Civil War US Box Plate, Shoulder Scales, a couple stirrups and much more!

[OutdoorAdv]

This weekend I ruined metal detecting for myself! With yesterdays Bust Half, 2 Reale and 1 Reale pocket spill, and what I dug up today... I don't know how a weekend of detecting could get any better.

Same place as yesterday.

I don't even know where to begin, so here is a group shot!



My first significant find about 30 min in was whats left of these shoulder scales. I knew right away what I had and was bummed out how brittle and wasted they were. I wrapped them in a paper towel and they sat in a coat pocket, hanging on a tree, for the rest of the hunt. I will still proudly display them and there is enough left to tell what it was.


All cleaned up. The buckle was in the same hole.


Next up was this stirrup.


I found another one an hour or so later, but I was too tired to take my camera out for another shot. I was carrying about 30lbs of iron in my backpack by this point.


Then the find that put my morning over the top.


I nicked the bottom right corner with my digger... dont want to talk about that anymore. ha But I am leaving the dirt on it and I dry brushed it, so the nick isn't that noticeable.

After the hole was empty, this was the contents. There was also a thin bone in there and some white chalky stuff. The blob at the top of the plate, appears to be melted lead, but most of the lead remains in the back. It was face down in the hole. I saw no ash. Firepit?


More shots. Check out the bone handle knife!



And the iron. This place is loaded with big iron and this is 90% of the iron that I dug today. Some I had to leave behind because my backpack was full and weighted a ton on my hike out... I will clean it up later


Notice the lack of small targets. All of these big signals scream on my v3i. This is one of the hardest places I have detected. Nearly every hole has multiple targets in it.... I went in to look for the rest of the bone handle for the knife and there was that "C" shaped brass buckle piece in the hole (the one below the US plate in the top picture)... my detector was not even reading it, just negative iron... I only found it because I was using my pin pointer... I wish I could say it was a trash pit, but every hole here seems like a trash pit. The big iron is all over and the iron nails are scattered in the middle of those. Add the tall grass and its not ideal. Luckily the big stuff I've been digging is pretty sweet!

 

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[creade]

Love that box plate that's one great site you have it's going to be hard to top. What did you use to carry all that,a shopping bag? Sheesh

 

[relic nut]

That's what I'm talking about!!!!!!! A great hunt like that really gets the juices flowing. HH

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thanks guys. I dont think my finds the last two days have sunk in yet. Ha. It wasn't easy to get all that iron home. I got there at 7am and by 9am I was ready to go home. The problem? I was carrying all that iron around in my backpack. Finally jettisoned the backpack and made trips to empty my pouch in it every so often. I lasted until 11am and then hiked all that iron out. I can't remember when the last time was that I dug this much big iron.

One of the best part about this site is there doesnt appear to be any modern trash... And I dont consider that iron to be junk! (Some of it is). The only thing modern I dug in the last two days was a stainless steel spoon this morning.

 

[Ahab8]

Man what a crazy good site! A dream come true! Virgin territory with coins and relics

 

[mirage83]

Excellent hunt! That's one of those sites you're going to have to take the time and dig everything. With the variety of finds at that location doing anything else will almost guarantee that you'll miss something interesting. Keep at it.

 

[relic nut]

That's great. The site will only get better. The more you clean it the better it will get. It should produce for a long time.

 

[rodarian]

Amazing day! Bet you can't wait to get back there!

 

[joeyfresh]

What an unreal couple of days you've had. If it's a farm field, hopefully you can get in there a couple of more times before its planted. I got booted from a field this morning due to him needing to spray weed killer.

 

[kray]

A weekend made in heaven!! Congrats.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thanks everyone! Yeah, I gotta shuffle some stuff and get back there before the grass gets any higher. Ideally, this would be a good winter spot for me. I keep telling myself with every huge chunk of iron, I clear it out to punch through to the good stuff. Here's the thing.... That big iron, deep with a halo, comes in from the 40s-80s and screams brass to copper/silver. After digging 50 or so huge pieces, you get a bit careless with your recoveries. When I broke that awesome bone handle knife, I told myself I needed to leave and come back fresh. Its also hard to listen to all that noise for any longer than 4 hours. Ha The level of masking here keeps it exciting... After removing the plug, or even the target, sometimes the signal in the hole changes for the better. Yeah, this place could keep me busy for a long while.

I hope I didnt use up all my detecting luck this weekend. Any one of those relics on that chair would have made my day/week. Any one of those coins from yesterday would have made my year. Its a unique feeling that only we could understand. Ha

Thanks again everyone.

 

[pepperj]

Congrats on the stirrups and the plate, you have some digging ahead for sometime to come, so have fun as these type of places a getting rarer to get.

 

[Walk the dog]

OUTSTANDING!!!!!

 

[parsonwalker]

Man, if you're not spoiled yet, you'll NEVER be! I love your plate the best. I bet a lot more than me are jealous . . .

 

[Paul Tn.]

Awesome digging

 

[smokedaddy]

Don't know where to start. What a day for you congrats buddy.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Congrats on another awesome hunt Brad! You've got yourself quite an interesting site there, but it looks like you might have to wait for next fall to really be able to search it as thoroughly as you'd like. I think I can even pick out a couple of late colonial artifacts in your pile including a tombac button and half of a large shoe buckle. And at least one of those stirrups appears to be pre-1800 (the one you're holding in the 4th pic) so all that gives you hope that an earlier site may be lurking nearby. Hope you can get back out there and make the best of it before the weeds and tall grass take over. Good luck!

 

[I-DIG-IT]

Nice digs. What a W0W Weekend.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thanks everyone! I have enough iron that I want to preserve to keep my electrolysis tank cooking for weeks.

I have some what-is-it's I need to post as well. One I am interested in most, is that iron piece that came out of the box plate hole. It has two rings on either end and the sides are plate iron with a pivot point on either side. It could be that it was dropped at a later time in the same spot... most of this site is just layers of stuff.

Bill, GREAT to know about that stirrup. I actually thought that one in my 4th picture was the more modern one and this was the older one.

For whatever reason, that one with the swivel looked older to me, base on no other knowledge other than "that looks old" haha I liked the twist at the bottom that was hand forged... to give more grip maybe, clean off the boot bottoms maybe... either way, this stirrup is awesome to me.

That tombac came out so shiny... I did nothing to it... I didn't even rise it off with water when I clean everything else. This was a faint mid tone and a WELCOME relief from all the slamming signals. I remember being very excited to dig this plug because I was sure it was a relic that wasn't iron.


I mentioned earlier, that brass buckle piece was totally masked by iron.. not even a blip. I only found it because I reopened a plug to look for the rest of the bone handle knife. There was a bunch of nails in there and I found the buckle with my pin pointer.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Thanks everyone! I have enough iron that I want to preserve to keep my electrolysis tank cooking for weeks.

I have some what-is-it's I need to post as well. One I am interested in most, is that iron piece that came out of the box plate hole. It has two rings on either end and the sides are plate iron with a pivot point on either side. It could be that it was dropped at a later time in the same spot... most of this site is just layers of stuff.

Bill, GREAT to know about that stirrup. I actually thought that one in my 4th picture was the more modern one and this was the older one.
View attachment 1146246
For whatever reason, that one with the swivel looked older to me, base on no other knowledge other than "that looks old" haha I liked the twist at the bottom that was hand forged... to give more grip maybe, clean off the boot bottoms maybe... either way, this stirrup is awesome to me.

That tombac came out so shiny... I did nothing to it... I didn't even rise it off with water when I clean everything else. This was a faint mid tone and a WELCOME relief from all the slamming signals. I remember being very excited to dig this plug because I was sure it was a relic that wasn't iron.
View attachment 1146247View attachment 1146248

I mentioned earlier, that brass buckle piece was totally masked by iron.. not even a blip. I only found it because I reopened a plug to look for the rest of the bone handle knife. There was a bunch of nails in there and I found the buckle with my pin pointer.

Brad - sorry, but I stand corrected. I was checking in my reference book "Collector's Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Revolution" by Neumann and Kravic, and saw that both types of stirrups were listed as being using during the Rev War period (see pic below). I've never dug one with the loop at the top and made the assumption it wasn't as old, but that was apparently incorrect.