🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Old nails?

FloraZahn

Tenderfoot
Jul 22, 2023
7
24
Old nails in a previously unlooked at site on an old farm. If may have been site of old ice house. Sits on a ridge above a creek.
One is bent at the end. Rectangular shape with apparently something wrapped. I cleaned a bit of rust.
 

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MisterHelix

Jr. Member
Feb 23, 2024
97
361
Central Virginia
Detector(s) used
Nokta Simplex Ultra
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Nails can be useful in roughly dating a site. Rectangular shanks put them in a certain era. Colonial era shanks are typically square. Modern shanks typically round.

There’s a lot more to it but I don’t know the rest offhand.

 

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Midden-marauder

Full Member
Dec 10, 2023
218
394
Definitely older nails, this little link provides the best info on the subject I've found, there's some nuances to dating nails, shape and direction of splitting or cracking are primary markers....

 

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Almy

Bronze Member
Mar 18, 2011
1,081
1,961
Maritime Provinces
Detector(s) used
Tesoro Cibola
Primary Interest:
Other
Neither appears to be a nail for wood. Note the spade point on one and the lack of a head on the other. The one with the spade point has a head that has been beaten causing it to split and mis-shape. A rosehead nail, which this one looks like, normally has a neat, symmetrical head with 3 or 4 indentations in its top where the person forming the head on a hole in an anvil hit the nail head to spread it out. The one with the head seems too long for a horseshoe nail. I'd guess they are both special purpose ones made by a blacksmith. They suggest to me an old site.
 

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Huntingintn

Tenderfoot
Apr 26, 2024
5
6
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Hello, I was wondering if anyone knows what kind of nail, spike, or whatever it is used for? It is 1/4 x 1/4 x 4. I removed all the rust looking for something to identify by. Thanks for any help.
 

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