1 Hour To Dig 10 Inch Hole... Worth It

[Deep1]

Livin on the Sea Islands of the Lowcountry, we ain't got no rocks in the ground.
We have nice soft ground, with a root to deal with every now and then.
This new to me.
Been diggin?(hacking,picking,scrapping,cussing) a 175 year old railroad bed.
Covered in big rock, little rock, gravel, phosphate rock and clay. In that order with big rock top layer.
Kinda like diggin in concrete, but worse.
I just thought I had hunted trashy sites, until this one.
You can't move the loop without it makin noise.
There's good targets sittin on, under and in between trash.
If I hear something that repeats from 2 different angles I'll dig it.
Got a hit and started diggin, hacking, picking.
At about 5 inches and 30 minutes later, I pulled a big broken rusted piece of a bolt with a square nut on it.
I started cussing my Nox. I really thought I was gettin a good signal.
Got up to cover the hole, Ran my Nox back over the hole and was still gettin something.
Went back to diggin, hacking, etc.
Used most everything I had in the Jeep. Shovel, hand digger and mini pick ax.
I was breaking rocks like I was on the chaingang.
30 more minutes, my pin pointer was giving full signal and I could see a touch of green.
After more careful picking and scraping.
This came up:

It was covered in crust, I had no idea what it was.
After a couple of hours cleaning.
It's a Boston and Maine RR, now known as B&M RR, baggage tag.
There's still some of the paper left on the back. You can see it on the bottom of the 2nd pic.

 

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[Brendan75]

Hi, nice find. Congrats

 

[Horst]

a very special find - congrats....you should consider taking a small excavator with you

 

[RustyGold]

That’s Hard Core diggin! Very nice find.

 

[ARC]

"1 Hour To Dig 10 Inch Hole"... ?

What did you use to dig the hole ?

A teaspoon ?

:P

 

[No gold in NY]

With this hobby, you never know what you are going to come up with. Part of the fun. Nice piece of history.

 

[creskol]

Very nice find, and it cleaned up well! Nice Job!

 

[Trezurehunter]

That is a very nice find. It's a good thing you were persistent, or that tag would still be buried.

 

[Reanm8er]

Cool find deep1!

 

[sprailroad]

THAT, was some hard digging, stubborn in fact, but look at what you found. Great job there Deep.

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Terry Soloman]

Congratulations! Having dug through my share of caliche in Arizona gold fields, I can feel your pain. Great find!

 

[gilmerman]

This was a very exciting story, some of us will not be defeated.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Very interesting find, congrats!

 

[Deep1]

This is the 3rd tag after 20+ hours hunting.
Never seen one before.
I like em, otherwise I'd leave em in the ground.
I'm diggin 8 or 10 pieces of trash, lot of flattened vienna sausage cans from a later time, but there still deep enough to dig and sound the same as a tag.
Here's the first 2.
I think the bent one is steamship tag.

 

[Inspector]

PERSISTENCE rules, congrats on the save

 

[achetadomestica]

I did something similar with a root the other day. I was picking up the perfect
faint sound that always comes up sliver. Well after my half hour of digging I ended up
with a piece of siding AGHHH!

 

[peruna]

Persistence paid off with a great save...nicely done!

 

[Deep1]

I knew it was a matter of time.
The RR tag site is in a very public place with a good deal of traffic.
I know of 5 people that have permission and there's probably more.
But nobody had thought to hunt this area. It took me 6 months, before it hit me.
When I first hunted this site, it had not rained in awhile.
Toughest digging ever. I just thought oak roots and Georgia red clay were hard digging.
We had a good rain and I worked it hard for a couple of days til it dried out.
After that, it got too hard to dig.
I knew I had to be seen by others with the same interest.
Today, I was cruising the site and what do I find?
Lo and behold 2 feeble attempts at holes.
One hole uncovered a piece of 12x12 steel flat plate about an inch deep, the other was about 2 inches deep, that most likely still has the target in it.
And that was enough for them.
When I first saw the holes I was amused, by the fact they lasted 2 holes and then not.
It took a good effort to dig the holes, you're not stickin a shovel in the ground and flippin over dirt.
But after spending 5 to 10 minutes diggin the 2 holes, they couldn't take a minute to kick the rocks back in the holes.
I glad they got discouraged after 2 holes. It would not be good for the owner to ride thru and see holes everywhere.
I picked up the plate and kicked the rocks back in the hole.
Hopefully, they won't be back.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

You're in the Carolina Lowcountry......

Whole lot of rocks in my dirt here, and I'm sure you've the same. I remember in the past dirt digging, there were times I just gave up and covered the hole.

Your post perhaps reminds us to "never give up".