Old nail experts...need help on this one...pics

[jglunt]

I was out checking an old abandoned homestead that I recently ran across and was rummaging around the old barn in back. The roof had caved in but the walls were still standing. They were hand hewn 8 x 8 timbers with beautifully fitted dovetailed corners and some remnants of old chinking. The only nails in the walls were these spikes that were toe-nailed into the ends of the dovetails to hold them together. I believe they were added after constuction, but I may be wrong. They are about 3.5 inches long with a square (slightly rectangular) head and a square tapered shaft with a blunt end. The head has a rectangular raised area in the center that you can see in the photo which I enhanced as best I could to make it more visible. The two long sides of the head look like they have a sprue or small nipple on both sides. I'm curious if anyone has seen this type and can tell me how they were manufactured and their approx. age.

jg

 

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[silverswede]

I wonder if railroad tie spikes came in a smaller size. kinda looks like one anyway.

 

[James57]

There is a good post in the relics area about dating sites using old nails:

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,20511.0.html

I found a lot of old square nails last weekend at an old site that dates to the mid-1800s. I used the info in the above topic when I was checking out the nails later. Older square nails were made by hand and newer ones were stamped out by a machine. I posted photos of one of the nails I found below. They are of the same nail turned 90 degrees. Notice that the sides of the nail tapers in one of the photos and they are parallel in the other photo? This indicates a stamped nail so it would have been made after the early 1800s (after 1820?). They are still made today too, I was looking up square nails on google and I found a lot of carpentry sites etc.

 

[root]

Speaking of nails, the nails of the 18th century were so precious that tobacco slaves would burn their shacks down just to retrieve the nails to be used again on the next shack. Tobacco depletes the soil nutrients rather quickly so they had to rotate the crops thus the move.

HH,

root