coinman123
Silver Member
I went back to the cellar hole that I found in August, for an hour, in the same area that I find most of my relics. Once you go out of a certain area, there virtually no signals anywhere. Anyways, On the first hunt there, with my parents, my mom found a beautiful colonial keyhole plate, probably one of the coolest finds from there. Around two hundred feet away and nearly a foot down (compared to my mom's, which was around three or foot inches deep, with many masking square nails), I was shocked to find the matching keyhole plate. Mine is missing a small piece of brass on the corner though. What is cool is that although they have the same design, you can now definitely tell that they are hand carved. There are many slightly changes between the two, such as the shapes pointing upwards on one, and more downward on the other. One has 15 tiny lines in one area, and the other around 17. Maybe my mom's key plate was from when the furniture was discarded, and they didn't salvage it when salvaging hardware. Mine may have broken off, considering that one of the nailholes broke. I could picture someone annoyed that they keyhole plate was not attached on one side, and maybe blocking the keyhole. They could have ripped it off and thrown it in the field for that reason. I would be cool to know the stories that it could tell. I also found a handle in one area close to where my mom found an identical one. She found the handle within two feet of her key plate. It would probably be a beautiful chest of drawers if it was still around, and I am guessing that most of the buttons that I found were at one point on clothes that were inside of this chest.
The woods are very pretty this time of year, so I hope to go out a lot in the following weeks. I also found a beautiful tombac flat button. I have found around 30 of them, but this may be my only complete plain, small and flat one (most are either missing fragments, or the shank). I love that these white tombac buttons shine after being in the ground for around 250 years.
I also found another button, and a lot of redware and blackware fragments while digging targets near the cellar holes. I want to bring a sifter here sometime, and maybe find some interesting ceramic finds that can't get picked up by a metal detector, maybe even ceramic buttons and some more pipe stems. I think I will make one with some chicken wire tomorrow, and maybe buy one if it doesn't work. Does anyone have any recommendations? Also, does anyone have an idea about how old this redware, blackware, and some of the other ceramics that I found are?
This site is beginning to dry up, all of the finds found here in the past few weeks here were deep, very soft tones, or covered by logs, plants, or both. The tombac was around eight inches deep, and the other button was under a small pine tree, around two inches deep. I wish that this site was a little bit bigger, the area that actually produces finds is only around half an acre, and around 200 by 100 feet. I still haven't found a single IDable coin here, which is strange considering that I have found probably over 50 buttons here. My only coins are a blank, slick silver coin, and what looks like maybe a folded over farthing, both found in the same hunt. My dad had some luck by finding a seated dime and large cent one day when he was here. I know that there are coins here somewhere, probably in the completely overgrown areas full of thorns that I tried to hunt today.
I hope you enjoyed reading my rather long post, I tried to break it into chunks to make it more readable. Good luck to you guys metal detecting this weekend!
The woods are very pretty this time of year, so I hope to go out a lot in the following weeks. I also found a beautiful tombac flat button. I have found around 30 of them, but this may be my only complete plain, small and flat one (most are either missing fragments, or the shank). I love that these white tombac buttons shine after being in the ground for around 250 years.
I also found another button, and a lot of redware and blackware fragments while digging targets near the cellar holes. I want to bring a sifter here sometime, and maybe find some interesting ceramic finds that can't get picked up by a metal detector, maybe even ceramic buttons and some more pipe stems. I think I will make one with some chicken wire tomorrow, and maybe buy one if it doesn't work. Does anyone have any recommendations? Also, does anyone have an idea about how old this redware, blackware, and some of the other ceramics that I found are?
This site is beginning to dry up, all of the finds found here in the past few weeks here were deep, very soft tones, or covered by logs, plants, or both. The tombac was around eight inches deep, and the other button was under a small pine tree, around two inches deep. I wish that this site was a little bit bigger, the area that actually produces finds is only around half an acre, and around 200 by 100 feet. I still haven't found a single IDable coin here, which is strange considering that I have found probably over 50 buttons here. My only coins are a blank, slick silver coin, and what looks like maybe a folded over farthing, both found in the same hunt. My dad had some luck by finding a seated dime and large cent one day when he was here. I know that there are coins here somewhere, probably in the completely overgrown areas full of thorns that I tried to hunt today.
I hope you enjoyed reading my rather long post, I tried to break it into chunks to make it more readable. Good luck to you guys metal detecting this weekend!
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