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Digs O' The Day™, 10/2/07: An Hour At Gascoigne Bluff (OT, since no coins found this time)
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,804 ✭✭✭✭✭
The last episode was a long one, but this one is a little shorter, since I was out barely over an hour, and only one noteworthy find resulted. As it happens, my camera was not with me, either, so there won't be lots of action shots and scenery.
Tuesday morning dawned cloudy, but pleasant enough. I got off work on the graveyard shift, a little after 7:00 AM. This left me the better part of two hours to pass before the banks opened. I had to cash a relatively large out of state check from my uncle in North Carolina, to whom I'd just shipped some coins. I knew if I deposited this check into my own bank, they'd hold it for ten days while it cleared. In our area there is, however, one solitary branch of the bank my uncle uses, and it happens to be on St. Simons Island. So since I had to stay on the island for a little while, I decided to go back to Gascoigne Bluff by the Frederica River, where I'd last gone detecting September 25th.
By the time I got off the shuttle bus and into my van, it was nearly 8:00, so I only had an hour or so to kill. I got to the bluff and dawdled around a bit near the new fishing pier, then got out the detector and began searching near the asphalt road that runs along the eastern side of the park. Expecting it to be trashy so close to the road, I was not surprised when my first find proved to be a largish piece of aluminum "can shrapnel"- this is what I call aluminum cans that have had fatal encounters with lawnmowers. This piece of can shrapnel was pretty surprisingly deep. Not a good sign- I decided to move to a different area.
It had rained during the night and the grass was wet. The clouds were gathering, and promising more rain. The mosquitoes were out, and hungry, so I dashed back to the van and doused myself with repellent. After hunting for a little longer and finding little but one or two more pieces of trash, I ended up on the part of the bluff where my wife and I had had our wedding reception eight Octobers ago. Even before that, in the mid-1990s, I'd found a 1916 Buffalo nickel and a musketball in there, so I knew deeper goodies were a possibility in this spot.
I got a nice, repeating, coin-range signal that obviously had a little depth to it, so I excitedly dug.
And dug.
And dug.
The soil was sandy and a light color here; easy to dig in, but it sure wasn't revealing my target.
Just before I reached the molten core of the earth and broke through to China on the other side, I stopped digging and rechecked the signal, finding it still nice and clear. There was no way such a deep target would give that clear a signal, so I decided I must be off-center somewhat. I cut a second plug next to the side of the hole where the signal seemed strongest.
As I turned back the new plug and the dirt beneath it fell into the cavernous hole, I saw a clump of soil that was not the same light beige-grey color, but instead a faint greyish green. This excited me, since that greenish color in the soil is a clue that an old copper or brass artifact had lain buried nearby for a very long time. Such greenish stains in the dirt are a clue that large cents or Indian cents or things like that are about to show themselves. My target had apparently lain in the soil four to six inches deep, just off to one side of where I'd first dug. When I cut the new plug, it fell down into the hole. Reaching down into the depths of the hole, I retrieved a fistful of dirt, passed it over the coil, and got a loud beep. The target was in my hand!
Flicking tiny bits of sand out of the palm of my glove, I soon saw the item. It was not a large cent, nor was it the Indian cent I had expected to see, but a little smaller. It was a one-piece flat button, and a nice one. I've found lots of 18th and 19th century flat buttons on the bluff, mostly further up towards the old plantation site. This one was a bit later than that. Unlike most earlier flat buttons, which tend to be rather plain, it had a fancy, ornamented front with a little pink "jewel" in the center, and some of the original gilt remained on the back.
It's obviously Victorian, and I would guess its date somewhere between the 1860s and 1890s. It is also obvious that it was from a lady's garment. I wish we could see what the garment, and the lady who wore it, looked like.
(I got the date wrong in the photo caption; this was found on the 2nd of October, not the 1st.)
Soon a light drizzle heralded the return of the rain, so I packed everything up and got in the van.
It was 9:01 AM. Perfect.
I was the first one through the doors of the bank when they opened, and to make things even better, they cashed my uncle's check without raising an eyebrow or charging me a fee, even though it was from out of state and I didn't hold an account with them. Down the road at my own bank, I paid off my entire credit card balance and still had a goodly chunk of money left over. Now THAT is a nice feeling. Too bad it never lasts long.
This morning (October 3rd), I again had almost an hour to kill, while waiting for a dentist appointment. But I didn't go out diggin', because it was rainy and I was tired after my graveyard shift. I showed my dentist the nicest of my megalodon shark tooth fossils, and he was quite impressed. I was impressed, too, because he immediately knew what it was.
-RWS
Previously on Digs O' The Day™ (9/30/07): The House On Hanover Square!
Tuesday morning dawned cloudy, but pleasant enough. I got off work on the graveyard shift, a little after 7:00 AM. This left me the better part of two hours to pass before the banks opened. I had to cash a relatively large out of state check from my uncle in North Carolina, to whom I'd just shipped some coins. I knew if I deposited this check into my own bank, they'd hold it for ten days while it cleared. In our area there is, however, one solitary branch of the bank my uncle uses, and it happens to be on St. Simons Island. So since I had to stay on the island for a little while, I decided to go back to Gascoigne Bluff by the Frederica River, where I'd last gone detecting September 25th.
By the time I got off the shuttle bus and into my van, it was nearly 8:00, so I only had an hour or so to kill. I got to the bluff and dawdled around a bit near the new fishing pier, then got out the detector and began searching near the asphalt road that runs along the eastern side of the park. Expecting it to be trashy so close to the road, I was not surprised when my first find proved to be a largish piece of aluminum "can shrapnel"- this is what I call aluminum cans that have had fatal encounters with lawnmowers. This piece of can shrapnel was pretty surprisingly deep. Not a good sign- I decided to move to a different area.
It had rained during the night and the grass was wet. The clouds were gathering, and promising more rain. The mosquitoes were out, and hungry, so I dashed back to the van and doused myself with repellent. After hunting for a little longer and finding little but one or two more pieces of trash, I ended up on the part of the bluff where my wife and I had had our wedding reception eight Octobers ago. Even before that, in the mid-1990s, I'd found a 1916 Buffalo nickel and a musketball in there, so I knew deeper goodies were a possibility in this spot.
I got a nice, repeating, coin-range signal that obviously had a little depth to it, so I excitedly dug.
And dug.
And dug.
The soil was sandy and a light color here; easy to dig in, but it sure wasn't revealing my target.
Just before I reached the molten core of the earth and broke through to China on the other side, I stopped digging and rechecked the signal, finding it still nice and clear. There was no way such a deep target would give that clear a signal, so I decided I must be off-center somewhat. I cut a second plug next to the side of the hole where the signal seemed strongest.
As I turned back the new plug and the dirt beneath it fell into the cavernous hole, I saw a clump of soil that was not the same light beige-grey color, but instead a faint greyish green. This excited me, since that greenish color in the soil is a clue that an old copper or brass artifact had lain buried nearby for a very long time. Such greenish stains in the dirt are a clue that large cents or Indian cents or things like that are about to show themselves. My target had apparently lain in the soil four to six inches deep, just off to one side of where I'd first dug. When I cut the new plug, it fell down into the hole. Reaching down into the depths of the hole, I retrieved a fistful of dirt, passed it over the coil, and got a loud beep. The target was in my hand!
Flicking tiny bits of sand out of the palm of my glove, I soon saw the item. It was not a large cent, nor was it the Indian cent I had expected to see, but a little smaller. It was a one-piece flat button, and a nice one. I've found lots of 18th and 19th century flat buttons on the bluff, mostly further up towards the old plantation site. This one was a bit later than that. Unlike most earlier flat buttons, which tend to be rather plain, it had a fancy, ornamented front with a little pink "jewel" in the center, and some of the original gilt remained on the back.
It's obviously Victorian, and I would guess its date somewhere between the 1860s and 1890s. It is also obvious that it was from a lady's garment. I wish we could see what the garment, and the lady who wore it, looked like.
(I got the date wrong in the photo caption; this was found on the 2nd of October, not the 1st.)
Soon a light drizzle heralded the return of the rain, so I packed everything up and got in the van.
It was 9:01 AM. Perfect.
I was the first one through the doors of the bank when they opened, and to make things even better, they cashed my uncle's check without raising an eyebrow or charging me a fee, even though it was from out of state and I didn't hold an account with them. Down the road at my own bank, I paid off my entire credit card balance and still had a goodly chunk of money left over. Now THAT is a nice feeling. Too bad it never lasts long.
This morning (October 3rd), I again had almost an hour to kill, while waiting for a dentist appointment. But I didn't go out diggin', because it was rainy and I was tired after my graveyard shift. I showed my dentist the nicest of my megalodon shark tooth fossils, and he was quite impressed. I was impressed, too, because he immediately knew what it was.
-RWS
Previously on Digs O' The Day™ (9/30/07): The House On Hanover Square!
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- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC
Speakin' of digs
I digs your story, even as you were shut-out !
Peace
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Your treasure hunting tales are always a great read. Thanks !
Paul
I bump it TTT since a new installment should be forthcoming tomorrow.
Today's the day I dig again.
-Randy Newman