My wife and I recently metal detected an old farm that had become a construction site. We used an MXT with a DD Shooter coil 4”x6”. We spent 3 separate times searching the site. As we remember the site there was a home circa 1940’s or 50’s with a barn in back reputed by the locals to be 100 years old. I’d put the coordinates for the barn and the house into my GPS so I could get right on top of the structures and work out from there. The site was pretty messed up with earth moved into piles and some debris piles here and there; the house and barn were completely razed. The spot where we did most of our searching had been worked with about 2” thick hard packed dirt over what was clearly the original grade because of the dead grass we saw. We started looking at the house first and I handed the detector off to my wife while I tried the GPS coordinates for the barn. I discovered that the coordinates for the house was 1” off on longitude because I knew the barn was due south of the house but the funny thing was we were finding stuff where the bad coordinate was.
That night I got home and started looking at the maps and I discovered that there were two additional structures on the topo map that weren’t on the aerial – they predated the aerial survey but not the topo, maybe they could have been structures that were older than the house and barn we knew. One of the structures we couldn’t do because it was part of a factory next to the site.
In the morning I started to look over some of the booty we got from the site. I was curious about a button my wife had found that had kind of iridescence to it. When I began to look at the back of the button I discovered a patent date of Dec. 28 1880. I knew then that we were on to something older than we thought possible in a place 4 miles out of a town of no more than 30,000 – rural U.S.A. even today let alone in Victorian times.
We finally got to get back out to the site. I was having a bad detector day and had discovered that I inadvertently switched the ground tract switch on the detector to Trac position which if you pass it over the target again and again, it will cancel what you’re looking for. I could see a coin right on the surface of the hard pack and the detector wasn’t even picking it up. So I picked the coin up and couldn’t make head or tails of it and put it in my pocket.
When we got home we discovered that the coin was an 1884 V-Nickel which fit real nice into our Victorian era finds for the farm house. The coin is pretty beat up and it’s not something that we would sell so my wife cleaned it with Lime Away which did a fair job of improving its luster.
We went back out and found some more stuff but nothing quite like the coin and the button. If we could only have gotten out to the site before the other lost building site was under the new factory and got there before the ground was disturbed by construction!! We can’t go back out to the site because construction will be in the way – another lost time capsule bites the dust.
1. 1884 V-Nickel found on the surface. VDI = 16 or 5 Cent, Ring in Coin and Jewelry Mode on paper on ground.
2. Black Glass button and specifically a Deknatel (http://www.buttoncountry.com/Deknatel2.htm ). The front is shown as a kind of curved bowl with a wave impression off to one side. On the back is stamped Pat. Dec. 28, 1880. VDI was variable from 0 to 6 registering as anything from Foil to Button in Relic Mode on paper on ground; it was about 2” under – ground level under hard pack.
3. Probably a dime that got ran over by a train.
4. A fragment of something metal curved like a bowl.
5. “J. Rodgers” spoon.
6. “Boss of the Road” clothing rivet.
7. Thimble size 11.
8. Compact in two halves? When we opened it up it contained some kind of powder.
That night I got home and started looking at the maps and I discovered that there were two additional structures on the topo map that weren’t on the aerial – they predated the aerial survey but not the topo, maybe they could have been structures that were older than the house and barn we knew. One of the structures we couldn’t do because it was part of a factory next to the site.
In the morning I started to look over some of the booty we got from the site. I was curious about a button my wife had found that had kind of iridescence to it. When I began to look at the back of the button I discovered a patent date of Dec. 28 1880. I knew then that we were on to something older than we thought possible in a place 4 miles out of a town of no more than 30,000 – rural U.S.A. even today let alone in Victorian times.
We finally got to get back out to the site. I was having a bad detector day and had discovered that I inadvertently switched the ground tract switch on the detector to Trac position which if you pass it over the target again and again, it will cancel what you’re looking for. I could see a coin right on the surface of the hard pack and the detector wasn’t even picking it up. So I picked the coin up and couldn’t make head or tails of it and put it in my pocket.
When we got home we discovered that the coin was an 1884 V-Nickel which fit real nice into our Victorian era finds for the farm house. The coin is pretty beat up and it’s not something that we would sell so my wife cleaned it with Lime Away which did a fair job of improving its luster.
We went back out and found some more stuff but nothing quite like the coin and the button. If we could only have gotten out to the site before the other lost building site was under the new factory and got there before the ground was disturbed by construction!! We can’t go back out to the site because construction will be in the way – another lost time capsule bites the dust.
1. 1884 V-Nickel found on the surface. VDI = 16 or 5 Cent, Ring in Coin and Jewelry Mode on paper on ground.
2. Black Glass button and specifically a Deknatel (http://www.buttoncountry.com/Deknatel2.htm ). The front is shown as a kind of curved bowl with a wave impression off to one side. On the back is stamped Pat. Dec. 28, 1880. VDI was variable from 0 to 6 registering as anything from Foil to Button in Relic Mode on paper on ground; it was about 2” under – ground level under hard pack.
3. Probably a dime that got ran over by a train.
4. A fragment of something metal curved like a bowl.
5. “J. Rodgers” spoon.
6. “Boss of the Road” clothing rivet.
7. Thimble size 11.
8. Compact in two halves? When we opened it up it contained some kind of powder.
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You have to go back and dig everything!
So cool that you two are out there diggin up those old relics. I found a vintage compact like that too I posted on here , but only one half of it.. The powder was probably make-up. Good luck on your future hunts.
