more strange findings near colonial cellar hole

[HollandsBrook]

found a few things today out near an old colonial cellar hole in the woods. id appreciate any help i can get with identifying these items. today's findings are definitely more of the interesting finds ive dug at this site.

the round piece of metal resembles a coin which i immediately thought of when i dug it....doesnt appear to be a coin at all however. the detector goes crazy when you swing over it identifying all sorts of metal...its weights 2.6 ounces. (pretty heavy for its size) when cleaning it off with a toothbrush and warm water, i thought i could see numbers inscribed on the side with the lines going through it. (i might do some electrolysis later) the opposite side i have no idea what the holes are.

my other item here the only guess i have is some sort of whistle. or at least thats what it looks like. the only opening appears to be where you would put your mouth. no other opening exists so i doubt it is a whistle. this piece shows as either copper or silver on my ace 250 and weighs 0.5 ounces. thanks for the help!

[HollandsBrook]

just an update for the round piece, it is about 8mm thick and about 35 mm in diameter. i really want to clean it with electrolysis because i think there is something inscribed on the front.... but not until i get a better idea of what it is. maybe some sort of religious token?

[Montana Jim]

That round piece just looks like someone used it to run a drill bit against, maybe as a backstop for drilling something lese.

The other looks like a simple coat hook tip.

I dunno...

[chipveres]

A whistle? That's a tweet find!

Chip V.

[woody50]

The round thing, what is the metal, iron or bronze...?
The back side of the piece has holes, but in an random order, one is even almost on the side of the object.
Are their holes in the bottom of the 'drilled' holes?
Are the rings about the holes part of the body of the object, or loose rings, or rivits with a big hole?
The front side has 5 lines. In the photo they appear off center, but that could be the photo angle, is that so?
I tend not to think its a religious item, more something to make do with a farm, tractor, or something like that.
The number could be the part number.

Then again I could have everything wrong also!


The second item is not a whisle I think, but what else, well it could be almost anything.

[Monty]

The second item resembles a pipe bowl with the stem missing. Hard to tell with all the corrosion on it. Monty

[HollandsBrook]

the round item i dont kno what kinda of metal it is. the detector goes crazy between several metals. because of its weight, i think it might be lead.
the holes on the one side are not the same width all the way down; rather they all come to the same inverted cone-shaped bottom.
the rings around the holes appear to be part of the object, i really cant tell however.
the links appear to have been randomly scratched in and yes they are off-centered.

thanks for all the help so far!


[quote=woody50 ]
The round thing, what is the metal, iron or bronze...?
The back side of the piece has holes, but in an random order, one is even almost on the side of the object.
Are their holes in the bottom of the 'drilled' holes?
Are the rings about the holes part of the body of the object, or loose rings, or rivits with a big hole?
The front side has 5 lines. In the photo they appear off center, but that could be the photo angle, is that so?
I tend not to think its a religious item, more something to make do with a farm, tractor, or something like that.
The number could be the part number.

[Bigcypresshunter]

Are the holes threaded? Since they dont go all the way through, they may be threaded. How thick is the piece?

The rings, they look like screwhead or washer ring marks. If they are, they cant be random drill holes.

Will a magnet stick? This may help us determine the metal.

[HollandsBrook]

the holes do not appear to be threaded...although it it hard to tell...the piece is 35mm in diameter and 8mm in depth. it is also very heavy for its size (2.6 oz). A magnet does not stick.

[HollandsBrook]

The back side of the piece has holes, but in an random order, one is even almost on the side of the object.

it is for this observation that i dont believe it was used as a machine part since one of the holes is halfway off the side. my latest idea is it could be a checkers game piece?

[woody50]

the holes do not appear to be threaded...although it it hard to tell...the piece is 35mm in diameter and 8mm in depth. it is also very heavy for its size (2.6 oz). A magnet does not stick.

Pretty sure that its bronze. Maybe somewhat thicker than normal would take care of its weight. An other possibility is that its filled now with water, soil or gunk after a long time in the ground, making it somewhat heavier.

I agree about the holes being offset that it was not made for the purpose of a machine part. Checkers, no I would not think so, but you can't really disregard anything at this point. I was hoping that others might have some ideas but it seems quite still.

The reason that I though about something like a machine part of so, is that someone might used such a thing to hold in something else. They make a hole and put the shaft of something in the hole, until the hole gets worn down, then they make a new hole. It might not matter where the hole was on the object. Of course the shoulders, if created at the same time as the object, would mean this guess is not true.

The clue is its size, the off center holes with shoulders, and maybe the weight and material.
You know, you find so much in the ground that is unknown, its always nice to find something like this and to try to find out what it is, great fun.

[HollandsBrook]

i found a few pics that really very closely resemble my item here. these pics are civil war-era poker chips.

notice on this first pic the faint holes....i held my piece up against this pic and the holes line up almost identically! also, the thickness is exactly the same...my piece is just a tiny bit larger in diameter though.

http://www.cwbullet.net/cwbullet-org...4750&mode=view

notice the X on the front of this poker chip....i contacted the website owner selling this item and she said they dont know what the X stood for. its a good change tho it is a roman numeral 10 (X).

http://www.horsesoldier.com/catalog/r13861a.JPEG


thoughts?

[Monty]

I don't imagine the civil war soldier had much access to hammers except maybe the engineers, and most of the poker chips I have seen are made of bullets hammered flat. Is the disc made of lead? If so, you might be onto something. If not, it would be very hard to fashion out of iron while on the march and camping out. Monty

[HollandsBrook]

i am 100% sure that this item is not iron. quite sure it is lead.

[woody50]

i am 100% sure that this item is not iron. quite sure it is lead.

Would like to know how you know that. It is so, I just looked again at the photo and saw that the shoulders that I was talking about were really indentations. Sometimes photos will show as an optical illusions, that is bumps will appear as holes. That happened with me.

If it IS lead, then these are surely stamped in holes, made with some sort of object and a hammer for instance. Since the holes are not even or orderly, someone stamped them outside a work place, could be in the open. The lead appears totally round also, wondering about that.
The X could not mean anything, really. If they wanted a 10 why punch in the holes on the other side then..?

I don't see any resemblance between the 'poker chip' photo and your object, but maybe I am not lookin good.
Just trying to help.

[HollandsBrook]

well the only reason i say its not iron is because my detector says its not iron lol. maybe the fact that there are 10 holes punched has something to do with the roman numeral 10? idk

i had a civil war relic collector on a different forum contact me and confirm that it is a checkers piece. so i have no idea

[woody50]

well the only reason i say its not iron is because my detector says its not iron lol. maybe the fact that there are 10 holes punched has something to do with the roman numeral 10? idk

i had a civil war relic collector on a different forum contact me and confirm that it is a checkers piece. so i have no idea

OK, I never though it was iron though, I thought bronze because of the patina on it. But it could be very well lead too. Lead when found over here almost always has a white lead oxide on it. Yes the 10 holes could correspond to the X for sure, but do they put on checkers the number on the back. Then can everyone choose it when they need a 10. Or maybe the games were different back then..

I will leave it though what you say, a checkers piece. Maybe someday I will see something else like it.

[cpt_kirstov]

I don't forsee the two sides meaning the same... if it is a game piece, I could see the 'X' represent one player or the other....

if it's a poker chip, I could see the X be the value of the chip, and the holes be how many 10s are owed at the next paycheck. (just random things that hit me)

[Bigcypresshunter]

I cant see it as being drilled because of the indentations. I dont see it holding anything unless its threaded. It looks like indentations made with a hammer and punch with maybe a little washer jammed on it. I could see this being used as a poker chip. We are just guessing but what would a soldier have that would make such an indentation? ...

[woody50]

Looking again at the top photo (the photo from the top with the 5 lines), looking then at the edges, there seems like a thick crust on the object, and under the crust, the part that is showing, does that still look like lead? Both of your objects seem to have a thick crust of brownish stuff on it. You should be able to tell if its bronze or lead, by a simple mass test in water, although since the object is pretty small maybe its hard to do.

You say you found it by a cellar of a house, were there no other finds along with these two objects? Would also be nice to have a couple of other photos from them, taken in daylight if possible (don't know in which lighting the other photos were taken).