Large Cent, Silver and Crazy Shoe Buckle Discovery

[VTColonialDigger]

Hi everyone, I was really busy yesterday and wasn't able to post these then, but I still want to share the incredible day I had yesterday!

I was digging a mid-1800's house- 1840's with 1860's addition, however there was earlier history at the site. A minister in my town built his cabin somewhere on the property in 1790 and lived there until 1817. I only searched for an hour and a half and only a small portion of the yard, so there's no telling what else could be there!

I started out searching the edge of the yard along the house. The first find was this unknown item, possibly some sort of token. It gave a mid 40's on my Ace 400 and appears to be silver plated brass. (I don't believe it's an electrical knock-out plug). there was a nice piece of redware pottery in the hole with it which was a nice surprise.


The next find I was quite pleased with, a beautiful sterling ring with mother of pearl inlay!


After finding the ring I noticed two massive old maple trees near the road and next to the start of a stone wall. Thinking there might be something around them, I started detecting my way in their direction. I got a great signal an dug this nice ox knob!


Once I started detecting around the trees, things started to get crazy. I dug a piece of junk, but then got a 80's-90's signal that trailed off to a 30's - 40's signal. I started by digging the really good signal and soon was holding this awesome 1846 Large Cent in my hand!


Once I put the Large Cent in my tackle box, I dug the mid-tone which proved to be a .44 caliber Civil War era Henry rifle bullet!

By now I was quite excited and I kept swinging in the same area. I soon got a great 80's signal which turned out to be a nice sized chunk of a shoe buckle frame! (This shoe buckle frame proved to be way cooler than I ever imagined!)


By this time it was starting to get dark out, so I did a quick sweep though the middle of the lawn and dug a nice 1873 indian head penny!

After showing the property owners my finds, I headed home to clean up what I had found. As I started wiping off the shoe buckle frame I realized it was the same design as another fragment of shoe buckle frame I had found previously.
The piece I had dug before was discovered when I first started the hobby, and didn't realize what it was. I only realized what it was a few years after I had originally dug it, and thus don't remember exactly where I found it. (I am 98% sure I found it on my property)

When I brought the piece I had dug years ago back to compare, I was looking at the two fragments up close and realized that they had a similar break in them. Looking at the break even closer I realized that the break was not in fact just similar but the EXACT SAME! THE PIECES MATCHED!! I couldn't believe my eyes as I held the two pieces together and they went together perfectly to form a larger fragment of the same buckle frame!




After this realization I was in a bit of shock. The house I found this at is about half a mile away from my property as the crow flies. I still have no idea in the WORLD how this could happen, but I do know the mathematical probability of the same guy's shoe buckle breaking and then me finding the pieces that match are insane! One of the most thrilling, perplexing, and wonderful finds I have ever made metal detecting!



Here are all the finds from yesterday. I can honestly say I am still in disbelief about the shoe buckle. Just unreal.

VTColonialDigger

 

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[cudamark]

Back then it might have been one big property and belonged to the lost buckle owner.

 

[CRUSADER]

Now that is weird. I've put pieces together from the same ploughed field & they do travel, but your story makes little sense. Maybe earth movement

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Back then it might have been one big property and belonged to the lost buckle owner.

I have done some research about property boundaries and I believe that the property my house is on and the property I was searching yesterday bordered each other, meaning the buckle owner could be either the owner of my property, or of the property I dug yesterday. No way to tell for sure though.

 

[Terry Soloman]

WOW! Great Finds!!!

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Very nice !

 

[jewelerguy]

maybe the guy stepped on a colonial land mine

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Now that is weird. I've put pieces together from the same ploughed field & they do travel, but your story makes little sense. Maybe earth movement

Yeah, I have no clear idea how this might have happened, it obviously was from the same person's buckle but how they got separated so far is a mystery to me

 

[VTColonialDigger]

WOW! Great Finds!!!

Thank you, Terry !

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Very nice !

Thanks, E-Trac Ohio!

 

[VTColonialDigger]

maybe the guy stepped on a colonial land mine

Maybe that's how it happened

 

[Digger RJ]

Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Wildcat1750]

Great finds and story. Maybe topsoil was stripped for a construction or landscaping project on one site and deposited on the other?

 

[ArfieBoy]

You made some great finds! The buckle pieces are a puzzler! Hope you are going back to hunt that site again and again! Thanks for sharing.

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Great finds and story. Maybe topsoil was stripped for a construction or landscaping project on one site and deposited on the other?

Thank you Wildcat! It's certainly possible, however if I found where I think I found it (and like I said I am not 100% sure), I dug it in my woods where the soil has not been disturbed. But like I said, it's possible.

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!

Thank you Digger RJ!

 

[VTColonialDigger]

You made some great finds! The buckle pieces are a puzzler! Hope you are going back to hunt that site again and again! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks ArfieBoy! The buckle fragments definitely make me scratch my head.

 

[pepperj]

Well done on the LC-congrats.

That is really cool that the pieces matched up.

So many theories come to mind about the separation of the two pieces.
#1 Were you digging at the two sites on the same time frame when either part was found? (Piece got caught in the shovel dirt & transferred to other site-it can happen if sticky)
#2 Was the same farm implement used at the same 2 sites. Transfer of piece
#3 Buckle broke and was falling to pieces between the two sites.

#2 I say this because I dug a target that was a broken aluminum item. I was detecting on this huge field at the other end and recovered the other half, this pice had traveled nearly a 1/2 mile when I plotted the size of the field.

 

[VTColonialDigger]

Well done on the LC-congrats.

That is really cool that the pieces matched up.

So many theories come to mind about the separation of the two pieces.
#1 Were you digging at the two sites on the same time frame when either part was found? (Piece got caught in the shovel dirt & transferred to other site-it can happen if sticky)
#2 Was the same farm implement used at the same 2 sites. Transfer of piece
#3 Buckle broke and was falling to pieces between the two sites.

#2 I say this because I dug a target that was a broken aluminum item. I was detecting on this huge field at the other end and recovered the other half, this pice had traveled nearly a 1/2 mile when I plotted the size of the field.

Thanks pepperj! #2 would make the most sense in most situations, however the piece I found recently was found in the house's yard near a big tree, so they likely wouldn't have been plowing there (but you never know). Based on the distance between this site and my property, where I believe I found the second piece, (half a mile) I suspect #3 is the most likely, but we may never know. I'm just happy I was able to recover two pieces of the same frame!

 

[pepperj]

Ok-just to throw another ? into the mix. How old is the tree? Now take in the fact that farmers have been plowing the fields for ?? yrs. And if the tree was growing even back at any stage of horse drawn/pulled plows the unhitching might have taken place at the tree.

I had a huge old sugar maple stump 20+ ft high probably 3'ft through or more. Dead for ? of yrs. It fell over the past winter and I swung the detector over the root ball of the stump-I recovered a Rose Headed spike right in the centre.
So it was there when the tree started growing and the tree would of been easily 125yrs old (Nearing the upmost age of a sugar maple)
The site dates back to the 1830's so it was one of those how cool that is finds.

You buckle is one of those finds as it really makes one think of the odds of finding it. Now for #3 piece