Lead nail caps??

[Bill D. (VA)]

We seem to find these at many of the colonial sites we hunt, although they could be from a later period. Seems like I saw somewhere before that these were lead nail caps that were used for waterproofing purposes, but I can't find a thing about them online. Can anyone confirm their identity?

 

[relic nut]

I have found them also around old houses. They use to make a lot of lead head nails. If you Google that there are lots of images of them

HH, Relic Nut

 

[Bruce R]

They used to use them on tin roofs, they have rubber washers on them now I think.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

They used to use them on tin roofs, they have rubber washers on them now I think.

I'm familiar with the newer versions, but some that I've recovered were on sites that were not occupied after the late 1700s.

 

[Bruce R]

According to Wikipedia, copper roofing is really old, older than colonial U.S.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

Bill, I cant really help with age, but I can help possibly with a confirmation on their identity! I dug these at my main site over the last year and as you know, I dig a LOT of nails! But I have 3 nails with the lead caps still on them and a couple of the lead caps detached from the nail. So I feel pretty confident that you are correct in your identification. You can see I didn't notice one of the nails had a lead cap until after it came out of the tumbler.



As far as the age.... what confuses me, and you know the history of this place as much as I do, is that these appear to be on wire nails (round nails) which didn't appear until around the 1890's. I feel pretty confident, based on the context of the vast amount of relics I have dug here, that there wasnt anything around past the mid 1800's. SO, while it's possible, in this case I don't think that these are much later than the late 1860's... and could be earlier. Whats odd is that all these lead caps that turn up are round indicating they were possibly on a round head nail... so either they are all of a later time period and contaminated this site, or they actually forged round (wire style nails) for these lead caps, earlier than the 1890s.

 

[OutdoorAdv]

I had one more thought on these. Your site's were not occupied after the late 1700's and mine 1860's. Since mine really appear to be wire nails circa 1890, and all the lead pieces are round as if they came from a wire nail, perhaps they were a later contamination on all our sites.

Just a thought, but these sites were all farmed... perhaps these lead nails were used on the roof's of early steam tractors. These tractors were used in the late 19th to early 20th century. They all had roofs similar to this one and a lead head nail would make sense.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

I had one more thought on these. Your site's were not occupied after the late 1700's and mine 1860's. Since mine really appear to be wire nails circa 1890, and all the lead pieces are round as if they came from a wire nail, perhaps they were a later contamination on all our sites.

Just a thought, but these sites were all farmed... perhaps these lead nails were used on the roof's of early steam tractors. These tractors were used in the late 19th to early 20th century. They all had roofs similar to this one and a lead head nail would make sense.

View attachment 1311552

Thanks for all the info and pics Brad. Based on your analysis, I feel much more confident that these lead caps were associated with 19th century and later use, and definitely not colonial. Like you mentioned. contamination from farming activity is always a problem on the early sites, and that probably explains why I find these. And if I were hunting more 19th century sites I bet I'd find a lot more of these compared to the random ones that occasionally show up on 17th and 18th century sites. Thanks again man!

 

[lockster99]

Guys I'm in Texas and we don't have the same type of history as your part of the country, but I can tell you this:

Even today, farms around here have barns and no houses.....sheds and no houses....cow lean to's and no houses. My point is this, I have been hunting old fields and never found a house but has leadhead nails. I would have sworn that I had an old house site, but nothing. Could have been just a tin structure on the place then or later on.

I still have a bucket of leadhead nails around here somewhere from my grandpa. Gotta find those.

 

[gwdigger]

Bill,

I am convinced these date back hundreds of years. We keep finding them on sites that havent had activity for hundreds of years and there are just too many to attribute to modern activity. I believe they are in fact nail caps but they have been used for centuries. We have found scores of them on some really old sites.