AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
It's like Springtime in NW Ohio - sunny and temps in the upper 40s today (Sunday)! I never would have imagined that the ground wouldn't even be close to frozen in early January in Ohio, but I'm not going to complain. I grabbed my gear and headed out to one of my favorite farm field permissions and spent a couple hours swinging, and got rewarded with my first silver coin for the year! It flopped right out of the plug when I turned it over, and clean up at home revealed an 1899 Barber dime. The signal was surprisingly inconsistent - high teens to upper 20s prior to digging. I rechecked the hole after retrieving the Barber, and got so iron hits in the vicinity so maybe that affected the numbers. Regardless, it's my first Barber from the 1800s, so I was more than thrilled - all my previous Barber dimes are from 1901 or later.
A couple other silver items turned up later in the hunt, too. First was some sort of silver handle, maybe to a silver tea set? It's not marked silver, but there's no doubt - it looks, feels, and cleaned up like silver. It rang up kind of jumpy on the Equinox, probably because of the shape. Also got what looks like the back to a button or pin which is marked "Sterling Back". It only rung up as a solid 14, so I was thinking shotshell headstamp. It was a nice surprise to see something shiny turn up, instead!
I got some interesting brass/bronze as well: a small buckle, a W.R.A. 10 gauge Rival headstamp (1884-1897), and my favorite find of the day - a bronze padlock!
Thanks to the keystone symbol in the center, I was able to ID the manufacturer as the E. T. Fraim Lock Co in Lancaster, PA. I'm not sure on a date range for it, but I found a lock with a very similar design in the 1897 Sears Catalog (thanks again to teotwawki for posting about that catalog!), which fits the date range for many of the other finds from the site. While cleaning the lock, a couple counterstamps became visible on the shackle - "C" on the left and "H" on the right. It would be interesting to find out of that's some sort of marking code from the manufacturer, or if the owner engraved his initials on the lock for some reason?
A couple other silver items turned up later in the hunt, too. First was some sort of silver handle, maybe to a silver tea set? It's not marked silver, but there's no doubt - it looks, feels, and cleaned up like silver. It rang up kind of jumpy on the Equinox, probably because of the shape. Also got what looks like the back to a button or pin which is marked "Sterling Back". It only rung up as a solid 14, so I was thinking shotshell headstamp. It was a nice surprise to see something shiny turn up, instead!
I got some interesting brass/bronze as well: a small buckle, a W.R.A. 10 gauge Rival headstamp (1884-1897), and my favorite find of the day - a bronze padlock!
Thanks to the keystone symbol in the center, I was able to ID the manufacturer as the E. T. Fraim Lock Co in Lancaster, PA. I'm not sure on a date range for it, but I found a lock with a very similar design in the 1897 Sears Catalog (thanks again to teotwawki for posting about that catalog!), which fits the date range for many of the other finds from the site. While cleaning the lock, a couple counterstamps became visible on the shackle - "C" on the left and "H" on the right. It would be interesting to find out of that's some sort of marking code from the manufacturer, or if the owner engraved his initials on the lock for some reason?
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. But you know I love those padlocks. Glad to see you found yourself a pretty looking green one. Nice job congratulations!
