Trooper733
Sr. Member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2013
- Messages
- 390
- Reaction score
- 315
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Eastern Oklahoma
- Detector(s) used
- Whites V3i,Whites DFX, Whites TRX, Garrett Pro Pointer
- Primary Interest:
- Other
I live in a small town which was incorporated in 1902. On Main street, there is an empty lot where a drug store used to sit which was demolished a decade ago after heavy rains caused a partial collapse. I found out this building was built in the teens or early twenties, and had housed a drug store most of its life, along with a dentist office, real estate office, and the local Masonic Lodge all on the second floor. I know the owner of the now vacant lot and was able to get permission to hunt it. I have recovered several coins and other assorted items from the lot and was at the back near the alley, and in the area where the pharmacist's office would have been when I received a strange signal and VDI on my V3i which I thought might be a coin near a piece of junk iron. At around 8 inches I dug into what was left of a tin or thin steel box which came out of the ground as flakes and rust. I saw silver glint and kept enlarging the hole and finally it jumped into my brain that I had found a revolver! I pulled it out and snapped the first picture with it lying on my pickup tailgate, and the others after getting it home and cleaned up. The revolver is a .32 caliber Iver Johnson "Owls Head" break top, first model, made from around 1898 to 1902 give or take. It was fully loaded when I found it, and it took some work to get the release working on the top strap and get it open. The brass casings were corroded and had to be driven out of the cylinder backwards. After talking to some local folks, one of which is now 92, the gun probably belonged to the druggist that built the building, and he was known to have kept a gun in his office inside a space in the wall. My theory is that the box containing the gun fell down inside the wall, and was buried as the building was demolished and covered over. Its in pretty bad shape, the cylinder will rotate now, but nothing else functions. The trigger guard, hammer, trigger and other areas that were blued instead of nickel plated are badly rusted and the trigger guard is so thin it is fragile. I think the metal box it was in protected it somewhat until it rusted away. Thanks for looking.
Upvote
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