NJKLAGT
Bronze Member
- Oct 18, 2014
- 1,118
- 1,913
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett Euro Ace 350
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Hey Everyone,
A couple weeks ago I thought the digging year was over, but it seems the treasure gods had one last blessing in store for me before the end of 2018. We had some sporadic weather with a few warm days, and though I was resolved to hang up the shovel until spring, my thumbs started twiddling and before you know it, I was out the door!
I decided to do a more thorough investigation of one of my earliest permissions, a place where I've found an 1845 seated half dime, a blacksmith token from around 1830, and my first holed coin, an 1859 Canadian penny, among many other amazing finds. After the success I had at the "Merchant" site, where I learned to focus more on the culture and not neglect certain signals, I decided to employ a similar "dig it all" approach to this site - and hey, it's the end of the year, so I'd take a rusty nail over nothing at all!
I got to swinging and got some very neat finds. I can't believe how many axe heads I've found recently! Here I found two more. I also found an iron leg of some sort, a change purse's brass clasps that still function perfectly, and a very pretty little stamped tin four leaf clover thing, not sure what it came off of. Near the end of day one, I was pleased with my detecting finds and comfortable with the idea of a long winter ahead. But I had about half an hour of daylight left, and so I decided to move some of the rocks out of the filled-in cellar hole that I had looked over in the past. Lots of rocks, lots of metal, lots of wire - cellar holes are always daunting, to say the least. But I was curious, I just wanted to hit the bottom. On the way down I found some great shards, and so I decided to return the next day.
I didn't even bring my metal detector on day two. After seeing some of those shards, I had other things on my mind. I started along the one wall and my first whole find was a beautiful light amethyst Perfect Seal pint. Wow, there's stuff that survived underneath all these rocks! At this point I'm already satisfied, but the curiosity is still there. Very soon I found an old heartbreaker, the fourth or fifth Warner's Safe Cure that has gotten away from me. After finding a big quart Vernor's ginger ale, I get near the far wall and uncover an absolute ZOMBIE. Just look at the stringy applied bead finish on this thing! This one's got a crude pushed up smooth base and I'm sure it must date into the 1860s. So now I'm shaking with excitement. Do I pack up and go home? No way. I take a deep breath and collect myself (you break stuff when you get too excited), and continue along that far wall. From here on everything just steamrolled ahead, not a dull moment. BAM, I get my first ever whole bottle embossed with the word "bitters", a Burdock Blood Bitters from Toronto. Applied finish, 1870s. I also got two Eclectric Oils, one strawed out beyond compare, striped like a tiger. Then I decide to turn around into the corner that I made my approach from, and I run into yet another Perfect Seal variant, a slight amethyst round quart. Then when I get right into that dark corner, I see the heel of a nice blue one tucked in along the wall. It's another oldie! An Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil from Toronto, 1870s but possibly breaking into the 1860s, sloppiest top I've dug in a while. Things are heating up! Next I'd get a couple slicks, one of which was a nice old blue early perfume or something, one of my favourite finds from this dig, the second zombie, 'looks like it was carried around for ages. The next thing I dug was a Coca Cola piece, did not expect that at all. I don't collect this sort of thing, but how could I not be dancing? Anyway, the sun was going down, I had a long way home, but I held out for just one more. It was a beautiful Crown pint, a colour very similar to one that I accidentally smashed this summer. I felt that I had been forgiven already, but now I knew for sure...
I went into day three without any expectations. I had already had my fill, this was already one of my most memorable digs. But I got right back to work along the one wall, scooping things out from deep under the mass of rocks piling down into the cellar. I started with an olive green three-piece mould whiskey and a slick med. Then I decided to try and lift the bunch of tangled wire in the middle, and I removed my shovel head and used the shaft to prop it all up so that I could get underneath. Oh man, I see another square-based jar! 'Must be another Perfect Seal. But it's not just any Perfect Seal, it's the earliest variant, the one with the vines! YES. This was a bucketlister for me, this is one of my favourite jars ever, it's absolutely beautiful with those lovely vines running down the sides. So this was my third unique Perfect Seal variant within the last two weeks! I will make sure to do a thread about the Perfect Seals and Crowns I've dug this year. Bass had called me "Jar King" earlier this fall, and he must have been on to something, because for whatever reason the nice jars just keep coming up for me. Anyway, to me this jar was the "perfect seal" to the year, I love this jar. So yeah, I was bouncing back and forth between the rock wall cave and the wire, and under the rocks I saw the head of another early one, and wiggled out a second Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil. Early and awesome. Then I went back under the wire, and got some interesting variety. A nice monogrammed perfume, a biiig unfired bullet (hmmm), and my third decoy egg (these eggs are placed in a chosen area to coax chickens to lay there). Closer to the top of the rock cave I pulled a broken Orange Crush, and then a whole one. I also found a clay pipe bowl embossed with flags, "1914", and a ship, a "British Cruiser".
On day four, the last day, truly the last dig of the year, I pulled three embossed milks, all from the upper layers of the rock cave/pile. By now everything was getting tighter, more rocky, and harder to dig. This is where the journey ends.
I've included another MS Paint drawing of my dig for a visual! I didn't include all of the wire, broken glass, and all of that, because it looked too distracting. There are many other finds here that I have not included in the story and did not take pictures of, either because they weren't as significant, or because I was getting downright tired of pulling my camera out every five seconds, haha. Like I said, things just steamrolled along, and with limited daylight, I didn't have time to take pictures of every single thing. And I will note that all of the other metal finds from after day one were found within the cellar hole. Anyone know what the brass rings are? I think they might be for guiding an eavestrough/gutter.
Thank you for coming along! I'm glad that I could have one more good dig before the year was over, and it was a banger for sure. All I can say is that when you see a cellar hole filled to the brim with rocks and wire and hell, if you don't gather the courage to tackle it, you might just be missing out big time!
Good luck and happy hunting everyone, and Happy New Year!
NJ
A couple weeks ago I thought the digging year was over, but it seems the treasure gods had one last blessing in store for me before the end of 2018. We had some sporadic weather with a few warm days, and though I was resolved to hang up the shovel until spring, my thumbs started twiddling and before you know it, I was out the door!
I decided to do a more thorough investigation of one of my earliest permissions, a place where I've found an 1845 seated half dime, a blacksmith token from around 1830, and my first holed coin, an 1859 Canadian penny, among many other amazing finds. After the success I had at the "Merchant" site, where I learned to focus more on the culture and not neglect certain signals, I decided to employ a similar "dig it all" approach to this site - and hey, it's the end of the year, so I'd take a rusty nail over nothing at all!
I got to swinging and got some very neat finds. I can't believe how many axe heads I've found recently! Here I found two more. I also found an iron leg of some sort, a change purse's brass clasps that still function perfectly, and a very pretty little stamped tin four leaf clover thing, not sure what it came off of. Near the end of day one, I was pleased with my detecting finds and comfortable with the idea of a long winter ahead. But I had about half an hour of daylight left, and so I decided to move some of the rocks out of the filled-in cellar hole that I had looked over in the past. Lots of rocks, lots of metal, lots of wire - cellar holes are always daunting, to say the least. But I was curious, I just wanted to hit the bottom. On the way down I found some great shards, and so I decided to return the next day.
I didn't even bring my metal detector on day two. After seeing some of those shards, I had other things on my mind. I started along the one wall and my first whole find was a beautiful light amethyst Perfect Seal pint. Wow, there's stuff that survived underneath all these rocks! At this point I'm already satisfied, but the curiosity is still there. Very soon I found an old heartbreaker, the fourth or fifth Warner's Safe Cure that has gotten away from me. After finding a big quart Vernor's ginger ale, I get near the far wall and uncover an absolute ZOMBIE. Just look at the stringy applied bead finish on this thing! This one's got a crude pushed up smooth base and I'm sure it must date into the 1860s. So now I'm shaking with excitement. Do I pack up and go home? No way. I take a deep breath and collect myself (you break stuff when you get too excited), and continue along that far wall. From here on everything just steamrolled ahead, not a dull moment. BAM, I get my first ever whole bottle embossed with the word "bitters", a Burdock Blood Bitters from Toronto. Applied finish, 1870s. I also got two Eclectric Oils, one strawed out beyond compare, striped like a tiger. Then I decide to turn around into the corner that I made my approach from, and I run into yet another Perfect Seal variant, a slight amethyst round quart. Then when I get right into that dark corner, I see the heel of a nice blue one tucked in along the wall. It's another oldie! An Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil from Toronto, 1870s but possibly breaking into the 1860s, sloppiest top I've dug in a while. Things are heating up! Next I'd get a couple slicks, one of which was a nice old blue early perfume or something, one of my favourite finds from this dig, the second zombie, 'looks like it was carried around for ages. The next thing I dug was a Coca Cola piece, did not expect that at all. I don't collect this sort of thing, but how could I not be dancing? Anyway, the sun was going down, I had a long way home, but I held out for just one more. It was a beautiful Crown pint, a colour very similar to one that I accidentally smashed this summer. I felt that I had been forgiven already, but now I knew for sure...
I went into day three without any expectations. I had already had my fill, this was already one of my most memorable digs. But I got right back to work along the one wall, scooping things out from deep under the mass of rocks piling down into the cellar. I started with an olive green three-piece mould whiskey and a slick med. Then I decided to try and lift the bunch of tangled wire in the middle, and I removed my shovel head and used the shaft to prop it all up so that I could get underneath. Oh man, I see another square-based jar! 'Must be another Perfect Seal. But it's not just any Perfect Seal, it's the earliest variant, the one with the vines! YES. This was a bucketlister for me, this is one of my favourite jars ever, it's absolutely beautiful with those lovely vines running down the sides. So this was my third unique Perfect Seal variant within the last two weeks! I will make sure to do a thread about the Perfect Seals and Crowns I've dug this year. Bass had called me "Jar King" earlier this fall, and he must have been on to something, because for whatever reason the nice jars just keep coming up for me. Anyway, to me this jar was the "perfect seal" to the year, I love this jar. So yeah, I was bouncing back and forth between the rock wall cave and the wire, and under the rocks I saw the head of another early one, and wiggled out a second Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil. Early and awesome. Then I went back under the wire, and got some interesting variety. A nice monogrammed perfume, a biiig unfired bullet (hmmm), and my third decoy egg (these eggs are placed in a chosen area to coax chickens to lay there). Closer to the top of the rock cave I pulled a broken Orange Crush, and then a whole one. I also found a clay pipe bowl embossed with flags, "1914", and a ship, a "British Cruiser".
On day four, the last day, truly the last dig of the year, I pulled three embossed milks, all from the upper layers of the rock cave/pile. By now everything was getting tighter, more rocky, and harder to dig. This is where the journey ends.
I've included another MS Paint drawing of my dig for a visual! I didn't include all of the wire, broken glass, and all of that, because it looked too distracting. There are many other finds here that I have not included in the story and did not take pictures of, either because they weren't as significant, or because I was getting downright tired of pulling my camera out every five seconds, haha. Like I said, things just steamrolled along, and with limited daylight, I didn't have time to take pictures of every single thing. And I will note that all of the other metal finds from after day one were found within the cellar hole. Anyone know what the brass rings are? I think they might be for guiding an eavestrough/gutter.
Thank you for coming along! I'm glad that I could have one more good dig before the year was over, and it was a banger for sure. All I can say is that when you see a cellar hole filled to the brim with rocks and wire and hell, if you don't gather the courage to tackle it, you might just be missing out big time!
Good luck and happy hunting everyone, and Happy New Year!
NJ
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