Button day at the park

[Lowbatts]

The bobcat driver with the Napoleanic complex was much more cooperative today. I always tell these guys if they don't like me being there tell me to leave, I'll split but don't be ambiguous and petty or I'll get in your face.
So after promising him the first gold coin I found and buying him some booze and drugs me and Mayo proceeded to the hunt. Got four buttons in about two minutes! The two gold ones are thin and the bigger one is stamped U.S. ARMY. One of the heraldic eagles has a full intact round shank, the other has a broken screw shank. The '55 D wheatie I got yesterday came pretty clean, but failed to demonstrate the coveted double die indicators.

 

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[treasurefiend]

Great finds!!! Looks like a lot of Buffalo's are being found by everyone. When I saw the word ambiguous, I immediately thought of "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" Ace & Gary. Man do I hate people with little man syndrome!!!

 

[kimsdad]

Nice finds, Lowbatts!

I'm glad the rain came & worked in your favor.

I'll bet that fine powdered dirt made some gooood mud!

 

[Goio]

Cool buttons lowbats!! Congrats!

 

[twistidd]

Nice finds! Your buffalo looks like the one I recently found. I'm not a big button guy, but those are really nice, especially the U.S. Army one. Got an idea on age??

Joe

 

[nightwolf]

Very nice stuff! I'm looking forward to getting in to some of this freshly watered dirt down here in the styx and seeing what turns up

 

[Lowbatts]

Hey Joe, there was an Illinois National Guard encampment on this site in 1909. I've found many of my eagle buttons and my ILL pins there. Here's a pic of the camp. The guard camp was an annual event in a different location each year. It would be awesome to find one in an otherwise clean and undeveloped area and hit it. I'm aware of the ones in Joliet, Peoria and Decatur around that era also. The camp usually contained all the Illinois guard units and they numbered a couple thousand troops at this one.

The icing is these camps brought with them thousands of spectators, mostly locals, to watch the troops drill and exercise.

 

[Lowbatts]

Hey Neil, Mayo and boyz.
Gonna hit it tomorrow early am, today they cut a nice swath along the hillside by the bandshell, got a 1901 barber dime and 1906 IH. Only had about 20 minutes to play today though, gotta get packed up for the weekender out west.

It was a competition hunt, me versus Bobcat guy again. But he left a good deal uncovered and I didn't get to hit it all. Also there's some new pilings of dirt behind the hockey ring there. Good sized and well-distributed piles at that.

If I don't get to it, hope you guys do. Won't be a second chance at this dirt until after you're all dead and gone.

Happy hunting!

 

[Mayo South Elgin]

I think the second chance at the dirt will be when we hit the construction company yard that has those trailer loads of it.

 

[Lowbatts]

Hey Mayo there's an old local interloper hitting your dirt pile man! There's some fresh dirt up there for ya!

 

[Mayo South Elgin]

Here's the Indian Head penny I got, along with the gold plated earring, and two other objects of dubious value but interesting to look at and speculate. The IH penny is my first with the Minelab SX and it was heavily encrusted with green. I suspect the damp ground helped with that find. I used the heated peroxide method on it to help clean it up. I'm not sure I like how it turns the coin almost black but I guess it's better than green globs. Also not pictured was a 1953 wheatie and numerous bits of wire, bent nails, and pull tabs, and one really crusty memorial cent.

Tim - who's the local interloper? You? Mike? Hey I could get some crime scene tape and put it around the dirt piles... and then I could make up forensic recovery team T-shirts... and put some bleached out bones in my finds pouch.

 

[kimsdad]

Hey Mayo, that's a nice find in my book! Congrats!

Your persistence paid off.

 

[twistidd]

Nice finds! How deep was the IH?

Joe

 

[treasurefiend]

Great job!!!

 

[Lowbatts]

One of our local old timers using one of those 30-40 year old White's machines. Said he hadn't been out for a few years but last time out he found a Morgan dollar over the ballfield about 3" deep. Remember the old carnival fairway I showed you? SW of there between the ballfields and the back nine.

 

[Mayo South Elgin]

If any of you old timers can't read the date on that penny, it's 1904.
The depth I found it at was not the actual depth of where it laid for X number of years because it had been scooped up with a backhoe, dumped into a semi trailer, and then dumped into a pile along with other piles of similar dirt. Judging from the clumps of sod near it though, my guess is it was originally within 6 inches deep of less. But I actually found it halfway down the side of one of the piles, about 8 inches in.

Back to the park/piles...

 

[Lowbatts]

Go get 'em Mayo. Gotta stay in-house today. Chores to catch up on and such. If you see that old guy out there (he's about 118 yrs old) and you're not holding a mirror then you'll know you're not alone.

 

[kimsdad]

LOL!

 

[Mayo South Elgin]

HEY I only LOOK old...
and after 6 hours of detecting today, I FEEL old.
I don't care - I'm still not gonna join AARP no matter what.

Here's what the 6 hours got me today - not as exciting as the other times but someone has to clean out all the pulltabs and barbed wire fence pieces and I guess it was me today. Not pictured were about 25 pulltabs of various shapes, beaver tails, nails, etc. The dime with the shine fooled me too - but it's clad. It's a 1967 and it was on the surface. The grounds had been perforated/airated and I suspect it popped it out of the ground for me.

The ghetto bling is a genuine imitation gold ring which might be plated or freshly dropped. It wasn't pitted or tarnished but it did have a weird painted color on the surface of it that faded from blue to pink - maybe so it can be used for either a little girl or a little boy?

The brooch-like thing had no pin on the back but looked like it might have. There was only one rhinestone left in it.

The piles of dirt didn't give up their loot but the crazed bobcat driver was frantically moving all the new dirt piles (4 more today) and turning it all over and putting it towards the back piles or on top of them. They may be worth hitting again now that things are stirred up!

 

[kimsdad]

Go get em' Mayo!