My Best Plate

[mdakotared]

This silver finish officer's sword belt plate has been described as a "pre-war" militia plate and reportedly issued to a Philadelphia unit during the CW. Has a tin back.? I dug this south of Petersburg, about 18" down, south of Petersburg.? A woodland find, it had a large tree root grown around it.? My second plate, and probably my best find.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[lets_go]

Cool plate. I had a pedal car like that when I was little, wish I still had it, those things are worth a lot of money now.

 

[mdakotared]

Yeah, that pedal car is long gone. So is my Lionel train set, raccoon hat...

 

[lets_go]

Ah, the old days.

 

[badandy]

That's AWESOME! I would love to find something like that but...........oh yeah I dont have a metal detector yet!

 

[mdakotared]

Don't dispair! I found this plate with my first detector, a used $200 Wilson which was subsequently replaced with a Wilson Northstar. Both found a few plates & a lot of buttons, bullets, ordnance, & brass. You don't have to buy a real expensive MD, at first. My current MD is a Tesaro Vaquero, and it is finding tiny & DEEP relics in "hunted out" sites.

 

[Gribnitz]

Great find ! Detecting the plate is easy, happening to swing your coil over the right spot is the hard part. I have only found one US Belt Plate, but it would have been hard to miss. I guess you could have mistaken it for a smashed coke can since it blared so loud, but let that teach you to dig all consitent signals You never know what that signal is going to be.

 

[mdakotared]

You are so right. My first plate was a US "box" type. dug in a plowed field between the footprints of a fellow relic hunter that did not swing over the sweet spot. I find that the newer MD's allow you to return to your old hunting grounds for those deeper targets, but slowing down and hunting closer will also result in more finds.

 

[airbear77]

Very nice!

 

[ClonedSIM]

Sweet plate! I wish I had anything near my area capable of producing finds like that. Happy Hunting!