paleomaxx
Hero Member
- Aug 14, 2016
- 825
- 6,780
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- 6
- Detector(s) used
- Deus XP
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
I took a chance on Sunday and boy did it pay off! I've been detecting this spot for years and it's produced some incredible finds including a GWI button last November. I know they were sold in sets so of course I continued to hit the spot trying to find the rest but without any luck. It's been getting progressively more frustrating and the hunt before this I found nearly nothing at all and I was almost at the point of retiring the spot completely. It doesn't help that 3/4 of the place looks like this:
It's a nest of fallen apple trees and brambles all locked together with bittersweet vines. Right now is the best that it ever gets with all the leaves gone and some of the brambles trapped under the snow and it's still mostly impassable. But finding one GWI is a serious motivator so I decided to give it another shot and focused on an area that was well away from the cellar. There are next to no signals and the ones I did find were mostly shotgun headstamps. Finally I got a solid deep tone and pulled out an amazing piece:
A complete colonial knee buckle! I've found quite a few in varying states of preservation but never before one that was 100% brass construction. That got the blood pumping so I started a careful sweep of the surrounding area and less than 10 feet away I got a solid and shallow 84 on the Deus. Usually that's a rifle casing, but to my complete surprise:
Dandy button, and not just any dandy button but exactly the one I was hunting for!!!
Even under the dirt I could see the tail feathers and the estoile. I packed that sucker in dirt and kept searching for three more hours until I ran out of light. A few other nice relics did turn up, but no more GWIs. That's okay though because one is in a hunt is more than enough!
Cleaning these is always nerve-wracking. I already knew from other relics found here that the patina wouldn't be stable and would inevitably flake off so I let it dry and removed the flakes as carefully as I could. I whittle the tip of a bamboo skewer to a needle point and I tease the flakes off the surface so that there's no residue. The bamboo needs to be constantly resharpened, but it doesn't leave scratches and gets off all but the most stubborn bits. The few remaining spots I very carefully go after with a razor blade to shave off extremely thin layers of patina only without hitting the underlying metal. Finally I polish up the surface to give it contrast and the end result:
The bend appears to be plow damage; fortunately not from the shovel. Amazingly despite that the shank survived and is still upright:
The details are sharp enough that I could count the edge indents (63) which makes this a GWI 12-C. According to georgewashingtoninaguralbuttons.com that's the scarcest variety of this type! And even more importantly that matches the other I found here last year so it fits that they're from the same set. Here they are reunited after over 200 years in the ground!
The question is are there 2-3 more hiding in the ground? I will keep looking, but if they are there it's going to be a challenge getting to the ground I haven't already swept over. The other finds for the day include some older drilled-shank buttons and a nice piece of furniture brass:
Talk about the perfect Christmas gift though. And, as if I needed further proof, a lesson in the concept of no spot ever being hunted out!
It's a nest of fallen apple trees and brambles all locked together with bittersweet vines. Right now is the best that it ever gets with all the leaves gone and some of the brambles trapped under the snow and it's still mostly impassable. But finding one GWI is a serious motivator so I decided to give it another shot and focused on an area that was well away from the cellar. There are next to no signals and the ones I did find were mostly shotgun headstamps. Finally I got a solid deep tone and pulled out an amazing piece:
A complete colonial knee buckle! I've found quite a few in varying states of preservation but never before one that was 100% brass construction. That got the blood pumping so I started a careful sweep of the surrounding area and less than 10 feet away I got a solid and shallow 84 on the Deus. Usually that's a rifle casing, but to my complete surprise:
Dandy button, and not just any dandy button but exactly the one I was hunting for!!!
Even under the dirt I could see the tail feathers and the estoile. I packed that sucker in dirt and kept searching for three more hours until I ran out of light. A few other nice relics did turn up, but no more GWIs. That's okay though because one is in a hunt is more than enough!
Cleaning these is always nerve-wracking. I already knew from other relics found here that the patina wouldn't be stable and would inevitably flake off so I let it dry and removed the flakes as carefully as I could. I whittle the tip of a bamboo skewer to a needle point and I tease the flakes off the surface so that there's no residue. The bamboo needs to be constantly resharpened, but it doesn't leave scratches and gets off all but the most stubborn bits. The few remaining spots I very carefully go after with a razor blade to shave off extremely thin layers of patina only without hitting the underlying metal. Finally I polish up the surface to give it contrast and the end result:
The bend appears to be plow damage; fortunately not from the shovel. Amazingly despite that the shank survived and is still upright:
The details are sharp enough that I could count the edge indents (63) which makes this a GWI 12-C. According to georgewashingtoninaguralbuttons.com that's the scarcest variety of this type! And even more importantly that matches the other I found here last year so it fits that they're from the same set. Here they are reunited after over 200 years in the ground!
The question is are there 2-3 more hiding in the ground? I will keep looking, but if they are there it's going to be a challenge getting to the ground I haven't already swept over. The other finds for the day include some older drilled-shank buttons and a nice piece of furniture brass:
Talk about the perfect Christmas gift though. And, as if I needed further proof, a lesson in the concept of no spot ever being hunted out!
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