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Dig(s) O' The Day, 8/8/04
lordmarcovan
Posts: 45,409 ✭✭✭✭✭
lordmarcovan
Posts: 45,409 ✭✭✭✭✭
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I just never pass up an opportunity to bore or frighten everyone with a bunch of grubby dug coins.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
I really enjoy reading your metal detecting stories. At the risk of the OT police getting on me (no coins), here is the only metal detecting story I have.
In the summer of 1971 while out of school, I got a chance to visit my cousin for a week, in Chester, VA. His dad (my uncle) was into MD at the time (he isn't now). One of the things we did while I was there, was go to an old Civil War battlefield in Petersburg, where they let you go and look for things. I didn't find anything. My cousin found a bullet or two and I think, some musket? balls that he let me have, because he already had a bunch of it. While we were looking, my uncle yelled for us to come over to where he was. He had the detector and had found something. It turned out to be an unexploded cannonball.
We took it to his house and he put it on his fireplace mantle. After I left, I found out later that he had mentioned finding it to his coworkers and they told him to get it out of his house fast, that it could explode, even after all those years. He ended up taking it to Fort Lee where it was detonated.
Kind of gave me the heeby-jeebies to learn that it could've exploded on us while we had it.
Cool story- thanks.
I heard a tale about an old lady who had found three big Parrott (rifled cannon) shells, and, thinking them to be solid cast iron, she used them as a stand for a big iron kettle. She would light a fire under the kettle to do laundry, which dates this tale somewhat. Well, you guessed it- after several fires lit around 'em, those old shells finally heated up just right one day, and blew the kettle sky-high! Fortunately the old lady wasn't standing there stirring it at the time. But her laundry was scattered all over the neighborhood, and pretty badly tattered!
Munitions from WW1 and WW2 still kill people in Europe.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
I had a feeling that you probably couldn't go to those old battlefields anymore and look.
Not unless you're fond of having your metal detector and vehicle seized, and yourself incarcerated in a Federal prison.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.