Found in CA: are these "tinklers" or "jinglers" ?

Tom_in_CA

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Mar 23, 2007
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Found in CA: are these "tinklers" or "jinglers" ?

I have always assumed that "tinklers" and/or "jinglers" were more of a mid west and plains indian sort of practice? I have hunted a lot of mission period, assimilation period indian rancheria sites here in CA. I've never consciously found anything that resembled the tinklers that a Colorado friend of mine has found at post-contact indian sites in his state.

We find a lot of worked green copper doohickeys, in all different blacksmithed shapes, sizes, functions, etc... but none that I could ever say for certain was like the tinklers found in the plains and midwest indian sites. But then a few weeks ago, at one particular indian rancheria site, a friend found these items, that looked like they could be tinklers/jinglers. This particular site was in contact with European settlers starting in the 1770s, and up through the mid 1800's. We've found reales there dating from the 1750s on-up, flat and plain buttons, phoenix buttons, etc...

For those of you well-versed in this stuff, let us know whether you think these are tinklers / jinglers, and what states these are normally found in.

(you might have to click and drag the right side of the border to the right, to enlargen the box, to the see right-most end of these pictures)
 

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Re: Found in CA: are these "tinklers" or "jinglers" ?

Tom, The long one could be an arrow point (or some other use). Can you see any remains of wood inside it? I have found very similar ones that had remnants of wood preserved inside them. (From a shaft)
The others look like they could very well be "tinklers", altho the ones we have here in Iowa are not usually that crudely made.
It's hard to say definatively, but yours sure look like they could be "tinklers"!
Dale
 

Re: Found in CA: are these "tinklers" or "jinglers" ?

Dale, no ....... the long one doesn't come to a point, nor did it have wood inside. The reason you can't see this (I think), is that the pix came out big enough, that you have to click and drag the right-hand side of the T'net box out to enlargen the border on the right. There is no scroll bar - at least on my screen, that brings in the right hand side of the pix. Had to enlargen the T'net box to see the right side of my hand :)

thanx for your input. Yes you're right: the tinklers I've seen from midwest and plains were generally more uniform looking. But I've seen a few indian trade guide book pix, that do have some that look a little cruder, like these.
 

Re: Found in CA: are these "tinklers" or "jinglers" ?

thanx guys. What states are these normally found in? As much as I'm considered the ace here, in terms of the earliest European contact site (mission era) in CA, I have yet to say positively, prior to these, having seen any coming from Indian contact site. One of the problems is, we find so much of what we call "green copper" (black-smithed castoffs) that come in so many incoherent shapes and sized, that perhaps I just didn't register it till now. Once my friend found these 5 or so in the same general patch, the thought "tinklers" came to mind. I had always thought it was a midwest and plains indian practice thing.

Next question: is there any value to these, on the collectible market?

Here are some more pix of the green copper slag that is found at this site, along with some reales found from here:
 

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