reasons for that,

1) I can find concentrations of those finds on those sites because in the older cities people have lived there for
centuries and there are layers for each era (the sinking occurs in my area in Holland due to the ground composition,
mostly peat)

and

2) I search mostly construction sites for houses or buildings, and those only after the first meter or one and a half
meter ground has been removed.

Here in my part of Holland most of those finds start appearing at a depth of about a meter or more depending upon the
ground type. Having the first layers removed is great, it removes all the junk from later centuries that I am not interested in.
And then there are the concentrations of finds from my desired era's. But the real nice (older) stuff appears much deeper,
on construction sites where an auto parking garage is made underground are the top sites going to about 4 or 5 meters deep,
then I can find here finds continuing back to the 11/12th century or even earlier.

One problem with my type of searching is that I have a very short period when I can dig. Most of the time not more than a day,
or even hours. That is because when the ground (clay) is removed most of the time clean sand is brought in and spread on the soil,
sometimes reaching 8 to 10 or more inches deep. Then you can dig, but its more difficult. If not the sand its then the steel
constructions that they use. So I have to be sharp and quick, know when that period occurs. Of course I can't be in two places at
the same time, and I have other duties in life, so I miss many good sites also.

But sometimes I get more time, for instance weekends or gaps in the building schedule. The last occurs because all buildings in my
part of Holland are required to be built on piles, sunk deep into the soil until they reach a hard sand layer. Those company's who
do the piling cannot be everyplace at the same time. The sand that is spread after the digging is the hardest part. If sand is laid
down before I can search I lose the site. Then I can only search the spoils.

But AKiwi the thrill of finding something is the same here in Holland as it is in England or America, just wonderful.

 

[woody50]

Thor (Old Norse: Þórr) is the red-haired and bearded[1][2] god of thunder in Germanic paganism and its subsets: Norse paganism, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Continental Germanic paganism. The god is also recorded in Old English as Þunor, Old Saxon as Thunaer,[3] as Old Dutch and Old High German: Donar, all of which are names deriving from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *Þunraz.
wikipedia: Thor (hammer symbol)
Most surviving stories relating to Germanic paganism either mention Thor or center on Thor's exploits. Thor was a much revered god of the ancient Germanic peoples from at least the earliest surviving written accounts of the indigenous Germanic tribes to over a thousand years later in the late Viking Age.

Thor was appealed to for protection on numerous objects found from various Germanic tribes and Miniature replicas of Mjolnir, the weapon of Thor, became a defiant symbol of Norse paganism during the Christianization of Scandinavia.[4][5] Thor was gradually demonized by the growing influence of Christian missionaries. After Christian influence was cemented in law, traces of belief went increasingly underground into mainly rural areas, surviving until modern times into Germanic folklore and most recently reconstructed to varying degrees in Germanic Neopaganism

Thanks, now I remember. But its a different type of hammer, the hammer from Thor is a sledge hammer type, and this one is for pounding and pulling nails. Thanks for the research, nice to know!

 

[woody50]

You had an awesome hunt and finds! Great pictures and I sure enjoyed it. HH, Mike

Glad you enjoyed it Mike. Don't find enough of those sites, for instance with this old farmhouse they
removed it in ONE DAY! Can you believe it? So searching time is short.

Another problem is the price of gasoline. It used to be I would drive around for a few hours and always
find one or more sites to search, but now I have to research it differently. Like looking in the local
newpapers for the publication of building permits, looking at the address and then finding out what
was there in ages past. But at the current price of gasoline I have to be more careful and know
where I am going....

 

[woody50]

That is a beautiful assemblage. Each single item is neat, but the group as a whole is really nice.

The early knife in superb relic condition, the maritime school button, the fantastic pipe cleaners in the shapes of early weapons.

Next time I am in Holland, I will give the Red Light District a break for a couple of days, and take out the detector.

Yea the knife, you don't find many in that condition anymore (acid rain and pollution). You should not wait
too long, the city of Amsterdam has indicated that many of the houses will be closed down in the red light
district (absolutely something to see), that being due to criminals and mafia secretly owning many of the places,
and whitewashing their criminal monies. Nowadays due to the price of petrol I visit only every other day or soo.....

 

[theloadroom]

Great finds! The small hammer appears to be a black powder firearm accessorie for cleaning the touch hole and pulling/pounding in the stock wedge(s)? just a thought

 

[crazyjarhead]

Hope it stops raining for you over there so you can get out again. Nice finds and the pipe cleaner awesome

 

[Slingshot]

Very nice finds! Congratulations! On my next vacation to Holland I'm bringing a detector and tent, renting a bike and then do a bike tour, with digging at any interesting looking places I come across.

 

[woody50]

Very nice finds! Congratulations! On my next vacation to Holland I'm bringing a detector and tent, renting a bike and then do a bike tour, with digging at any interesting looking places I come across.

Thanks.. That is the best way in the cities for sure, parking is a bummer. If your bike is not too large you can also take it on the train with you for a small charge, I thought a foldable bike is free, but not sure about that. Or you say return the bike and rent one in your following place. Holland is small and has great trains and buses (no bikes I think), in either case when comparing it to America or England.

 

[Harry_Morant]

Some amazing looking finds - well done.

 

[detector de metales]

Woody,
Did you check out the spoon? What were the makers marks on that??
J2

 

[Deno]

Sweet relics and not so old coins? I can only hope to find a coin from the 17th century. Congrats.

 

[tomted62]

Very nice!! I love the pipecleaners!

 

[woody50]

Woody,
Did you check out the spoon? What were the makers marks on that??
J2

Well the spoon is not too old at all, there is a makers mark on it, DE in a sort of circle. I think that its
a spoon that you received for cashing in coupons for the DE brand of coffee back in the 20th century.