digger27
Bronze Member
- May 18, 2011
- 1,506
- 3,225
Been hunting an entrance area to an old park down the block from my home.
Very difficult, mineralized red clay soil, tons of iron infused into all the soil plus a crazy amount of iron pieces from small to huge everywhere.
Also power lines running directly overhead.
Most gave up on this place long ago and all the easy targets are gone but I figured out new settings and learned the behavior of deeper targets that were totally masked and hidden and have done well.
Over the last few months I have unearthed some great things...old wheats and Indians, silver dimes, old Washington nickels back to the 40's and a few buffs before that including my oldest a 1917 with a clear date and some other cool non ferrous items.
Now I am down to the more iffy signals but playing around with some new settings on my F70 attempting to pull out just a few more good things.
I like a challenge and this site is just that.
In the last week or so I found two things that shocked me because the history of this park and the neighborhood around it only goes back to the mid 20's.
I knew people have been visiting this area before that and before it was a park because I also found an 1880 something V nickel and an 1875 seated dime in this site too, but now I think there has been activity way before that back into the days when this area was pretty much wilderness.
Birmingham Alabama is where I live and most if the main history of the city begins around the 1880's but these two predate that.
2 flat buttons, one that says BEST on the back and some more knowledgeable than me have stated 1820-1840's manufacturing date.
I thought this was a fluke, just some hunter or trapper passing through the area but then 2 days ago I found another one.
Still has the shank, says LONDON. DOUBLE GILT on the back so the same timeframe if not way earlier.
Not a speck of gold left on this thing but who cares...not me!
We became a country in the late 1700's but still had no infrastructure or much manufacturing going on till later so we still imported lots of items from England.
Could this be my first 1700's find...I will never know but these buttons are definitely the oldest identifiable targets I have ever dug.
The wife seems more impressed with these two buttons than anything else I have ever shown her including gold and diamond jewelry...which she immediately confiscated.
THAT right there is a bonus as far as I am concerned.
Funny how such simple things as a couple of old flat buttons can make me so happy.
Very difficult, mineralized red clay soil, tons of iron infused into all the soil plus a crazy amount of iron pieces from small to huge everywhere.
Also power lines running directly overhead.
Most gave up on this place long ago and all the easy targets are gone but I figured out new settings and learned the behavior of deeper targets that were totally masked and hidden and have done well.
Over the last few months I have unearthed some great things...old wheats and Indians, silver dimes, old Washington nickels back to the 40's and a few buffs before that including my oldest a 1917 with a clear date and some other cool non ferrous items.
Now I am down to the more iffy signals but playing around with some new settings on my F70 attempting to pull out just a few more good things.
I like a challenge and this site is just that.
In the last week or so I found two things that shocked me because the history of this park and the neighborhood around it only goes back to the mid 20's.
I knew people have been visiting this area before that and before it was a park because I also found an 1880 something V nickel and an 1875 seated dime in this site too, but now I think there has been activity way before that back into the days when this area was pretty much wilderness.
Birmingham Alabama is where I live and most if the main history of the city begins around the 1880's but these two predate that.
2 flat buttons, one that says BEST on the back and some more knowledgeable than me have stated 1820-1840's manufacturing date.
I thought this was a fluke, just some hunter or trapper passing through the area but then 2 days ago I found another one.
Still has the shank, says LONDON. DOUBLE GILT on the back so the same timeframe if not way earlier.
Not a speck of gold left on this thing but who cares...not me!
We became a country in the late 1700's but still had no infrastructure or much manufacturing going on till later so we still imported lots of items from England.
Could this be my first 1700's find...I will never know but these buttons are definitely the oldest identifiable targets I have ever dug.
The wife seems more impressed with these two buttons than anything else I have ever shown her including gold and diamond jewelry...which she immediately confiscated.
THAT right there is a bonus as far as I am concerned.
Funny how such simple things as a couple of old flat buttons can make me so happy.
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