1812 Artillery Button, KGIII, Pewter Knee buckle and more.

OutdoorAdv

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I was able to get out yesterday and today for a few hours each day at a couple sites. Yesterday I turned up a nice pewter knee buckle, a tiny forked tongue buckle, a 3 ringer and some pottery. Today I was able to get into a site where the grass had been a bit tall and I found a mess of cool buttons and a KGIII with some nice patina on it. My favorite find by far, from both days, was the War of 1812 1st Regiment Artillery button. (Alberts AY36 1813-14 20mm blank backmark). Prior to today, all my military buttons had been General Service or Infantry ranging from WWII, WWI, CW and War of 1812. So to get an Artillery button and an OLD one at that, was a great way to end the year.

I had just dug a nice silver washed flat button with some wheat ears on it and a couple feet away I got this whisper. I popped the plug and located the flat button... just like every other flat button I gave it a quick wipe on my pants to see if there was a design before putting it in a canister. I wiped this one and saw some loops on it and thought there was a floral pattern. Another wipe and I couldn't believe what I was seeing... a script A with a circle and a 1 under it. Unfortunately the dirt was caked on like concrete so there was no more field cleaning for it. I was going to pick at it, but it was too hard, so I ended up doing a cold peroxide soak with some light q-tip and tooth picking for a couple hours. I am thrilled with the results.

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A couple posts ago I decided to do some animated gifs for my posts. So here is the Artillery button 1) as dug 2) halfway through peroxide 3) complete

e.gif

Here is everything from my last couple hunts. There is a cool marked pipe stem and I glued a bit of a bowl back together.

IMG_20161227_182355610.jpg

This KG was a huge surprise to hear and see. Oddly I mostly have KGII coppers and this is only my second KGIII. Although its bent and worn, this one has the best patina out of all of them. I believe its 1775 or 1776. Its tough to tell because the date is a little off and you can only see the tops of the letters.

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This complete pewter knee buckle was from yesterdays hunt. It was very brittle, so I packed it in dirt until I got home, then I sealed it with a few coats of Elmers last night. I've dug lots of pewter shoe and knee buckle fragments, but this is my first complete pewter frame.

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This tiny buckle was about a foot from the pewter knee buckle. Its very small and has a forked tongue on it.

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These next two buttons were from today's hunt. Both were feet from the Artillery button and I was killing it on marked flat buttons. The one with the wheat ears and the oval center is very interesting. It seems like it was made to perhaps have something engraved in the center?

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And some more pictures of the last two days.

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IMG_20161227_182509796.jpg IMG_20161227_182518359.jpg
IMG_20161227_182533545.jpg IMG_20161227_182544255.jpg

While I didn't get any metal detecting stuff for Christmas, I did come up with a scheme to perhaps get a little more field time with my detector, while still getting the chores done around the house. Since I cant be in two places at once, I decided it was time to get a robot to do some of my busy work, while I head out with my detector to do the dirty work. So, I bought myself a iRobot Roomba for Christmas and so far, it has vacuumed the entire downstairs, 3 bedrooms and a hallway... all while I was detecting... and the lady is pleased with all the chores "I'm" doing around the house. :headbang:

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas :occasion14: I'm going to try and get out for a couple more hours this week, so I'll post if anything cool turns up... if not, Happy New Year everyone.
 

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Steve in PA

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Nice haul Brad. Your 1st Regt. Script A is in beautiful condition. I have 2nd and 3rd Regt script As, but neither are as sharply struck as yours. Your other finds are top notch too.
 

weregolf

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A lot of beeps there
Nice KG 1778 coin!
 

Scrappy

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Haha. Always a pleasure seeing your finds. That script A is absolutely phenomenal - It's the best I've seen out of the ground. And the KG has a lot of personality as well. You consistently bring the goods and hold that post bar high Brother! Never boring and always great.
 

Steve in PA

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The tiny buckle is a breeches buckle.
 

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Calabash Digger

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Those are some great finds, really really nice. congrats
 

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Fantastic old coin and relic hunt! :notworthy:
 

Patriot Relics

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Excellent way to round out 2016 Brad, never tried cold peroxide on buttons but your results speak for themselves. As for the silver gilt button my first thought was 71st regiment of foot... while similar in design looks to be a civilian variety. Congrats bud 11159714834_9f5a407c9c_o.jpg
 

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OutdoorAdv

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Excellent way to round out 2016 Brad, never tried cold peroxide on buttons but your results speak for themselves. As for the silver gilt button my first thought was 71st regiment of foot... while similar in design looks to be a civilian variety. Congrats bud View attachment 1395311

Oh man... I wish! I cant tell you how hard I stared at that silver oval just hoping to see something etched in it. haha I'm pretty sure its civilian, but with that cool design its one of my favorites and still has a lot of silver left. I'm new to cold peroxide. I had done boiling years ago but stopped because I didn't care for it. The dirt was so crusty on this Artillery my options were mechanical removal, dry with a toothpick or a slow cold peroxide soak for a few hours to loosen it up. With no gilt left I wouldn't touch it with jelly. Rather than chance ruining the patina with the mechanical approach, I did the cold peroxide soak for about 5 hours. It did darken the patina a bit, but I left enough dirt on it to have a nice contrast.
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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Nice haul Brad. Your 1st Regt. Script A is in beautiful condition. I have 2nd and 3rd Regt script As, but neither are as sharply struck as yours. Your other finds are top notch too.

Thanks Steve! This is my first of any type other than GS and Infantry so I guess I lucked out on condition. With the area I live in, I figured I'd have a bunch of CW Calvary and Artillery by now, but somehow all those have eluded my coil. If your 2nd and 3rd are accessible, I'd love to see pictures of them... but if not, then no worries.

Nice assortment of finds and post congrats

Thank you Art!

Excellent!

Thank you Valley Ranger!

A lot of beeps there
Nice KG 1778 coin!

Thank you weregolf! Lots more beeps were iron! I haven't even unpacked the iron from today yet, but a nice kettle piece with the handle turned up today. This is the iron from yesterdays hunt. I forgot to include it in my post.

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OutdoorAdv

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Haha. Always a pleasure seeing your finds. That script A is absolutely phenomenal - It's the best I've seen out of the ground. And the KG has a lot of personality as well. You consistently bring the goods and hold that post bar high Brother! Never boring and always great.

Thanks a ton man :occasion14: If you sprinkle a few shards of pottery and glass, add a dash of oyster shell, a touch of pipe stem, then it makes any pile of broken metal junk look cool. hahaha Kidding aside, these finds could have held their own without my shard trick to beef up the group shot... today was a ton of fun for a short hunt. I finally got an artillery... its no cannon button, but its pretty damn close! Thanks again man... I really appreciate it.

Brad great digs and that gif is just badass

Thanks Allen! I use ezgif.com/maker Super easy, you just upload any number of pictures and it resizes them, you drag them into the order you want and set the delay for how long to show each and it makes the gif... then you download it. Takes minutes to do and its cool to see before and after like that.

The tiny buckle is a breeches buckle.

Thanks a ton man... I had no idea and I need to look at those. I'm guessing the Whitehead or Hume books will have them. Abe found a similar tiny buckle at a site with similar age as this one.

Those are some great finds, really really nice. congrats

Thank you calabash!

Fantastic old coin and relic hunt! :notworthy:

Thank you Professor! It sure was.
 

treblehunter

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Dam nice finds, the two Brads pulled the same (almost) buttons miles apart. I wish I knew how to do that GIF I could do that with my button too.
 

Patriot Relics

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Oh man... I wish! I cant tell you how hard I stared at that silver oval just hoping to see something etched in it. haha I'm pretty sure its civilian, but with that cool design its one of my favorites and still has a lot of silver left. I'm new to cold peroxide. I had done boiling years ago but stopped because I didn't care for it. The dirt was so crusty on this Artillery my options were mechanical removal, dry with a toothpick or a slow cold peroxide soak for a few hours to loosen it up. With no gilt left I wouldn't touch it with jelly. Rather than chance ruining the patina with the mechanical approach, I did the cold peroxide soak for about 5 hours. It did darken the patina a bit, but I left enough dirt on it to have a nice contrast.

Turned out great, I'm not a fan of boiling peroxide as it strips all the green patina and leave the button with a dry look. Alluminum jelly has the same negative affects if heavy gilt is not present. I find myself using a combination of mineral oil and toothpicking for 99% of the buttons I dig.
 

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OutdoorAdv

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Dam nice finds, the two Brads pulled the same (almost) buttons miles apart. I wish I knew how to do that GIF I could do that with my button too.

Thanks man! Yeah, when Steve texted me I was like "no way!" haha Yours is really nice and I don't recall seeing too many of those posted... or at least not too frequently.

The gif thing is easy and all online. I use ezgif.com/maker. It's all web based... nothing to download. You just upload you files and it'll probably prompt you that it needs to resize them, so click "Resize".

gif1.jpg

You can drag the uploaded filed around to put them in the order you want. I increase the delay time to 100, and add the cross fade so the transition from one picture to the next is a bit delayed. Then you click the "Animate button"... that's pretty much it. There is a download button that'll save the gif to your computer and an "Optimize" option to compress it and make it smaller. Its simple and you'll figure it out by messing with it for a few minutes.

gif2.jpg
 

Steve in PA

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Thanks Steve! This is my first of any type other than GS and Infantry so I guess I lucked out on condition. With the area I live in, I figured I'd have a bunch of CW Calvary and Artillery by now, but somehow all those have eluded my coil. If your 2nd and 3rd are accessible, I'd love to see pictures of them... but if not, then no worries.
This is the only picture I have on hand of my script A buttons Brad. They are not so crisp as yours, possibly from wear, possibly from corrosion.
One Piece Military - B.jpg

Since this picture, I dug two more one piece Eagle artillery. One was another like the two top ones. The other was this one. I wish it was in a little better shape.
Artillery 2.JPG
 

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Carolina Tom

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Very well done as usual Brad. That button is killer, and the .gif is very cool.

Best of luck to you!
 

CRUSADER

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Nice haul.
The small buckle is another Knee Buckle, although there is a camp of people that think they maybe boot buckles.
 

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