parsonwalker
Bronze Member
LOTS of stuff, and looks early to me, but I'm no Colonial guy, so while you're waiting for Spring, give me your thoughts on anything you see here that interests you!
In the summer, I took a shot at a groundhog 200 yards from my driveway on the property adjacent to mine. His hole was on a high knoll and I missed, but walked over to make sure. Looking for blood in his hole (I saw none) I noticed that in his digging, he had to maneuver around a partial wall (Totally unknown to anybody around here, and below the plow line depth) I could see LARGE unfired Colonial bricks. Looking around the hole, I saw clay pipe, salt glazed pottery and other evidence of early inhabitants. A house was soon to be built there, and so I eye-balled and detected the area as much as I could, until the opportunity was over. And it's over.
I found part of an octagonal hooked-breech gun barrel. The absence of any nipple apparatus makes me think Flintlock, especially since I found a perfect flint, and some raw flint or chert not native to this area. A trigger guard, too.
In the pic with the flint, could the rounded edge buckle be a knee buckle? And the piece in the lower right, could that be to a shoe buckle? If so, it's the first I've ever found.
I came away with some buttons and a very small cameo. The cameo (I guess that's what you call it) was only found because of the thin brass edge surrounding it. The buttons: One was a two-piece with the face missing. Another appears to be a tombac and another a flat. Two have decorations. Anybody recognize the decorations as anything? The cameo appears to be woman, though at first it looked like Julius Caesar or something.
Not a single coin, and no other jewelry. But what really intrigued me was that there was virtually NOTHING modern in this field. No junk. (According to my wife, it's ALL junk!) Detector finds were scant. Harmonica reeds that look like lead, pocket-knife parts, a very thick heavy pewter handle to something, pieces of pots, random brass, etc.
I'm curious about this though - found two of them. almost look like iron arrowheads. Is there such a thing in Eastern Virginia? I found one broken quartz arrowhead and some flakes . . .
Now to the eyeball finds. Lots of clay pipe and salt Glazed Pottery - Some with pretty cool designs.
Some unusual pieces. I saved the bone on the left, because it appears to have butchering cuts.
In the next picture the fragments are red like brick, but with a glaze. Then I grouped some delicate fragments together like porcelain or china. In pic three, a few of the wine bottle fragments (and there were many) had a beautiful blueish hue. Not easily seen in the pics.
Next groups - white (dish ware?) with designs, then plain white, then some brownish crockery.
An interesting delicate stem:
If you look in the first pic at the top, there's a lot of black (actually dark green) wine bottle(?) fragments at the top of the picture. Some of it had weird mineralization - at least I guess that's what it is . . . Sadly, no seals or big pieces. But several bottoms show a blob revealing that they're hand blown I guess.
Sorry for TMI and so many pics, but I'd really like for some of the Colonial experts like Bill D or HomeGuardDan to try to DATE this pile of stuff for me. Anything ANY of you could tell me would be appreciated. As I said, I don't know much about Colonial stuff. Does this appear to be the kind of stuff you'd find around a simple home, a higher class home, or a store or tavern?
I've been out of the loop for a couple of months, but trying to re-emerge as the snow melts. Good Hunting . . .
In the summer, I took a shot at a groundhog 200 yards from my driveway on the property adjacent to mine. His hole was on a high knoll and I missed, but walked over to make sure. Looking for blood in his hole (I saw none) I noticed that in his digging, he had to maneuver around a partial wall (Totally unknown to anybody around here, and below the plow line depth) I could see LARGE unfired Colonial bricks. Looking around the hole, I saw clay pipe, salt glazed pottery and other evidence of early inhabitants. A house was soon to be built there, and so I eye-balled and detected the area as much as I could, until the opportunity was over. And it's over.
I found part of an octagonal hooked-breech gun barrel. The absence of any nipple apparatus makes me think Flintlock, especially since I found a perfect flint, and some raw flint or chert not native to this area. A trigger guard, too.
In the pic with the flint, could the rounded edge buckle be a knee buckle? And the piece in the lower right, could that be to a shoe buckle? If so, it's the first I've ever found.
I came away with some buttons and a very small cameo. The cameo (I guess that's what you call it) was only found because of the thin brass edge surrounding it. The buttons: One was a two-piece with the face missing. Another appears to be a tombac and another a flat. Two have decorations. Anybody recognize the decorations as anything? The cameo appears to be woman, though at first it looked like Julius Caesar or something.
Not a single coin, and no other jewelry. But what really intrigued me was that there was virtually NOTHING modern in this field. No junk. (According to my wife, it's ALL junk!) Detector finds were scant. Harmonica reeds that look like lead, pocket-knife parts, a very thick heavy pewter handle to something, pieces of pots, random brass, etc.
I'm curious about this though - found two of them. almost look like iron arrowheads. Is there such a thing in Eastern Virginia? I found one broken quartz arrowhead and some flakes . . .
Now to the eyeball finds. Lots of clay pipe and salt Glazed Pottery - Some with pretty cool designs.
Some unusual pieces. I saved the bone on the left, because it appears to have butchering cuts.
In the next picture the fragments are red like brick, but with a glaze. Then I grouped some delicate fragments together like porcelain or china. In pic three, a few of the wine bottle fragments (and there were many) had a beautiful blueish hue. Not easily seen in the pics.
Next groups - white (dish ware?) with designs, then plain white, then some brownish crockery.
An interesting delicate stem:
If you look in the first pic at the top, there's a lot of black (actually dark green) wine bottle(?) fragments at the top of the picture. Some of it had weird mineralization - at least I guess that's what it is . . . Sadly, no seals or big pieces. But several bottoms show a blob revealing that they're hand blown I guess.
Sorry for TMI and so many pics, but I'd really like for some of the Colonial experts like Bill D or HomeGuardDan to try to DATE this pile of stuff for me. Anything ANY of you could tell me would be appreciated. As I said, I don't know much about Colonial stuff. Does this appear to be the kind of stuff you'd find around a simple home, a higher class home, or a store or tavern?
I've been out of the loop for a couple of months, but trying to re-emerge as the snow melts. Good Hunting . . .
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