washingtonian
Gold Member
Hey all!
Hope you've had a great weekend. My brother and I made the hour journey to Tacoma to check out a few older homes today in search of silver. My friend buys, renovates and sells houses for a living and gave us the green light to check a couple of his houses out.
The first was built in 1905 so we had high hopes. On my first dig I noticed the plastic webbing that goes with sod which was ominous. We spent 30 minutes there hitting the yard, sidewalk strips and median and couldn't turn up even a wheatie. We went to a nearby park and ruled that out after 15 minutes as well. We had noticed an old house with a big lot a couple blocks from where we were so I knocked to ask permission and no one answered. Oh well.
Onto the next house. This one was built in 1943. First dig, more plastic webbing. We spent 30 minutes here before giving up. We hit McDonald's to recuperate and my friend sent me a couple more addresses.
The first house didn't have a yard but the second house looked promising. It was built in 1950 so not too old but at least there is a possibility of finding one of those elusive Washington silvers. My brother got started right away and his second dig was a wheat penny. "Right on" we thought, "there's still hope for the day yet". Well, we posted up there for a few hours and most of my finds from today came from there. My best finds were:
-2 wheats (42-D, 53-D)
-An old lock with a symbol of crossing cannons that reads "Ordinance Department U.S.A.".
-This tag with the name Frances Zehnder and a Tacoma address. Does anyone know what this is? It is not the address that I was at when I found it. My brother found the exact same tag with a different name.
-What looks like a little case for a personal mirror. It had some broken shards of what looked like glass in it when I unearthed it.
That brings me to my favorite find of the day. A month ago I got an "88" signal on my detector that is usually a telltale sign for a silver quarter. Problem is that it was basically in the rootball of a big tree. I spent probably 30 minutes on it when I first found it and couldn't dig around to get it.
I went back with a sawzall a couple weeks ago, woke up the whole neighborhood, spent 45 minutes cutting and still couldn't get it.
So, it was time to get serious. I bought a hatchet and went back. 20 minutes of chopping rewarded me with a surprise. My hands went numb and I got plenty of weird looks, but I found this old military button! My best guess is that it's an army button off a coat from WWI. Can anyone confirm that? I believe the back says "Scoville LTD Co Waterbury".
Here's the scene of the crime:
That's it for me folks. Happy hunting out there!
-Washingtonian
Hope you've had a great weekend. My brother and I made the hour journey to Tacoma to check out a few older homes today in search of silver. My friend buys, renovates and sells houses for a living and gave us the green light to check a couple of his houses out.
The first was built in 1905 so we had high hopes. On my first dig I noticed the plastic webbing that goes with sod which was ominous. We spent 30 minutes there hitting the yard, sidewalk strips and median and couldn't turn up even a wheatie. We went to a nearby park and ruled that out after 15 minutes as well. We had noticed an old house with a big lot a couple blocks from where we were so I knocked to ask permission and no one answered. Oh well.
Onto the next house. This one was built in 1943. First dig, more plastic webbing. We spent 30 minutes here before giving up. We hit McDonald's to recuperate and my friend sent me a couple more addresses.
The first house didn't have a yard but the second house looked promising. It was built in 1950 so not too old but at least there is a possibility of finding one of those elusive Washington silvers. My brother got started right away and his second dig was a wheat penny. "Right on" we thought, "there's still hope for the day yet". Well, we posted up there for a few hours and most of my finds from today came from there. My best finds were:
-2 wheats (42-D, 53-D)
-An old lock with a symbol of crossing cannons that reads "Ordinance Department U.S.A.".
-This tag with the name Frances Zehnder and a Tacoma address. Does anyone know what this is? It is not the address that I was at when I found it. My brother found the exact same tag with a different name.
-What looks like a little case for a personal mirror. It had some broken shards of what looked like glass in it when I unearthed it.
That brings me to my favorite find of the day. A month ago I got an "88" signal on my detector that is usually a telltale sign for a silver quarter. Problem is that it was basically in the rootball of a big tree. I spent probably 30 minutes on it when I first found it and couldn't dig around to get it.
I went back with a sawzall a couple weeks ago, woke up the whole neighborhood, spent 45 minutes cutting and still couldn't get it.
So, it was time to get serious. I bought a hatchet and went back. 20 minutes of chopping rewarded me with a surprise. My hands went numb and I got plenty of weird looks, but I found this old military button! My best guess is that it's an army button off a coat from WWI. Can anyone confirm that? I believe the back says "Scoville LTD Co Waterbury".
Here's the scene of the crime:
That's it for me folks. Happy hunting out there!
-Washingtonian
Upvote
10
Nice button for your labors. Cool old lock. I reckon you can track down the person on the tag. I may be weird but, the little "baby" is creepy to me!
