The missing skeleton key??

[Mona Lisa]

My house is an 1870's farmhouse that was surrounded by hundreds of acres of pasture. In the 1950s and 1960s, the farmer that owned my house started selling off building lots. My parents bought one of those lots and built the house that I grew up in. It is less than a quarter of a mile from my farm.

I took my detector down to my parents' house on Sunday to show them how it worked. I was never very interested in detecting their land cuz around their house it has been bulldozed and landscaped. The back yard is untouched, but I thought " what am I going to find in an old pasture?". Well....we were walking up to an old oak tree that we used to play in and I was running my MD. I got this signal bouncing between pull tab and copper. When I dug it up, I found this skeleton key. It's made of brass (I guess) and it has a twist to it like somebody forced it while using it.

The funny thing is when I took it home, it worked on all our doors. I thought it was a neat discovery. I do realize that keys like that were pretty generic...they could open a lot of things...but I like the idea of the farmer dropping it in the pasture back in the 1800's.

Now I'm going to search my parent's back yard!

 

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[Floater]

Haupin I would be all over that yard . And the pasture. Hec Its a place to hunt. How long ago did the Bull dozers go to work on it. And just go to the edges to start anyway and work in. Wild color on the key. The brass really patinaed a strange green or its the light. Go for it . HH

 

[Colorado2]

Great story Haupin. Hope you find a buried chest it fits too! Keep diggin'~CO2

 

[JARMAN]

Cool find and story,best of luck on the rest of the site.HH

 

[alwayslookin]

great story Haupin...guess we really don't travel too far from home.

 

[Leon]

Very cool find!!!
I have yet to find any kind of a skeleton key. I think they are so neat...
It's one of the top priorities on my list of things to find.
Also, although the keys were fairly simple, it still takes one very close to what the locks supposed to have for them to work..
Good luck & Happy hunting~

 

[clump63]

Great find, and with history.

 

[dudes2112]

I love old keys... That's a really cool story about it being your key to begin with, unless it's just close enough to work. Still cool though.

Dudes