OutdoorAdv
Bronze Member
- Apr 16, 2013
- 2,457
- 3,350
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XP Deus,
GPX 4500,
Equinox 800,
AT Max
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I got out yesterday to do some more sifting and got my best bone handle fork yet 
Unfortunately it was raining in the morning, so I dug iron targets for a few hours until it stopped raining and I could open up the pit. While digging iron nails, to my surprise, I unmasked the thimble, tombac button, flat button, pewter buckle... and totally randomly found a silver needle in the dirt. Its so small it hardly sets off the pinpointer. I'm not surprised these targets were masked at all... I'm surprised because I often dig nails and usually don't find nearly as many non-ferrous surprises. So I had luck on my side and decided to open a new pit section. The area I opened is an area I had been meaning to sift because it contains mostly Rose Head nails and very few square nails. In contrast, the section of the pit I've been sifting in the past, contains mostly square nails and a few Rose Heads.
The results from yesterday were an incredible 2 tine bone handle fork and a paste cufflink with a checkered silver background and a pewter frame with a drilled shank.... and.... a bunch of rose heads! Also countless pottery and earthenware shards. **The broken bone handle fork was from sifting on Sunday 4/17, along with the brass cufflink and CW Washington Arsenal Bullet. I didn't have much time last Sun, so I opened a small pit section and I didn't get enough to post, so I'm including those few items in this post.**
After 200+ years in the dirt, I gave it a 24 hour preservation transformation! Luckily I have found many iron artifacts with bone handles, so I have honed my preservation process on these sort of items. 1) as dug 2) cleaned with water 3) rubber band the bone and electrolysis overnight 4) Dried and glued broken bone piece and into a mineral oil bath to preserve the bone 5) complete!
This is one of my all time favorite relics now. Very pleased with how it turned out.
I got a lot of nice rose heads that I tumbled over night and hot waxed this morning. A nice thimble turned up and another slate pencil. Also that small brass piece with a point I believe is the tip to a bolo tie string.
I find lots of teeth in the pit and I usually keep them as long as they're not still in the jaw bone. Its a good cross section to what they were eating and I get lots of pigs teeth and tusks. But this tooth\claw is the BIGGEST one that I've ever seen. It has thin walls and is hallow, which makes me think its a claw to something! Also, that pipe bowl fragment has a horse or a deer on it. Too bad it wasnt complete.
And the cufflink streak continues. I think I've dug a cufflink in every hunt for the last 5 hunts. (if you count the King Louis button as a cufflink) Its weird how things like this happen and prior to all these links I would get a toasty one from time to time, but never anything as nice as these. The first pit section I opened yesterday contained not a single non-ferrous item, except for the lone pewter paste cufflink, face down in the hard clay bottom of the pit. Its gotten a bit comical for me at this point, but like the copper streak I was on over the winter, this fun is bound to end! (Brass link was from Sun 4/17)
I was emptying a plug of 5 square nails and I see this thing in the dirt. I couldn't believe it and it appears silver. The pinpinter hardly picks it up and had I not eyeballed it in the dirt, it would have been buried forever.
Evidently I tried to chop this really cool pewter buckle in half. I get very frustrated when I do that, especially to something this nice. Its flaky, so it got an elmers bath. Its small... knee buckle size, but I don't think that's what it is. Not sure what it was used for.
While swinging to clear out more nails yesterday, I came across this stirrup fragment. I really like when they're complete, but there's enough of this one left to get a spot in the case. Also a HUGE hand forged iron spike that turned up. Those made it into the electrolysis batch last night and turned out great.
That pile of nails are the square nails from yesterday. The rose heads were in the first picture. So when I dig nails... I chase them all over. The pottery came from the pit yesterday and were the more colorful pieces that turned up.
(As a side note, I separated all the nails from the three sifting trips prior to this one. In those three trips I excavated a 10x10 foot pit section and I removed 213 square nails and a couple rose heads. I tumble them all and throw them in storage boxes, but I had never counted to see about how many nails I was removing... just that I come home with a LOT of nails every trip. Something to think about next time you get into an iron patch!)
The Civil War bullet from the pit last Sun turned out to be a Washington Arsenal bullet. The first CW bullet I dug was a Washington Arsenal... and this one is my second.
These are some other utensils I've dug at this site. This isn't all of them, but as you guys can see I keep getting broken ones. However I was able to practice preserving them, so I knew just what to do when the one turned up yesterday.
If you made it this far, I'm sorry
I know it was a long one, but I was really excited about this fork. Thanks for reading and happy hunting!
Unfortunately it was raining in the morning, so I dug iron targets for a few hours until it stopped raining and I could open up the pit. While digging iron nails, to my surprise, I unmasked the thimble, tombac button, flat button, pewter buckle... and totally randomly found a silver needle in the dirt. Its so small it hardly sets off the pinpointer. I'm not surprised these targets were masked at all... I'm surprised because I often dig nails and usually don't find nearly as many non-ferrous surprises. So I had luck on my side and decided to open a new pit section. The area I opened is an area I had been meaning to sift because it contains mostly Rose Head nails and very few square nails. In contrast, the section of the pit I've been sifting in the past, contains mostly square nails and a few Rose Heads.The results from yesterday were an incredible 2 tine bone handle fork and a paste cufflink with a checkered silver background and a pewter frame with a drilled shank.... and.... a bunch of rose heads! Also countless pottery and earthenware shards. **The broken bone handle fork was from sifting on Sunday 4/17, along with the brass cufflink and CW Washington Arsenal Bullet. I didn't have much time last Sun, so I opened a small pit section and I didn't get enough to post, so I'm including those few items in this post.**
After 200+ years in the dirt, I gave it a 24 hour preservation transformation! Luckily I have found many iron artifacts with bone handles, so I have honed my preservation process on these sort of items. 1) as dug 2) cleaned with water 3) rubber band the bone and electrolysis overnight 4) Dried and glued broken bone piece and into a mineral oil bath to preserve the bone 5) complete!
This is one of my all time favorite relics now. Very pleased with how it turned out.
I got a lot of nice rose heads that I tumbled over night and hot waxed this morning. A nice thimble turned up and another slate pencil. Also that small brass piece with a point I believe is the tip to a bolo tie string.
I find lots of teeth in the pit and I usually keep them as long as they're not still in the jaw bone. Its a good cross section to what they were eating and I get lots of pigs teeth and tusks. But this tooth\claw is the BIGGEST one that I've ever seen. It has thin walls and is hallow, which makes me think its a claw to something! Also, that pipe bowl fragment has a horse or a deer on it. Too bad it wasnt complete.
And the cufflink streak continues. I think I've dug a cufflink in every hunt for the last 5 hunts. (if you count the King Louis button as a cufflink) Its weird how things like this happen and prior to all these links I would get a toasty one from time to time, but never anything as nice as these. The first pit section I opened yesterday contained not a single non-ferrous item, except for the lone pewter paste cufflink, face down in the hard clay bottom of the pit. Its gotten a bit comical for me at this point, but like the copper streak I was on over the winter, this fun is bound to end! (Brass link was from Sun 4/17)
I was emptying a plug of 5 square nails and I see this thing in the dirt. I couldn't believe it and it appears silver. The pinpinter hardly picks it up and had I not eyeballed it in the dirt, it would have been buried forever.
Evidently I tried to chop this really cool pewter buckle in half. I get very frustrated when I do that, especially to something this nice. Its flaky, so it got an elmers bath. Its small... knee buckle size, but I don't think that's what it is. Not sure what it was used for.
While swinging to clear out more nails yesterday, I came across this stirrup fragment. I really like when they're complete, but there's enough of this one left to get a spot in the case. Also a HUGE hand forged iron spike that turned up. Those made it into the electrolysis batch last night and turned out great.
That pile of nails are the square nails from yesterday. The rose heads were in the first picture. So when I dig nails... I chase them all over. The pottery came from the pit yesterday and were the more colorful pieces that turned up.
(As a side note, I separated all the nails from the three sifting trips prior to this one. In those three trips I excavated a 10x10 foot pit section and I removed 213 square nails and a couple rose heads. I tumble them all and throw them in storage boxes, but I had never counted to see about how many nails I was removing... just that I come home with a LOT of nails every trip. Something to think about next time you get into an iron patch!)
The Civil War bullet from the pit last Sun turned out to be a Washington Arsenal bullet. The first CW bullet I dug was a Washington Arsenal... and this one is my second.
These are some other utensils I've dug at this site. This isn't all of them, but as you guys can see I keep getting broken ones. However I was able to practice preserving them, so I knew just what to do when the one turned up yesterday.
If you made it this far, I'm sorry
I know it was a long one, but I was really excited about this fork. Thanks for reading and happy hunting!
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... and I almost didn't sift at all yesterday! 
