TheCannonballGuy
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2006
- Messages
- 6,606
- Reaction score
- 13,450
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Occupied CSA (Richmond VA)
- Detector(s) used
- White's 6000, Nautilus DMC-1, Minelab
- Primary Interest:
- Relic Hunting
"Bucket List" finds: civil war Virginia State Seal button, 1831 cent, 1899 quarter
At this late stage of my life, I did not expect to ever have any relic-digging finds worth posting. But my Shepherd & Great Provider recently blessed me totally unexpectedly with 3 things on my elderly-detectorist “bucket list.” So, here is my first-ever post in Today’s Finds as the finder.
Due mainly to health-related reasons, it’s been over 5 years since I’d gone relic-digging. Yes, some of my digger friends have been willing tp give me a ride to one of their relic-spots, but I didn’t want to impose on them. Also, because every local relic-spot that I knew of had been either built-on or dug to death, it’s been over 20 years since I’d dug a Confederate button… or a pre-20[SUP]th[/SUP]-Century silver coin… or a civil war era coin. So although I felt little-to-no hope of ever repeating those finds from my long-ago past, each of them was on my elderly bucket-list… and each turned up in holes I dug recently at an 1830s farmhouse site. See the photos below.
I wasn’t expecting that my three bucket list finds would be 200 feet my backyard. Because I’d found a 1-piece brass flatbutton in my yard while digging a hole for a rosebush, I figured the old farmhouse in an abandoned field adjoining my backyard dated to the 1830s. But I couldn’t get permission from the (very elderly) farmer to dig on the property where he was born. Then a couple of years ago he passed away (at age 104), and his heirs sold the farm… which is now being bulldozed for a large residential subdivision. So I pulled my dusty but much-trusted old Nautilus DMC-1 out of the closet, and headed up the hill to the old farmhouse. Much to my surprise, on the other side of the hill I encountered no less than 4 diggers from our local civil war relic hunting club (Central Virginia Civil War Collectors). They were all hard at work digging their “open-pit mine” at an outbuilding’s footprint in the farm’s backyard field. They reported having previously found three Confederate state-seal buttons… a Virginia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. One of the photos below shows me (at right) resting with my DMC-1. (Look closely, at lower left you'll see a shard of Blue Delft china at the edge of their pit-mine.) So of course I’ve been pounding the fields and farmhouse-site ever since.
I found some of the relics in the "main" photo below in the past 24 hours, some the day before, and others during the past 3 weeks.
At top:
A full-length “arm” from a US Cavalry Model-1859 Enlisted-man’s brass spur.
Row 1:
Virginia State Seal button (Albert book's VA-4b2) with 1845-50 backmark, US 1831 large-cent, 1890 Indian-head cent, 1899 silver 25-cent, 1899 “V-nickel” 5-cent coin.
Row 2:
Six very-early-1800s brass 1-piece flatbuttons, one whose indented-lettering backmark has the word “colour,” indicating it was imported from Britain a few years after the War-of-1812 ended.
Row 3:
A goldplated fancy brass buckle (type unidentified), an unidentified brass buckle-keeper, broken piece from late-1700s-to-early-1800s pewter spoon with 5 hallmark stampings. (I’ll be posting the unknowns in the What-Is-It? forum.)
Row 4:
1901 Adams Patent “President-brand” suspenders buckle, 1700s/1800s clay marble, Remington .40-82 caliber Model-1886 Rifle cartridge casing, two 1800s-type brass 4-hole buttons.
Row 5:
Fragment of early-1800s Blue Delft pattern china plate, neck of aqua-blue glass bottle with early-1800s “applied top.”
At this late stage of my life, I did not expect to ever have any relic-digging finds worth posting. But my Shepherd & Great Provider recently blessed me totally unexpectedly with 3 things on my elderly-detectorist “bucket list.” So, here is my first-ever post in Today’s Finds as the finder.
Due mainly to health-related reasons, it’s been over 5 years since I’d gone relic-digging. Yes, some of my digger friends have been willing tp give me a ride to one of their relic-spots, but I didn’t want to impose on them. Also, because every local relic-spot that I knew of had been either built-on or dug to death, it’s been over 20 years since I’d dug a Confederate button… or a pre-20[SUP]th[/SUP]-Century silver coin… or a civil war era coin. So although I felt little-to-no hope of ever repeating those finds from my long-ago past, each of them was on my elderly bucket-list… and each turned up in holes I dug recently at an 1830s farmhouse site. See the photos below.
I wasn’t expecting that my three bucket list finds would be 200 feet my backyard. Because I’d found a 1-piece brass flatbutton in my yard while digging a hole for a rosebush, I figured the old farmhouse in an abandoned field adjoining my backyard dated to the 1830s. But I couldn’t get permission from the (very elderly) farmer to dig on the property where he was born. Then a couple of years ago he passed away (at age 104), and his heirs sold the farm… which is now being bulldozed for a large residential subdivision. So I pulled my dusty but much-trusted old Nautilus DMC-1 out of the closet, and headed up the hill to the old farmhouse. Much to my surprise, on the other side of the hill I encountered no less than 4 diggers from our local civil war relic hunting club (Central Virginia Civil War Collectors). They were all hard at work digging their “open-pit mine” at an outbuilding’s footprint in the farm’s backyard field. They reported having previously found three Confederate state-seal buttons… a Virginia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. One of the photos below shows me (at right) resting with my DMC-1. (Look closely, at lower left you'll see a shard of Blue Delft china at the edge of their pit-mine.) So of course I’ve been pounding the fields and farmhouse-site ever since.
I found some of the relics in the "main" photo below in the past 24 hours, some the day before, and others during the past 3 weeks.
At top:
A full-length “arm” from a US Cavalry Model-1859 Enlisted-man’s brass spur.
Row 1:
Virginia State Seal button (Albert book's VA-4b2) with 1845-50 backmark, US 1831 large-cent, 1890 Indian-head cent, 1899 silver 25-cent, 1899 “V-nickel” 5-cent coin.
Row 2:
Six very-early-1800s brass 1-piece flatbuttons, one whose indented-lettering backmark has the word “colour,” indicating it was imported from Britain a few years after the War-of-1812 ended.
Row 3:
A goldplated fancy brass buckle (type unidentified), an unidentified brass buckle-keeper, broken piece from late-1700s-to-early-1800s pewter spoon with 5 hallmark stampings. (I’ll be posting the unknowns in the What-Is-It? forum.)
Row 4:
1901 Adams Patent “President-brand” suspenders buckle, 1700s/1800s clay marble, Remington .40-82 caliber Model-1886 Rifle cartridge casing, two 1800s-type brass 4-hole buttons.
Row 5:
Fragment of early-1800s Blue Delft pattern china plate, neck of aqua-blue glass bottle with early-1800s “applied top.”
Attachments
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Appellmon-farm_group-1_all_IMG_5217.webp -
Appellmon-farm_button_VirginiaStateSeal_VA-4b2_sunlit-view_IMG_5226.webp -
Appellmon-farm_button_VirginiaStateSeal_VA-4b2_light-view_IMG_5220.webp -
Appellmon-farm_button_VirginiaStateSeal_VA-4b2_backmark_WHHorstmann&SonsPhila_IMG_5222.webp -
Appellmon-farm_Pete-and-Bruce_esting-with-Nautilus-DMC1-detector_20191124_154915 (002).webp
Last edited:
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