A couple hours in a Colonial Cornfield

[Steve in PA]

A couple hours in a Colonial Cornfield - Luckenbooth brooch and silver cufflink!

This past Saturday was a warm sunny day, perfect digging weather. When you get these kinds of days in January you have to take advantage of them. I met up with a couple local diggers and we tried to locate an early site based off a 1792 map, but were not successful. Then we investigated a large depression that looked promising on aerial views, but turned out to be a natural feature rather than man made. So in order to save the day, John and Jim invited me to hunt a relatively new site they had found, which had given up a number of toasted coppers, dandy and tombac buttons, and other late 18[SUP]th[/SUP] century relics. Even though they had hit the site fairly hard recently, and the field was a soggy mess with corn stubble, we all managed to find some relics.

Here is a group shot of our finds. My finds are in the middle.


My finds including the base of a crude black glass bottle and some other glass and pottery


Another shot of my finds - keg spigot cap at the top, copper, dandy button, and flat button in second row, silver cufflink, part of a silver brooch and small tombac on the bottom row.


The broken silver brooch may be a Luckenbooth brooch with engraved initials "WM"



Silver cufflink with what appears to be a bird and some flowers


Nice dandy button with design

 

[Scrappy]

Wow, I'm loving that silver link. I've yet to find one. Great dandies and that silver brooch sure has the look of a luckenbooth. Nice digs buddy!

 

[Wildcat1750]

Nice hunt in a Colonial Cornfield! Colonial Cornfield has such a nice ring to it.

 

[CRUSADER]

 

[trapperart]

Very nice finds congrats

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Couple of good Silver finds, and I think your right about it. I've not got a silver link either, my buddy dug a set.
Good just to get out like you said.
Your lucky to have maps so old, the only ones I can get that have any real value (accuracy) are much newer. The only real early ones I can find are fairly crude, and of poor scale.

 

[Steve in PA]

Couple of good Silver finds, and I think your right about it. I've not got a silver link either, my buddy dug a set.
Good just to get out like you said.
Your lucky to have maps so old, the only ones I can get that have any real value (accuracy) are much newer. The only real early ones I can find are fairly crude, and of poor scale.

Thanks Rick. The 1792 map I referred to is really not that accurate. It only shows the major landmarks and prominent settlers places. We thought we could find this place because it showed near a fork in a stream.

 

[Steve in PA]

Wow, I'm loving that silver link. I've yet to find one. Great dandies and that silver brooch sure has the look of a luckenbooth. Nice digs buddy!

Thanks Steve. This spot has given up three silver oval cufflinks now, all different. Jim also found one on Saturday and he had found one on an earlier trip that had engraved initials. Despite all the silver cufflinks and coppers, no Spanish silver has been found there yet.

 

[Stef45]

WOW Great digs Steve! It sure looks like one of those Luckenbooth's silvers! Silver cufflinks are one of my favorite things to see posted! Gotta get one. Congrats!

 

[Ahab8]

Man I really want to find a silver link. I have the half real link but I really want a hand etched link. That's for sure a Luckenbooth fragment. Too bad the plow hit that sucker. I've never hunted a plowed field so I've never had to deal with plow damage....but some of the best finds come from those spots. Hope you find a complete one some day buddy

 

[texjim]

Congrats on the finds... It is a weird feeling detecting in Jan here in Pa. but i like it..

 

[Turbo21]

Great finds Steve. I agree that it looks like a trade brooch. I need to get with you and do some digging.

I have a nice early 1800 farm site I could bring you too as well

 

[Steve in PA]

Great finds Steve. I agree that it looks like a trade brooch. I need to get with you and do some digging.

I have a nice early 1800 farm site I could bring you too as well

Turbo, this stuff was dug about 75 miles east of Pittsburgh. Maybe we can get together this spring and hit a place closer to Pittsburgh.

 

[Silvermonkey]

That's a great bunch of finds. Love the dandy button. I'm still searching for one of those. Congrats!

 

[against the wind]

Really glad to hear that your friends helped you to salvage the day. Those are some nice finds.
Congrats

 

[Patriot Relics]

I'll take quality over quantity any day Steve, gorgeous silver link and of course your partial Luckenbooth is killer...get back out there and find the other piece

 

[joeyfresh]

Don't know how I missed this. Great link Steve and that pin would have lights-out awesome if it were whole.

 

[Turbo21]

Turbo, this stuff was dug about 75 miles east of Pittsburgh. Maybe we can get together this spring and hit a place closer to Pittsburgh.

Sounds good. I am pretty limited on spots. But I do have the early 1800s farm we could hunt. Just a cellar hole now. And have pulled some large cents from there. Tons and tons of iron

 

[Steve in PA]

Man I really want to find a silver link. I have the half real link but I really want a hand etched link. That's for sure a Luckenbooth fragment. Too bad the plow hit that sucker. I've never hunted a plowed field so I've never had to deal with plow damage....but some of the best finds come from those spots. Hope you find a complete one some day buddy

Thanks Abe, It's just a matter of time until you nab that silver cufflink. The Luckenbooth Brooches are coming in bunches. I think mine would have been a nice fancy one.

 

[Steve in PA]

I'll take quality over quantity any day Steve, gorgeous silver link and of course your partial Luckenbooth is killer...get back out there and find the other piece

Thanks, but I think it might be pretty tough to find any other pieces of this brooch. I dug a Pepsi can at 18 inches so I think the plow has distributed the remaining pieces potentially pretty deep!