AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I'm amazed the farmer hasn't planted yet, but over this past weekend I was still able to get a couple more trips out to the ghost town I've been working all season. Photos below show the most interesting keepers, which included a barrage of lapel pins:
The Big Ben work clothes button made me smile. I briefly considered making it my new avatar - you see, my first name's Ben, and frankly, MDing has made me fatter...yep, you read that right - time I used to spend in the weight room or on a bike has now been spent lazily swinging a detector in the middle of a field
The "Round Oak" item with an Indian head on it actually isn't a button, it's an old lapel pin. The back is imprinted with "Estate of PD Beckwith/Dowagiac, MI" and the pin was apparently made by F. H. Noble & Co Chicago. Round Oak was a manufacturer of massive heating stoves in the late 1800's/early 1900s.
The Lincoln cent medallion/trinket is an odd one. The back side actually has crisper detail - "Liberty" and the date (1948) is much easier to read from that side. Although it's exactly the size of a penny, it's kind of odd that the bust and so forth is opposite of a true penny (maybe to avoid confusion with legal tender??) Anyway, I haven't figured out a connection yet on why 1948 might be considered a significant date to commemorate Lincoln...
The gold colored lapel pin was a fun find - and I'm not entirely sure if it qualifies as my first gold. It rang up in the gold range, and came out of the hole as clean as it appears in the pictures - I didn't even run it under water for it's "glamour shot". It's not marked as gold in any way, so it might just be plated. Regardless, it's got some interesting history behind it - and the Knights of the Maccabees changed their name in 1914 to just "the Maccabees", so this pin pre-dates that. I've found differing meanings for "O T W" that appears at the bottom of the pin, from "of the World" to "Old Testament Wisdom" - so far I suspect it's the latter.
The third lapel pin is a small heart shaped item with an scripted "H" prominent in the middle. The corrosion is pretty heavy, but there's still a lot of the white enameled background showing on the pin. I know it's a stretch, but an interesting possibility is that maybe this pin is associated with the name "Hartsell" that was etched into the back of a George Washington Inauguration Centennial medal I found at the same location - would be pretty cool!
Rounding it all out were two coins - the 1917 Wheat and an 1889 V nickel. The back is pretty toasted on the nickel, with the V only just barely visible, but the front still has decent detail.
Thanks for looking!
The Big Ben work clothes button made me smile. I briefly considered making it my new avatar - you see, my first name's Ben, and frankly, MDing has made me fatter...yep, you read that right - time I used to spend in the weight room or on a bike has now been spent lazily swinging a detector in the middle of a field
The "Round Oak" item with an Indian head on it actually isn't a button, it's an old lapel pin. The back is imprinted with "Estate of PD Beckwith/Dowagiac, MI" and the pin was apparently made by F. H. Noble & Co Chicago. Round Oak was a manufacturer of massive heating stoves in the late 1800's/early 1900s.
The Lincoln cent medallion/trinket is an odd one. The back side actually has crisper detail - "Liberty" and the date (1948) is much easier to read from that side. Although it's exactly the size of a penny, it's kind of odd that the bust and so forth is opposite of a true penny (maybe to avoid confusion with legal tender??) Anyway, I haven't figured out a connection yet on why 1948 might be considered a significant date to commemorate Lincoln...
The gold colored lapel pin was a fun find - and I'm not entirely sure if it qualifies as my first gold. It rang up in the gold range, and came out of the hole as clean as it appears in the pictures - I didn't even run it under water for it's "glamour shot". It's not marked as gold in any way, so it might just be plated. Regardless, it's got some interesting history behind it - and the Knights of the Maccabees changed their name in 1914 to just "the Maccabees", so this pin pre-dates that. I've found differing meanings for "O T W" that appears at the bottom of the pin, from "of the World" to "Old Testament Wisdom" - so far I suspect it's the latter.
The third lapel pin is a small heart shaped item with an scripted "H" prominent in the middle. The corrosion is pretty heavy, but there's still a lot of the white enameled background showing on the pin. I know it's a stretch, but an interesting possibility is that maybe this pin is associated with the name "Hartsell" that was etched into the back of a George Washington Inauguration Centennial medal I found at the same location - would be pretty cool!
Rounding it all out were two coins - the 1917 Wheat and an 1889 V nickel. The back is pretty toasted on the nickel, with the V only just barely visible, but the front still has decent detail.
Thanks for looking!
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