FoundInNC
Sr. Member
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2012
- Messages
- 458
- Reaction score
- 637
- Golden Thread
- 2
- Location
- Mebane, North Carolina
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 2
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 4
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Gold and AT Pro
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I finally got back on a site that I have done well at in the past, but I can only take it in doses. There is a LOT of trash, mainly aluminum scrap and pulltabs. Today, I decided to dig every "tab range" target and it paid off. I had a signal in the high 60s on my AT Gold, and I dug it, not expecting anything, and low and behold I see this.........
I immediately recognized it as a silver thimble, an item that I have seen dug so many times on this (web)site, but I had never. I cleaned it off at home and it turns out to be a pre 1880s silver thimble, due to the absence of a purity hallmark. Apparently before ~1883 the amount of silver was so minute that there was no government requirement to display a purity mark. The house is circa Civil War, so it very well could be a "period" silver thimble. AWESOME!
I kept on trudging through the trash and found another keeper....a trade token. The token reads L. T. Johnstons The Fancy Grocer Mebane NC Good For 5c Cigar or Soda. This is actually the second of these tokens I have dug in Mebane. The other was over one mile away! I did some brief research on the store and it was in business in 1913-1916, maybe more.
Yesterday I did some digging at the site and found my 66th Bingham School button, post Civil War Scovill backmark, and an interesting piece of sterling. It is pictured by the sterling thimble. Please help if you can help ID that item. There was a prong soldered on the back of one of the silver cups. I have found about 5 of these clusters of silver "beads" now. I am hoping to figure out what they were for! Thanks for looking guys and gals!
I immediately recognized it as a silver thimble, an item that I have seen dug so many times on this (web)site, but I had never. I cleaned it off at home and it turns out to be a pre 1880s silver thimble, due to the absence of a purity hallmark. Apparently before ~1883 the amount of silver was so minute that there was no government requirement to display a purity mark. The house is circa Civil War, so it very well could be a "period" silver thimble. AWESOME!
I kept on trudging through the trash and found another keeper....a trade token. The token reads L. T. Johnstons The Fancy Grocer Mebane NC Good For 5c Cigar or Soda. This is actually the second of these tokens I have dug in Mebane. The other was over one mile away! I did some brief research on the store and it was in business in 1913-1916, maybe more.
Yesterday I did some digging at the site and found my 66th Bingham School button, post Civil War Scovill backmark, and an interesting piece of sterling. It is pictured by the sterling thimble. Please help if you can help ID that item. There was a prong soldered on the back of one of the silver cups. I have found about 5 of these clusters of silver "beads" now. I am hoping to figure out what they were for! Thanks for looking guys and gals!
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