Field detecting, tips? Buttons, relics, silver

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

99% of the time I am darting into the old park wooded areas searching for lost farmsteads I’ve researched. My latest site is in the middle of a vast field.

My first hunt was to verify the location of the old 1850ish site and searched directly in the middle. This post is about my second visit. I tried expanding out to the yellow lines that I determined to have been home land vs farm field 150 years ago. I sort of just randomly zigged and zagged and found keepers about every 10 minutes, but definitely felt chaotic in my approach. Sort of how I beach detect. Find a keeper, expand out on a 10’ radius then go random direction again.

Here are the buttons

I rarely find floral or pattern buttons so the snowflake and flower with gilding were pleasant surprises. This little one is a 2 hole button made from tombac with carved pattern, any ideas on this?


Couple of interesting finds.

The tag is really thick and the goddess is stamped brass with Roman script, my guess circa 500 BC or 1920’s fashion accessory.


Handful of miscellaneous


And a handful from a quick hunt at lunch

Cuff link is jade I believe. Zouave button, or in W PA just a ball button and finally a Barber Dime!

Good luck out there!

 

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[xr7ator]

Way to work it and nice Barber dime.

 

[digging440yrs]

 

[Tuberale]

I'll seccond that.

 

[HighVDI]

Nice diggin, Thad! Best way I've found to tackle the wide open areas is to break it down into smaller sections, then grid. Could easily use 4 wooden steaks and some mason string line for your area then just move two up to the next say 30-40 ft....or however far you want to go. Sounds crazy but it doesn't take much time, money and not hard to haul in the trunk.

 

[MikeRo]

Awesome finds & what a great variety! Congrats!

 

[Digger RJ]

Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Goldiver]

What you are doing seems to be working, you found some nice stuff. In a big new area like that I like to do a quick initial scout by zig zagging all the highest areas first. Especially the ones nearest a water source like a creek and then work over the rest of the property in a similar manner to get a feel for the hotspots. After finding the potential hotspots then I will start gridding. I like to be in all metal so iron is not rejected, where there is iron there is usually good stuff. The whole time I am detecting I keep a close eye to the ground looking for telltalle signs like glass, pottery and pipe stems as well as Native American artifacts. Looks like you are on a good spot, I hope to see more of your dug relics and coins posted soon.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Nice diggin, Thad! Best way I've found to tackle the wide open areas is to break it down into smaller sections, then grid. Could easily use 4 wooden steaks and some mason string line for your area then just move two up to the next say 30-40 ft....or however far you want to go. Sounds crazy but it doesn't take much time, money and not hard to haul in the trunk.

Thx John. There are really no landmarks to grid against, so the mason string makes sense.

 

[Johncoho]

Looks like a good spot to me. Should be more there if it doesn't freeze too hard to dig.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

What you are doing seems to be working, you found some nice stuff. In a big new area like that I like to do a quick initial scout by zig zagging all the highest areas first. Especially the ones nearest a water source like a creek and then work over the rest of the property in a similar manner to get a feel for the hotspots. After finding the potential hotspots then I will start gridding. I like to be in all metal so iron is not rejected, where there is iron there is usually good stuff. The whole time I am detecting I keep a close eye to the ground looking for telltalle signs like glass, pottery and pipe stems as well as Native American artifacts. Looks like you are on a good spot, I hope to see more of your dug relics and coins posted soon.

Thx! That’s some good advice.

 

[MSpeiser]

As stated, listen for iron. I tend to wander out of the iron 30-50 ft. If there is an old road near the site, I assume that was frontage and work the area clear to the road. I have been hunting fields for 36 years and still get surprised by where I locate some stuff lol.

 

[CRUSADER]

You're missing a lot of finds, if that's your approach. Use visual markers in the landscape to carve up grids of about 200 metres long & if you need markers to stay in a straight line, we use 4 to 6 flags to mark off every 30 metres, or more if we are doing longer grids.

 

[Steve in PA]

Thad, around here (SWPA) we don't have large fields with good stuff scattered throughout. We have large fields with one or two isolated hotspots. The trick is to locate the hotspots and grid them by whatever method you chose (you have received several suggestions). Other than just zig zagging through the field till you hit an iron patch, you can hit the high spots first, especially near water sources as mentioned by Goldiver. Also, if the field is plowed, look for darker soil which can indicate where human occupation took place as well as the broken pottery and ceramics. Fields typically won't have a cellar hole like a wooded site, although sometimes a copse of trees in a field can be hiding the remains of the cellar. Field hunting is a heck of a lot easier than woods hunting. I'm sure you will catch on quick

 

[BLK HOLE]

Looks like you have a site that is going to produce quite a bit, congrats!

 

[washingtonian]

Way to go on a great haul! I love the oldies, buttons and Barber dime. Sometimes I approach beaches like that too, especially when I'm short on time.

I might have to try CRU's approach with the flags. Makes a lot of sense.

 

[CRUSADER]

PS. I should of said, that we do use zig-zag sometimes to find an area or I like what I call the 'loose grid' - go up a line, miss a few lines out & go down another. Leaving spaces covers big areas quickly. But which ever technique (not forgetting gut feeling/landscape reading/looking for eyes only clues) gets you to the spot, you then begin the grid in every direction. The scatter can be small or we have GPSed scatters of over 12 acres. We now systematically grid an acre every 4 hours (depending on signals).