I was going through all my old fines today and I would love to identify this. It's brass and weighs about 1/2 pound if I had to take a guess. it looks like a star or the sun in the middle followed but a square hole. And has designs all the way around.
1970 COMPASS-
WHITES SILVER EAGLE-
WHITES DFX, 4X6DD COIL, 6X8DD COIL, 950 COIL, 10X12SEF COIL-
GARRETT PRO POINTER AT, GARRETT AT PRO , MINELAB EXPLORER SE with 8.5x12.5 Cors coil
You were exactly right digging440yrs I did some more research and it turns out it is something called a twist doorbell by eastlake around 1875-1882 it was patented.