buttons and a blizzard!

jerseyben · Feb 25, 2012

Got out for a nice surprise hunt with my friend Dale in the lead on location. He took me to a huge open field with lots of promise of being never previously hunted. Well, I now believe that to be true after our session on the field. Just as we started to work the most promising part of the field, a freak snowstorm came out of nowhere, the temperature dropped probably 15 degrees, and the winds cranked up to 20-25 mph!

After watching dale dig a beautiful big silver disk and then a STUNNING KGIII, I knew there must be something in store for me at this site. I decided to work what I thought was a "hotspot" by gridding it and working it slow and methodically. This was my 4th time out with my new Etrac and after some trial and error, I finally decided to give the settings supplied by Mike of Woodland Detectors a try. Well, those settings really woke this machine up and I was digging button after button in no time.

Initially I thought I had dug 9 pieces of interest including 1 large D buckle, 1 normal sized D buckle, the tongue of a colonial style shoe buckle, and the rest were buttons. Turns out 2 of the items dug were not actually buttons leaving me with 5 buttons + 2 pieces of horse tack. 2 of the buttons have a nipple style (one of them is 2-piece). 2 of the buttons are gilt with a decent amount of gold still visible. The soil at this site was amazingly kind to these targets. All I did was rinse off all my targets with some warm water and nothing more and they all look incredible.

Elad · Feb 25, 2012

Love those buttons. Nice tombac! I didn't know you dug one. Nice work! That handle on top... fork, perhaps?

Don in SJ · Feb 25, 2012

Ben, I was hoping to see 17th century pimple/nipple buttons, darn it. But, nice buttons all the same, hats off to you crazies today for field hunting when down here as I drove to Millville there were big dust clouds blowing across the fields, not a day for open hunting, but you two did it. ::)

Attached a photo of nipple/pimple buttons made using my mold, used modeling clay and put a few cotter pins in some of them to simulate the shank.
Keep your eyes open for the heavy one piece buttons, they are from as early as the British Civil War period I believe. (A lot older than our CW)
Don

Elad · Feb 25, 2012

Don in SJ said:
Ben, I was hoping to see 17th century pimple/nipple buttons, darn it. But, nice buttons all the same, hats off to you crazies today for field hunting when down here as I drove to Millville there were big dust clouds blowing across the fields, not a day for open hunting, but you two did it.

Don

I had a feeling about your nipple infatuation Don! j/k

Yes, we are crazy and would do it again! Right?