"I am surprised to hear that you find the numbers you do in the "early",sites,as we do dig them with frequency!"
Kuger, there definately seems to be a difference in the relics you find in CA's gold rush sites, verses relics I'm accustomed to over here along the coast. For example: we RARELY find those heavy tongue buckle things. (I've found only a few), yet you find them in gold rush sites, right? And same for large cents: very rare in CA, yet when they DO get found, they seem to come a bit more frequently in gold rush locations.
So this could explain why you find those ring-candle holders in sites as late as 1870: a simple difference in relics from one part of the state, verses the other? I dunno. For whatever reason, I've never (so far as I remember) found those candle things in stage stop/oldtown demolitions, etc... (ie: late 1860s onwards). For me, thus far, they've only turned up in mission era sites, or extremely early post-statehood sites. Could just be random chance dumb-luck so far. Naturally there's nothing to have stopped someone from having a 20 or 30 yr. old candle-holder still in use.
You know what the eliptical thing is on the left side of the ring, right? It's the part that was stuck into a slot on the wall. I've found a few of them where the cradle for the candle to sit on, was still intact. But mostly the dish part for where the candle sat, is always broken off.
Who knows? All I know is, is that we're going back soon
go gold.!!!!!!!!
