A Stranger ID's my favorite find of the day

teotwawki12

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Michigan
Well, it was forecast to be in the 60's today and Mike and I made plans to hit an old one-room school house site on which the owner is going to build a house later in the spring. Turns out to be about two inches of mud on top of ice... My first hole, which I had to scrape and chop, turned out to be a '43 quarter. A 1926 wheat penny and a few odds and ends later, and I whacked the largest organ reed I've ever dug. There are lots of good targets there and I decided to leave until it thaws a bit more (don't want to destroy anything else chopping at the ground). I DID find a big heavy hunk of iron that I found interesting.

Driving home, decided to try one of my favorite field spots. The ground was better there; not quite as frozen with the looser soil. Found two copper thimbles, a button with a locomotive, a suspender clip, a little drawer pull, and a few old shotgun headstamps. While I was digging a hole, a guy stopped and trudged through the mud toward me. Thinking that maybe the farmer sold the land in the fall and didn't tell me, I figured the guy was going to yell at me to get the **** off of his property. Nope, just a guy who lives down the road who is also a detectorist and saw me out there. We talked for a while about some spots, exchanged numbers, and I walked back to the road to head out. Showed him the stuff that I found at the prior school site. He looked at the floor of my car and asked what the big thing was. I picked it up, and he looked at it and suggested it looked like the dinger from an old (big) bell...

When I got home, I did some googling, and I think he's right!! I found the clapper from the old school bell! I find that very cool, even if it IS just a big hunk of rusty iron.... I included a photo I found on the web of an old church bell clapper that looks just like it to me. Whatcha think?

Oh.....don't google "clapper bell".... just don't.
 

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Nice finds. I wonder... I keep seeing people finding organ reeds. Are people just gutting organs and tossing reeds or are organ repairmen just big old litterbugs?
 
Great finds and write up! Plus a potential new hunting buddy - pretty cool that he was able to help put you on the right track to ID the bell clapper just by random chance spotting it!

Locomotive button is pretty slick - I like that “Buckle Warrantied” item, too.

And I was fine with Googling “clapper bell”....until I looked about 6 results down :shock::wow: I should have listened....:lol:
 
Great finds and write up! Plus a potential new hunting buddy - pretty cool that he was able to help put you on the right track to ID the bell clapper just by random chance spotting it!

Locomotive button is pretty slick - I like that “Buckle Warrantied” item, too.

And I was fine with Googling “clapper bell”....until I looked about 6 results down :shock::wow: I should have listened....:lol:

I told you! Better than googling images for Bell Clapper... was thinking of de-rusting the clapper and giving it to the guy who is building his house there. But....will he just accept it to be polite and chuck it out in the shed while it could be appreciated right here with my other relics??
 
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