AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I haven’t had too much hunt time this week - lots of work, poor weather, and Mom in town for a visit. But I did take a couple trips to a new permission, totaling about 3 hours in the two trips. I found the site by overlaying an 1880s map in GoogleEarth, and I was thrilled to see the former home site was located in a field owned by an entity that I had great contacts for.
So securing permission was an easy slam dunk - but finding the actual spot in the field was a nice example of the benefits of using the Maprika app. When I first got to the field, I walked out to a spot that I assumed was the former house site - discolored ground on a slightly raised area. Expecting to see debris, I was surprised to see nothing but clean dirt. I wandered around a bit more in search of debris with no luck. So I pulled out the phone, took a screenshot of the relevant 1880s map, imported it into Maprika, made 4 quick anchor points, and bam - in less than 5 minutes, I could see I was off by at least 100 yards. With Maprika’s guidance, I walked straight to the middle of the debris field! Simply an amazing app!
Anyways, for all that, I wasn’t able to find much in those two short hunts. I managed to score a couple flat buttons - both had broken shanks, but I like them for a couple reasons. First they confirm that the site is older, but second, they both are labeled in ways that are new to me.
The first one is inscribed “Treble Gilt Colour” and an old school abbreviation for “Standard” - which, according to Cincinnati Museum Center info, means the button originally was gilt with 3 times the standard amount of gold.
The second one is labeled “Warranted Orange” - I never heard of this type of marking for gilt buttons before, but a web search quickly turned up a ton of examples with the similar backmarks.
Other than the buttons, I turned up 2 lantern knobs and 4 headstamps - a couple of the headstamps are more recent (mid-1900s), but a couple are definitely older. I can’t find any info for the “Club No12” stamp, but I suspect it’s quite old, just based on the simplistic design and I also know that the UMC “New Club” headstamps can be from the turn of the century. Don’t really know if this one is associated with UMC or not, though
The Winchester headstamp had me excited at first - it’s just the bottom plate of the headstamp (without the metal collar for the rest of the shell), so it looked for all the world like a nickel when I turned the plug and it rolled right out. The site has yet to turn up a coin....the Wheatie in the pics is just there for scale.
Last was a pretty cool iron relic. I came across a choppy but repeatable signal that bounced up into some high tones - I was 99% certain it was junk based on the audio, but I was digging everything repeatable. Out came the fairly large iron object pictured below - no idea what it is, but I like it! I don’t keep a lot of the iron I dig, but this one is definitely headed for the electrolysis bucket! I’ll probably post it in the “ID me” section to see if anyone knows what it might be
Sorry it’s nothing more interesting, but it’s the best I got for the week
Thanks for looking!
So securing permission was an easy slam dunk - but finding the actual spot in the field was a nice example of the benefits of using the Maprika app. When I first got to the field, I walked out to a spot that I assumed was the former house site - discolored ground on a slightly raised area. Expecting to see debris, I was surprised to see nothing but clean dirt. I wandered around a bit more in search of debris with no luck. So I pulled out the phone, took a screenshot of the relevant 1880s map, imported it into Maprika, made 4 quick anchor points, and bam - in less than 5 minutes, I could see I was off by at least 100 yards. With Maprika’s guidance, I walked straight to the middle of the debris field! Simply an amazing app!
Anyways, for all that, I wasn’t able to find much in those two short hunts. I managed to score a couple flat buttons - both had broken shanks, but I like them for a couple reasons. First they confirm that the site is older, but second, they both are labeled in ways that are new to me.
The first one is inscribed “Treble Gilt Colour” and an old school abbreviation for “Standard” - which, according to Cincinnati Museum Center info, means the button originally was gilt with 3 times the standard amount of gold.
The second one is labeled “Warranted Orange” - I never heard of this type of marking for gilt buttons before, but a web search quickly turned up a ton of examples with the similar backmarks.
Other than the buttons, I turned up 2 lantern knobs and 4 headstamps - a couple of the headstamps are more recent (mid-1900s), but a couple are definitely older. I can’t find any info for the “Club No12” stamp, but I suspect it’s quite old, just based on the simplistic design and I also know that the UMC “New Club” headstamps can be from the turn of the century. Don’t really know if this one is associated with UMC or not, though
The Winchester headstamp had me excited at first - it’s just the bottom plate of the headstamp (without the metal collar for the rest of the shell), so it looked for all the world like a nickel when I turned the plug and it rolled right out. The site has yet to turn up a coin....the Wheatie in the pics is just there for scale.
Last was a pretty cool iron relic. I came across a choppy but repeatable signal that bounced up into some high tones - I was 99% certain it was junk based on the audio, but I was digging everything repeatable. Out came the fairly large iron object pictured below - no idea what it is, but I like it! I don’t keep a lot of the iron I dig, but this one is definitely headed for the electrolysis bucket! I’ll probably post it in the “ID me” section to see if anyone knows what it might be
Sorry it’s nothing more interesting, but it’s the best I got for the week
Thanks for looking!
Shows how much I know!! Anyways, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I created the new overlay, in the field, and got back on track...all within minutes! Cool stuff!
