California site. Relics galore...

My hunting partner Brian "cal_cobra" and I have been doing research @ a "certain site on the west coast". We've been able to hit it 2x so far. The first trek netted me an 1849 French silver coin. And each of us had all sorts of cool age indicators. Eg.: green copper spikes, suspender clips, pistol balls, lantern parts, etc.... We couldn't wait to get back .

We finally got back for another go-round this last Saturday. We're trying some new angles on this site. It was a community of people in the early to mid 1800's. So I guess you could call it a "ghost town" of sorts.

We got into a particular camp or cellar hole spot, which turned up some juicy age indicators on this trek : Gold rush eagle tongue buckles, a gold rush era token (issued by a merchant in San Francisco), powder flasks, toe taps, buttons, hardware and household items from the mid 1800's, and lots of cool "whatzits" . While we never belittle cool relics, yet we were salivating for a super early coin or gold coin. But alas, the token was the only thing in the "coin category" this time.

Here's the pix. I'm sort of keeping pix (as per location within site) separated into various albums. So the pix might seem a bit random.

Here's a group shot of my portion of the finds, from an edge of the site :
Notice 2 male buckles (on flimsy and one heavy cast). And 3 females (flimsy).



Here's a closeup of the buckles :





Some "whatzits" . Please chime in with any ideas :



The powder flask to the left was split into the 2 sides, then someone folded them over, and crimped them. Found both in the same hole. At first I thought it was random copper scrap. But then figured out it was a powder flask. I'll try to straighten out later

The flask parts of the right were found scattered about.



At first I thought this was a religious medallion. But after cleaning it up and studying under magnification: It appears to be some sort of Masonic medallion. Any ID's on this ?

Notice the hand, which points to a seeing eye. To the right of that, is the 3 chain links. To the left of that, is two crossed shepherd's staffs (?). And at the top, above the hand, is what appears to be a lamb in a sitting position.





Here's some misc. age indicators :



A two-piece Eagle "A" button was a nice surprise. The lettering of the reverse indicates that it's 1850s (slightly before CW era). Right ?



And, of course, the obligatory copper junk. Blacksmith slag, kettle parts, etc... But they all "keep you on the edge of your seat "



And the obligatory "camp lead" and zinc-tin-like roofing material junk.



Then I progressed to another part of our site. It is still teaming with signals. So we will have lots of hunts to come @ this site. Here is a group shot of finds from this portion of the site :



A few "whatzits", that I welcome any input on. Especially that item on the upper right . And the bottom item is a shoe-horn, if I'm not mistaken ?



Here is the reverse sides of the last "whatzits" pix :



Here is 2 buttons (on bottom). One has gilt lettering on the back. The other is plain.

And on top, is a padlock sized squared off copper item. I think it's one side of a mold for something. Possibly a mold for an item we call "Indian pendants" (that resemble bell-clappers in ornate forms).



Another view of the "mold". This is the back-side, where you can see that perpetual squishing between 2 sides of a vice, have left a permanent indent mark in it.



And a 3rd view of the mold :



Misc. copper and doohickeys (some of which are probably post turn-of-century) :



Here's Brian's haul from the "ghost town" site. He was quite proud of his first Eagle tongue buckle :



The gold rush token he found. His is hard to read (ground-kissed). But here's the link to the info, wording, etc... on it. Apparently it was very early in the gold rush, among gold rush era SF merchants. Said to be "the first token in CA"

http://tokencatalog.com/token_recor..._id=33494&attribution_id=8321&record_offset=2





A VERY cool powder flask. That just drips of the "wild wild west".



And some assorted misc. that Brian got :



For kicks and giggles, we stopped at an old-town park, which is rumored to eventually be undergoing renovations sometime. We didn't see much dirt moved around, except for a tiny stretch of sidewalk out . Which appeared to already be 2nd generation moved-around. Still managed to get this 1915 S barber dime. Brian got a '15 wheat.





No gold coins on this trek, to jab the east coast guys with. But it was a fun day !