KYshooter
Sr. Member
Okay ... I have a bit of a mystery on my hands.
I've been detecting at an old site of mine these past couple of days. Last year I "cherry picked" the site for all silvers and higher end targets. Dug a lot of trash, too.
This year I returned to the site determined to dig the deep, more unusual signals ... more mid-range targets. I'm hoping to find some old jewelry.
Well, on Saturday I dug a shield nickel and 2 silver war nickels, plus some other change, junk pieces, and a curious brass star (about 1 inch in size).
This afternoon I returned to the site with a smaller "sniper" coil to try and get between some of the pieces of trash. I turned my sensitivity way up and listened for deeper targets.
About ten feet from where I found the star and a large piece of melted lead, I got a sketchy but repeatable signal that read as 7 inches deep. So I dug.
When I pulled this out of the ground, a full eight inches deep, I had a slight out-of-body experience. I recognize a Union eagle when I see one.
Here is the first photo:
First of all, it is NOT a button. It measures a full 30mm in diameter. One of my friends thought that it might have been an officer's button flattened out. But I do not think so. I compared it to another union coat button, and the eagle, itself, is way larger.
Here is a picture of the back:
And here is the item in context.
I found all of the other items in the same general vicinity. I found the grape shot last year, the CSA button back earlier this year, and the star and lead on Saturday.
This find puts the brass star into an entirely new perspective. In Stanley S. Phillips' text, Excavated Artifacts from Battlefields and Campsites of the Civil War 1861-1865, he has an entire page dedicated to ornamental stars, many of them hand-made from brass. (Plate 86 - Page 100).
Western Kentucky Digger thinks this may be the central plate to a belt sash. He has a picture in one book that he thinks is a match, but any other corroboration would be great.
Would really like a picture or a referral to a match. Thanks in advance for helping me make a positive ID!
I've been detecting at an old site of mine these past couple of days. Last year I "cherry picked" the site for all silvers and higher end targets. Dug a lot of trash, too.
This year I returned to the site determined to dig the deep, more unusual signals ... more mid-range targets. I'm hoping to find some old jewelry.
Well, on Saturday I dug a shield nickel and 2 silver war nickels, plus some other change, junk pieces, and a curious brass star (about 1 inch in size).
This afternoon I returned to the site with a smaller "sniper" coil to try and get between some of the pieces of trash. I turned my sensitivity way up and listened for deeper targets.
About ten feet from where I found the star and a large piece of melted lead, I got a sketchy but repeatable signal that read as 7 inches deep. So I dug.
When I pulled this out of the ground, a full eight inches deep, I had a slight out-of-body experience. I recognize a Union eagle when I see one.
Here is the first photo:
First of all, it is NOT a button. It measures a full 30mm in diameter. One of my friends thought that it might have been an officer's button flattened out. But I do not think so. I compared it to another union coat button, and the eagle, itself, is way larger.
Here is a picture of the back:
And here is the item in context.
I found all of the other items in the same general vicinity. I found the grape shot last year, the CSA button back earlier this year, and the star and lead on Saturday.
This find puts the brass star into an entirely new perspective. In Stanley S. Phillips' text, Excavated Artifacts from Battlefields and Campsites of the Civil War 1861-1865, he has an entire page dedicated to ornamental stars, many of them hand-made from brass. (Plate 86 - Page 100).
Western Kentucky Digger thinks this may be the central plate to a belt sash. He has a picture in one book that he thinks is a match, but any other corroboration would be great.
Would really like a picture or a referral to a match. Thanks in advance for helping me make a positive ID!
Can you get me a reference?
