Minrelica
Bronze Member
Early 1900's Watch Camera & Japanese Coin
Today was the day that I finally made it to my friend's place to hunt his now vacant neighbors place. The house was basically taken over by a bunch of partiers that just took advantage of the semi-crazy woman that lived there for the past few years. It was a fairly big back yard for being in the middle of a city block. Along with the neighbor who's been a good friend of mine for 20+ years, I also know a couple more people in the vicinity. Every time we do yard work at any of the houses that involves digging of any kind we find numerous old bottles and even a couple of clay pipes as well. Unfortunately I didn't own a detector when my buddy turned his huge backyard into a rock garden so I'll never quite know what I missed out on there. This is why I jumped at the opportunity to hunt the neighbors yard this morning.
I brought all 3 machines with me today but started with the Minelab. Not more than 1 minute after starting the hunt I got a signal that I woulda' bet my paycheck on being a penny but I couldn't have been more wrong. I popped out this Japanese coin which I first thought may have been a token. I believe it's Japanese anyway. If any of you can help with the year or denomination it would be much appreciated. It's the same size as a quarter.
After going over the whole yard east-west and finding nothing else too exciting I went back over the yard north-south and found a small buckle, what I think is a bicycle license place, $2 in clad quarters + several clad dimes and memorials, etc. About 1/2 way through the yard for the second run I hit a solid, bigger signal and decided to dig. First out of the hole was 2 early canning jar lids but no broken glass. The pinpointer was still going off so I kept digging and finally uncovered what was making all the noise.
I thought that I had a real good chance of having found my first coin cache but after picking it up and shaking it I realized that whatever it was, it was empty.
I glanced at it for maybe 15 seconds and put it in the pouch without really having even a guess as to what it was. After the hunt, I went next door to my friend's house and showed him everything I had found. I pulled this out and instantly guessed that it was a compass because of the little lever on the side which looks like you would push forward to lock the needle. It seemed like a prefect guess so I packed everything up and headed back home to clean up my finds.
The first thing I did was open it up. It was a bit tough but could have been much worse. The first thing I saw was a label of some sort that was in terrible condition and a small pile of metal dust.
At this point I'm thinking it's not a compass.. but what is it? I knew there were some initials or writing on the cover and also something stamped into the back but I couldn't make it out so I went over the whole thing lightly with a soft bristle tooth brush and BRASSO cut with a little water. I then saw "Par Throughout The World - The EXPO Camera, New York". After looking it up I learned that it's a EXPO Watch Camera which was produced from 1905-1938. Sometimes called a "spy" camera as well.
Link/Info: Expo Watch Camera
Here it is all cleaned up.
Thanks for looking!
Today was the day that I finally made it to my friend's place to hunt his now vacant neighbors place. The house was basically taken over by a bunch of partiers that just took advantage of the semi-crazy woman that lived there for the past few years. It was a fairly big back yard for being in the middle of a city block. Along with the neighbor who's been a good friend of mine for 20+ years, I also know a couple more people in the vicinity. Every time we do yard work at any of the houses that involves digging of any kind we find numerous old bottles and even a couple of clay pipes as well. Unfortunately I didn't own a detector when my buddy turned his huge backyard into a rock garden so I'll never quite know what I missed out on there. This is why I jumped at the opportunity to hunt the neighbors yard this morning.
I brought all 3 machines with me today but started with the Minelab. Not more than 1 minute after starting the hunt I got a signal that I woulda' bet my paycheck on being a penny but I couldn't have been more wrong. I popped out this Japanese coin which I first thought may have been a token. I believe it's Japanese anyway. If any of you can help with the year or denomination it would be much appreciated. It's the same size as a quarter.
After going over the whole yard east-west and finding nothing else too exciting I went back over the yard north-south and found a small buckle, what I think is a bicycle license place, $2 in clad quarters + several clad dimes and memorials, etc. About 1/2 way through the yard for the second run I hit a solid, bigger signal and decided to dig. First out of the hole was 2 early canning jar lids but no broken glass. The pinpointer was still going off so I kept digging and finally uncovered what was making all the noise.
I thought that I had a real good chance of having found my first coin cache but after picking it up and shaking it I realized that whatever it was, it was empty.
I glanced at it for maybe 15 seconds and put it in the pouch without really having even a guess as to what it was. After the hunt, I went next door to my friend's house and showed him everything I had found. I pulled this out and instantly guessed that it was a compass because of the little lever on the side which looks like you would push forward to lock the needle. It seemed like a prefect guess so I packed everything up and headed back home to clean up my finds.
The first thing I did was open it up. It was a bit tough but could have been much worse. The first thing I saw was a label of some sort that was in terrible condition and a small pile of metal dust.
At this point I'm thinking it's not a compass.. but what is it? I knew there were some initials or writing on the cover and also something stamped into the back but I couldn't make it out so I went over the whole thing lightly with a soft bristle tooth brush and BRASSO cut with a little water. I then saw "Par Throughout The World - The EXPO Camera, New York". After looking it up I learned that it's a EXPO Watch Camera which was produced from 1905-1938. Sometimes called a "spy" camera as well.
Link/Info: Expo Watch Camera
Here it is all cleaned up.
Thanks for looking!
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