50 pounds of what?

[rastinirv]

You know how you get those signals sometimes that jump between a quarter and half dollar at 2 inches? And then you start digging and can't find anything and then it dawns on you that there's actually something larger and deeper? And sometimes you just give up or assume it's a can or whatever?

Well, I decided I was just going to keep digging until I found whatever it was. After half an hour, I pulled this thing out of the ground (it was at least 12 inches down and all I had was my small Lesche digger, so it took a while). It was lying flat, so naturally I assumed it was the top of a long-buried box of treasure.

Alas, it was this heavy thing, mostly featureless but very heavy, likely 50 lbs or so.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

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[roadrunner]

Any markings?
looks like a cast iron top of a water,gas,petroleum, box cover.
Sprinkler system,ect. How about something to do with a ship?

 

[rastinirv]

No markings that I could see. My sense is it's pretty old. By the time I got to it I was also starting to see broken bits of old china and chunks of old brick. But yeah, it does look like some kind of cover.

 

[HutSiteDigger]

Do you know anything about the land you are hunting? was a it a civil war camp? old house site? old storage place, or ever logged? etc

 

[arnofarrell]

I will use the old stand by,piece of old machinary.

 

[rastinirv]

Do you know anything about the land you are hunting? was a it a civil war camp? old house site? old storage place, or ever logged? etc

Using historicaerials.com, I could see that the place I found it has been an unimproved, non-agricultural field in an somewhat urban area since at least 1949. Around then homes started to be built nearby. Otherwise it was a mostly wooded area. There was, however, some kind of military training activity in the area around WWI.

 

[roadrunner]

The picture of it standing on its side. It looks like there is a small hole, and a lip on there as if a rod would be put in the hole from the top,and a small bent end on the rod would hit the lip to pull it up.
The same way we pull up manhole covers in the street today.
The reason so heavy is to keep kids from lifting it up.
even with a tool.

Old brick and china? How about a septic tank cover?
Most all utility covers are round,square,rectangle, or D shaped for easy of manufacturing so they are cheap, and also easy to make a ring, or concrete holder for them.
But septic could be different so not to be confused with a normal utility cover.
Maybe the plug.

 

[HutSiteDigger]

It resembles some WWI military big iron ive dug up before. Sure looks around that old too.

 

[rastinirv]

Cool! Thanks for your thoughts

 

[old digger]

Maybe it is the base to one of those old cast iron street lights?

 

[DoranHashemi]

Iron lid of something. Just wanna those things

 

[Jimi]

Looks like a handhole cover. Probably a cover for a gate valve.