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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[ivan salis]

sure under all that iron there is bound to be some great stuff although some of the iron stuffs not bad either...

 

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[OutdoorAdv]

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.

View attachment 1146250

WOW... There it is, #16... and now I know that the other side on the bottom is missing. Thanks a TON. I can't believe how old those are. Thank you for bringing some research into it, rather than my "that looks old" technique! ha And the other one could possible be #13. At least the styles are those. I'm sure, as with horse shoes, blacksmiths were making the same styles of stirrups for decades\centuries.

Funny (or not so funny) story about stirrups and me. I found two of the style #13 at the house I grew up in. I got my first Whites in the early 90's and was lucky enough to grow up in a house dating to the early 1800's. I dug most of my large cents there and even an 1809 half cent. Well this was before the internet and I was a teen and didnt know much about the iron I recovered or even what electrolysis was. I left those two stirrups in my pile of "junk" iron when my family moved in the early 2000's. I always wish I had those stirrups today... but now having recovered these two I am excited to get them preserved and displayed.

Thanks again Bill!

 

[Steve in PA]

Wow! You had quite a weekend. And your are just starting to get the bigger targets out of there. I'm sure there are plenty of buttons and coins hiding in there.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Thank you!

I'm working the iron through electrolysis now and the first couple pieces are done and sealed.

I wanted to share, since I really like the swivel top stirrup and the bone handle knife!


Something I am drawn to is the boot wear on the twisted iron. Its neat to see wear marks on a personal item that could be 200 (more or less) years old.



I broke this knife extracting it. (You can see the two pieces on my original post if you look closely) It was late in the day, I was exhausted, and had dug a whole lot of iron. This mistake is what made me tell myself to leave and come back fresh so I wouldn't damage anything else. I don't even think this knife was the signal I was digging as there was brass and lot of other iron in the hole. I didn't do electrolysis on this one. I actually gave it a boiling peroxide bath to get the organic dirt and material off. I epoxied the break back together with some JB Weld on some wax paper. After curing, I took the dremel to the JB Weld and brought enough off to make it less noticeable. Then while I was boiling one of the stirrups in my paraffin bath, I dropped the knife in for 20 seconds. So its sealed and displayable... and I took an otherwise rusty relic I tried my best to destroy, and made it somewhat presentable! Based on some pictures I found online, I would guess it dates to the mid 1800's, around the Civil War period.


I've been making upgrades to my electrolysis setup last year and this year. The more I use it, the more I change the things I don't like about it. It's evolved into a system that is quick to setup and cleans the iron pretty fast. That said, I am sick of my iron anodes, and after doing some anode research, I just ordered some graphite rods! They were expensive, but they should make it run even better. When I switch out my anodes, I am going to do a write up in the "Cleaning and Preservation" section. I know there's a lot on electrolysis there, but I wanted to share my design since its unique.

 

[trdking]

SUper Duper stuff! Looks like you found a camp site! Mark the spot

 

[HomeGuardDan]

Killer man...enjoy those sites while they last...but just know if you work hard enough, just about the time you think they are the thing of the past...another one surfaces! Killer man!