My Heart Breaker for the year

[*Dig-Dug*]

If your hunting in Germany one of the holy grail items to find would be any relic that could be tied to WWII and the Third Reich right? Well it is for me and I dug what I just knew was going to be a banner find for me. I was wrong.

It came out of the ground complete but so encrusted in rust that I could only assume it was a Nazi badge based on the basic outline ( now I wish I had a before picture of it). Being intact, I had a good shot at cleaning most if not all of the rust off via the electrolysis method. This should leave me with a fantastic relic to display. Well, into the bath it went, with me being very careful not to overdo it. It all started so well.

The first pull from the water allowed me to flick off enough rust to clearly see the swastika at the top and the complete back pin. Alright I'm on cloud nine at this point so back it goes for repeated baths over the next 2 days. Somewhere in the process things began to go south without me realizing it. The last time I pulled it out of the water and the left side and center of the pin literally disintegrated into a pile of rusty mush. So much for cloud nine.

As near as I can tell it WAS a Sportsmans badge and was likely pre WWII from the late thirties. Unfortunately, the picture shows all that is left of what I hoped might be a banner find. Oh well, I'll just have to continue hunting.



Other finds from this hunt include an 1851 1Pfennig coin and this formerly Gold plated ring with the big Stone. I don't believe the Stone is Diamond but it may well be a Quartz, Sapphire, or Topaz.


I also dug this Wheatie. It came out of the ground discolored like that. Never seen anything like it. Any Ideas why it looks like this?

 

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[Monty]

Terrible shame about your Nazi pin. I did the same thing with a "V" nickel. It looked pretty good to start with and after about an hour of electrolysis, I could barely make out what it was! I haven't had the nerve to try it again on anything. Nice find anyway. M nty

 

[phantomfinder]

nice ring ......

 

[seger98]

Still nice finds!

 

[kdismuke1]

great finds.

 

[DD-777]

Incredible find regardless - don't beat yourself up about it - with all the swingin' you do over there, your bound to come across another...

 

[cheese]

I've found that electrolysis can be a great tool or a quick kill for a find. Sometimes mother nature eats away our finds too much to be restored. It could be that the missing part of the shield was nothing but rust anyway and there wasn't anything left to hold it together once the rust was gone. Who knows, but don't feel bad about it!

 

[creeper71]

That would have been a really nice find.. well still is a nice find just not as nice as if it was in better condition! I was once told that it is illegal to own anything to do with Nazi Germany ..in Germany..don't knw how true that is tho...

 

[Bavaria Mike]

Nice finds! Too bad about the Nazi badge, probably zinc based and zinc does not hold well in the ground. I looked through my Badge book but didn't see one like that. The Wheatie looks like it moved at some point since it was buried, just slightly. HH, Mike

 

[crazyjarhead]

Too bad to hear that. Nice intentions sometimes cause us some grief later. Still a good find

 

[nc-joe]

Still a very cool find, best of all it let's you know you're in the right area to try and score another one.

Congrats on the find.