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Back to the front yard day two- relic hunting I guess it is...
kevinstang
Posts: 1,517 ✭✭✭
Weather warmed up to close to 50 degrees today and sun was out so I had a chance to do some late afternoon detecting, grab my gear and headed out to the parks- only to find them mostly still covered in a crusty ice/snow blanket. That pretty much put a dent in that idea, so I grabbed a few rolls of pennies at one of the local banks to look through- didn't find much of anything interesting, a few wheats and possibly one of the weaker 1972 double die varieties.
I grabbed a bite to eat on the way home and arrived back at my place around 5pm, it was still plenty warm and lots of sun, so I said what the heck, I'd give the front yard one more go. I might have mentioned it before, but I live in an old train depot built in 1914 in a small Northern NY town of probably less than 1000 people, The depot I live in was built across from the old depot (it sadly was torn down years ago) and the area being in the center of town was a central hub for many years for farmers and freight brought in and out by the railroad. I was told by one of the old timer's years ago that FDR's own armored rail car with him aboard spent one night parked at the rail siding adjacent to my front yard - they had plenty of security and soldiers in town that night. It might sound like a good place to hunt, but the railroad sold out in the 1950's and it subsequently served as everthing from a tractor dealership to auto repair facility, as well being located in center of a small town its bordered by the one and only bank and store in town. Probably the worst of the trash came from the metal drives that were held during WW2, I was told by one of old timers who stopped by one day while I was detecting that the front yard was piled high with scrap several times during the war, since then I have pretty much put off hunting it because of all the small junk signals.
But what the heck, I decided to weed some of the more solid signals out today, here's some of the more interesting stuff:
The brass Stromberg Carlson telephone plague was kind of a nice surprise, I was able to locate several like it that were affixed to the old hand cranked wooden box telepones on ebay. From what I found on the internet the company was formed around 1894 by two former employees of old Alexander Bell himself and lasted until after WW2 as one of the major suppliers of telephones and radio parts in the USA. They originally founded the company in Chicago, but shortly thereafter moved to Rochester NY, looks like only the earlier pieces had the names of both cities as the later pieces on ebay had just Rochester NY on the plaques. Closest one I could find on ebay with a similar plaque was dated to around 1897 !
The other pieces I can only guess at what they could be, the two small brass square pieces at first I thought might have been part of something together, but now I don't think so- they were found apart 10 feet apart anyways. I thinked the one with the ribs might have been part of a small case- it looks to have been plated or had pieces soldered to the inside in past once I cleaned it up. The other piece is of heavier cast like construction and I am thinking maybe furniture related. The other odd shaped piece looks to be a cast birds wing- ( has feather like detail), its heavy for size, and my guess is maybe part of an eagle that once sat atop a small flag pole like the ones people place outside their houses on flag day etc..
And I amost forgot about these pieces- they look to be three small links to a flat wrist band maybe- maybe part of a watch band? Looks like they may have even been gold plated at one time, closest I've come to gold anything in a long time. Found alot of other misc. scrap pieces and of course more bottle caps. I also dig alot of teeth- but these are the metal kind used on farm implements I'm told (not like lordmarcovan's shark teeth)- someone must have dropped a box of them out there when the tractor dealership was here, I find alot of them everytime- they show up as a solid quarter hit on my Garrett. One large caliber shell casing rounded out the surprise finds, wouldn't expect anyone to be firing off a rifle around here. Edited to ad: I forgot the coins! - I am 8 cents richer, 7 american and 1 Canadian. Four zincolns and three copper lincolns-oldest a 1971.
I grabbed a bite to eat on the way home and arrived back at my place around 5pm, it was still plenty warm and lots of sun, so I said what the heck, I'd give the front yard one more go. I might have mentioned it before, but I live in an old train depot built in 1914 in a small Northern NY town of probably less than 1000 people, The depot I live in was built across from the old depot (it sadly was torn down years ago) and the area being in the center of town was a central hub for many years for farmers and freight brought in and out by the railroad. I was told by one of the old timer's years ago that FDR's own armored rail car with him aboard spent one night parked at the rail siding adjacent to my front yard - they had plenty of security and soldiers in town that night. It might sound like a good place to hunt, but the railroad sold out in the 1950's and it subsequently served as everthing from a tractor dealership to auto repair facility, as well being located in center of a small town its bordered by the one and only bank and store in town. Probably the worst of the trash came from the metal drives that were held during WW2, I was told by one of old timers who stopped by one day while I was detecting that the front yard was piled high with scrap several times during the war, since then I have pretty much put off hunting it because of all the small junk signals.
But what the heck, I decided to weed some of the more solid signals out today, here's some of the more interesting stuff:
The brass Stromberg Carlson telephone plague was kind of a nice surprise, I was able to locate several like it that were affixed to the old hand cranked wooden box telepones on ebay. From what I found on the internet the company was formed around 1894 by two former employees of old Alexander Bell himself and lasted until after WW2 as one of the major suppliers of telephones and radio parts in the USA. They originally founded the company in Chicago, but shortly thereafter moved to Rochester NY, looks like only the earlier pieces had the names of both cities as the later pieces on ebay had just Rochester NY on the plaques. Closest one I could find on ebay with a similar plaque was dated to around 1897 !
The other pieces I can only guess at what they could be, the two small brass square pieces at first I thought might have been part of something together, but now I don't think so- they were found apart 10 feet apart anyways. I thinked the one with the ribs might have been part of a small case- it looks to have been plated or had pieces soldered to the inside in past once I cleaned it up. The other piece is of heavier cast like construction and I am thinking maybe furniture related. The other odd shaped piece looks to be a cast birds wing- ( has feather like detail), its heavy for size, and my guess is maybe part of an eagle that once sat atop a small flag pole like the ones people place outside their houses on flag day etc..
And I amost forgot about these pieces- they look to be three small links to a flat wrist band maybe- maybe part of a watch band? Looks like they may have even been gold plated at one time, closest I've come to gold anything in a long time. Found alot of other misc. scrap pieces and of course more bottle caps. I also dig alot of teeth- but these are the metal kind used on farm implements I'm told (not like lordmarcovan's shark teeth)- someone must have dropped a box of them out there when the tractor dealership was here, I find alot of them everytime- they show up as a solid quarter hit on my Garrett. One large caliber shell casing rounded out the surprise finds, wouldn't expect anyone to be firing off a rifle around here. Edited to ad: I forgot the coins! - I am 8 cents richer, 7 american and 1 Canadian. Four zincolns and three copper lincolns-oldest a 1971.
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KS, I would say your yard has FAR more interesting potential than mine!
It must be cool to have some detecting potential so close at hand. Back about 12 years ago when I was renting a room in a house (during my active MD-ing days), I never bothered with the yard there because the house was newer (a Ranch style from the late 1950s or '60s), and I had plenty of Victorian (or Civil War/colonial) areas to hunt. So I ignored the "home turf" and never checked it out.
The landlady's son borrowed a detector from me one day and found a 1935 Walking Liberty half... right under my bedroom window.