brianc053
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,021
- Reaction score
- 3,723
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Sussex County, DE
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 3
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Equinox 800
XP Deus 2
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
Hi everyone! My son and I have permission to hunt at a farm property dating back to the mid 1700's, and we visited for the first time yesterday.
Since it was the first time on the property we decided to cherry-pick targets, only digging the solid coin-range numbers on our Equinox 800.
We dug this target, a solid 30 vdi, and we frankly didn't know what we had until we got home and washed it off.
I'm embarrassed to say - in hindsight - that I washed the dirt off of this with water, and then let it dry out overnight.
This morning when I started to inspect it I noticed that the box had paper in it.
Notice that red on the paper? I did, so I gently tapped the item to get the paper to fall out.
Wow was I surprised.
Seeing "Vulcan Safety Matches" set off a flurry of research between me and my son.
And we cleaned the case/cover enough to read that it's Sterling and the makers mark comes from Gorham silver, with the style/collection number of 5130.
I've preserved everything to the best of my ability. Because this was found on a historic property in our town, there may come a day when someone wants to put a display together about the property.
I'm having trouble dating the matchbox cover/case. My best guess is that it was made between 1933 and 1941 (when there were not date markers on Gorham silver), but the makers marks aren't helping me be more precise because I think they're confusing. The lion (the left mark) seems to be facing right, but Gorham supposedly had the lion facing left in the 1900's.
Any help on dating the case would be appreciated.
Thanks for looking!
Since it was the first time on the property we decided to cherry-pick targets, only digging the solid coin-range numbers on our Equinox 800.
We dug this target, a solid 30 vdi, and we frankly didn't know what we had until we got home and washed it off.
I'm embarrassed to say - in hindsight - that I washed the dirt off of this with water, and then let it dry out overnight.
This morning when I started to inspect it I noticed that the box had paper in it.
Notice that red on the paper? I did, so I gently tapped the item to get the paper to fall out.
Wow was I surprised.
Seeing "Vulcan Safety Matches" set off a flurry of research between me and my son.
And we cleaned the case/cover enough to read that it's Sterling and the makers mark comes from Gorham silver, with the style/collection number of 5130.
I've preserved everything to the best of my ability. Because this was found on a historic property in our town, there may come a day when someone wants to put a display together about the property.
I'm having trouble dating the matchbox cover/case. My best guess is that it was made between 1933 and 1941 (when there were not date markers on Gorham silver), but the makers marks aren't helping me be more precise because I think they're confusing. The lion (the left mark) seems to be facing right, but Gorham supposedly had the lion facing left in the 1900's.
Any help on dating the case would be appreciated.
Thanks for looking!
Upvote
10
