Advice from Tnetters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

[Foose]

Advice from T'netters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

Thanks for looking!! I posted a question in the Metal Detecting Forum about a piece of property my dad just purchased here in south Ga. and received some great advice . . . (thanks Funkman!). The property has an old 1964 mobile home however the property was once an old farm. Adjacent to the trailer is the foundation of an old slave shack. Right behind the trailer is an old covered well. I took the wife and kids this weekend to help the old man do some work there and managed to get in a couple hours worth of detecting. Man this place is REALLY trashy. I get a hit on literally every swing of the Ace 250. It will take a while to get through the junk but I am excited about what could be out there. Here are my first pics as a T'netter. It seems I am finding a little something from many different decades. It's really hard to date a lot of it but it is still exciting. The "cache" I found was at 8" and I probably left that many more in the same hole to get back to at a later date!! Enjoy!!

 

[funkman]

Re: Advice from T'netters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

Foose,

One of your pics has some shards of pottery and a lid. Were these items found in one spot? If so was there also alot of ash in the soil? If you see pottery and ash together, I think that is a trash site and may have some bottles there as well. The privy might even be around there as well. My site I found a section (with help from anothe Tnet member) that I have been pulling a bunch of pottery shards from and there was a lot of ash in the soil. I even am going as far as starting to glue some of these pieces back together. SOme were quite nice.

Good luck on your hunts

Funkman

 

[Foose]

Re: Advice from T'netters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

Foose,

One of your pics has some shards of pottery and a lid. Were these items found in one spot? If so was there also alot of ash in the soil? If you see pottery and ash together, I think that is a trash site and may have some bottles there as well. The privy might even be around there as well. My site I found a section (with help from anothe Tnet member) that I have been pulling a bunch of pottery shards from and there was a lot of ash in the soil. I even am going as far as starting to glue some of these pieces back together. SOme were quite nice.

Good luck on your hunts

Funkman

Yes they were all found in the same hole along with the little brown medicine bottle. However, they were only at 2" deep. I would assume that the trash dump would be a little deeper than that (maybe I'm wrong?). I plan to return to that spot as well because 3' or so from that spot I dug up what I believe to be part of an old saddle. The leather was falling apart but you could still see the seams/stitches. My biggest problem so far has been my impatience and wanting to hit multiple areas at once. I was limited to 2 hours of hunt time and wanted to get as much area covered as I could. I will probably be back down there on Sunday after church and will see what I come up with! I definately would love to find the privy but I have no experience in locating one. I'm trying to use as much common sense as I can into relation of where everything else on the property sits. I will try to post new pics of the property . . . maybe you guys will see something that I may miss.

 

[funkman]

Re: Advice from T'netters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

I know what you mean about going to all different areas and not having a specific pattern....I still do the same thing! I always tell myself before I go there that I want to concentrate on this one area and sure enough I'm all over the place. Anyway when you get back there try to dig that spot again and go deeper and wider and see if more shards of pottery come up. Maybe you can date that bottle and it might tell you a little more on the rough year on that particular section of the site. Maybe it is newer (1900's) and you might have to find another section that has older stuff on it. I say this because where I have been concentrating on this trash site section of my area, a couple of the plates has backmarks from companies that were late 1800's. Now another area of this site I had found the two large cents that were minted from 1808-1814 and a few flat buttons. So your site might either be broken down into different sections or possibly that it has just been inhabited for quite sometime.
Trust me, you will start to get a better idea of this site as you keep going back. I was at my site for a year and then one other member I invited points out a well stuck in the shrubs that I never even saw. New sets of eyes helps also.

Keep at it and you will be bringing home some great finds.

Funkman

 

[CarolinaDigs]

Re: Advice from T'netters leads this newbie to great finds and first cache!!

There is alot more treasure to be found there !! Great post !