Relic "Tri-Perfecta" my three best ever! Will they ever be topped ?

CoinandRelicMan

Silver Member
Apr 3, 2011
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Detector(s) used
E-Trac, Safari, Cortes, Musketeer, Makro Pin-Pointer
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Over the years you make a few finds and at the time of the finding it is quite exciting getting to find them but sometimes it can literally take years to really appreciate finds for how rare they are to get ! This is why I have never sold any because you will soon be regretting the loss of that special find from your collection.

I will begin my tale about the items chronologically.

fav relic find sbp.JPGfav relic bac w quarter.JPG

This item was found at the depth of around ten inches as I recall. Was using a Tesoro Golden Sabre with a 10 inch concentric coil. It was in the late 1980s when I found it. It is hermetically sealed in Lexan. While I don't have a really solid ID on this item, it resembles a sword belt plate. Some folks have told me it was a cloth belt plate. Regardless of the real value or true identity of the item the cool factor of this item is off the scale for me and will be very tough to top!

Best fav relic  steam engine wrench.JPG

This very large wrench (three inched) was found underneath a Cedar Evergreen tree it was buried under at least seven inches of the leaves. The wrench was found with a Tesoro Bandito II in the late 1980s. The man who used this had to have been a big man this wrench has some considerable weight ! Finding a large wrench like this must be rare since it is the only one like this that I have found in Thirty plus years of detecting !

my fav button.JPGmy fav button back view.JPG

This has to be my best button find ever, although our area is somewhat poor history wise sometimes an older item will emerge from the soil! This item was found by the Minelab Safari in some black sugar sand. Don't recall how deep it was but thats probably not important given it came from a harrowed field. I have had a "East Coast" friend who tentatively dated it as 1820s to 1830s. He even wanted to buy it, a high compliment, but I was unwilling to sell. All I know about flat buttons from my experience is that most of the time they are just that and every one that has been unearthed for me has nothing on the front of it ! Sometimes they might have a hint of some gilding showing. My own thoughts are that this button might be a bit more earlier than that even but I am no expert, so this may be just a good fantasy ! The location of this find was near a river bottom flood plain. In the past rivers were the highways of the land before any were man made so in my mind this lends justification to its early age.

Hope you enjoyed my posting, one never knows what the soil holds in wait the only way to find out is to go forth and dig !! Will I ever top these finds? I don't know but it will sure be fun trying to do that !
 

Upvote 4
Great finds! I've got a wrench like that (where my daddy got it, I don't know) but I believe it was for joining railroad track sections before the days of ribbon rail. The pointed end was for aligning the holes in the rail ends with the holes in the plates used at each joint so that the bolt could be inserted.
 

Great finds! I've got a wrench like that (where my daddy got it, I don't know) but I believe it was for joining railroad track sections before the days of ribbon rail. The pointed end was for aligning the holes in the rail ends with the holes in the plates used at each joint so that the bolt could be inserted.

I like the aligning idea, don't know much on ribbon rail will have to look that up with a search. If that is so then the wrench has a good amount of age to it. I am pretty sure it is cast iron and has a decent amount of age but how much would be the question.
 

Google images "ribbon rail" and it'll show you better than I can tell you. The sections must be at least a quarter mile long. Seems like they started changing over to it around here back in the 1970s.
 

LOVE the button :icon_thumright:
 

Great finds! I am very interested in finding out about that wrench as well as I found a huge one a few months ago.
 

:notworthy: Enjoyed seeing these treasures! :notworthy: My fave is the fabulous beautifully-designed buckle with sailing ship - Wow! :notworthy: Andi
 

Nice finds. Thanks for the post. GL&HH.
 

Great finds! I am very interested in finding out about that wrench as well as I found a huge one a few months ago.

Hi there CG =) Yeah I've done a few searches but nothing exactly like mine. I did find one thats almost exactly like mine in an antique shop once but it was repaired, someone had arc welded a crack in the handle. The shop wanted about Three Hundred dollars for it and that was twenty years ago. Lately I also found a web site where a museum had loaned one that looked almost like mine to an organization caring for a steam engine. And I have been told in the past by some older folks that it was a "Engine" wrench. What big engines they meant could include steam maybe.
 

:notworthy: Enjoyed seeing these treasures! :notworthy: My fave is the fabulous beautifully-designed buckle with sailing ship - Wow! :notworthy: Andi

Hi Andi thanks ! Yeah I showed that buckle to one of my new detecting buddies and he got real excited about it, he was going on about how buckles haven't been made in that shape for a very long time and he even thought it had hand tooling work done on it. I love the "Fleur-de-lis" on the four corners it seems to reflect a very big French influence on the styling there to me, wish this item could talk, can you imagine the stories ?
 

Belt buckle is nice, but there is no hand work involved in it's manufacture, it is die-stamped on a machine. It is a sash or cloth belt buckle by it's flimsy stamped out construction. It is always a pleasure to find buckles with designs or scenes on them.
 

Belt buckle is nice, but there is no hand work involved in it's manufacture, it is die-stamped on a machine. It is a sash or cloth belt buckle by it's flimsy stamped out construction. It is always a pleasure to find buckles with designs or scenes on them.

Thought it was machine stamped out myself, when found it was all black as if from fire and had to be cleaned extensively. I am guessing it is from some 1930s swim-wear but there is no water nearby where it was found. Maybe used for some dressy clothing ?
 

Great finds.

Really nice old button too.
I remember that ship buckle because when I first saw it, it reminded me that I had found one that's similar.

cleaning experiment&Buckle 002.JPG

After seeing yours and another here with a surfer on it, I moved mine from the junk pile to the good pile. Mine's a bit flimsy and not nearly as nice as yours but I like it.
 

Great finds.

Really nice old button too.
I remember that ship buckle because when I first saw it, it reminded me that I had found one that's similar.

View attachment 1076111

After seeing yours and another here with a surfer on it, I moved mine from the junk pile to the good pile. Mine's a bit flimsy and not nearly as nice as yours but I like it.

Thanks Garrett, like that one guy said "Any buckle with a scene is a welcome find!" Thirty years off and on hunting thats still my only buckle that looks like anything here , glad that I was in the digging mood that time !

Like your buckle also just really don't see much stuff posted here with sailing ships featured!
 

Thanks Garrett, like that one guy said "Any buckle with a scene is a welcome find!" Thirty years off and on hunting thats still my only buckle that looks like anything here , glad that I was in the digging mood that time !

Like your buckle also just really don't see much stuff posted here with sailing ships featured!

Mine is actually a swim suit buckle; probably from the 40's or 50's based on where I dug it up.
 

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