Two Homesteads – 2-Cent Piece, Brass Wedding Band & other Relics

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Yesterday I met up with my buddy pepperj east of Kingston, ON for a 7hr hunt. He’d recently received permission from a local farmer for us to detect two homestead sites on their farm. My buddy has been detecting since 1974, so whenever we get together for a hunt, I end up getting schooled on my detecting technique. I have learned so much from him about how to read the topography, soil conditions and detecting techniques. Almost immediately he started texting me pics of an 1850s token he just found, then a silver ’74 Vickie Dime, another Upper Canada Token, then a 1905 Silver ‘Little Nickel’. This all came before I’d even made my first decent find!

My first good find was a pocket watch, followed by several flat buttons. I found an early Victorian sash buckle, a lady’s brass wedding band stamped 18K inside the band. When I found the 1864 US 2-Cent Piece I noticed that it was in rough shape, after I washed it off I knew it was. At first, I thought the hefty round brass relic with the ‘flower shape’ inset into it was a horse rosette, but there’s iron in the back of it? My next interesting find was the brass ‘Canada Carriage Co.’ nameplate (c1892 – 1909).

The last pic is of Kingston, ON located about 20 miles from Watertown, NY.

Canada Carriage Company 1879 – 1930
"This company was originally started in 1879 in Gananoque, Ont., by C.W. Taylor and his brother George Taylor, M.P., where it was known as the Gananoque Carriage Co. In 1891, being constrained by capacity and space problems, it was decided to move the business to Brockville, where a substantial bonus was offered by the town. A large 4-storey brick plant was built in 1892 on Park St., on the north side of the mainline of the Grand Trunk Railway. Just to the west was the line the north-south of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. At first in Brockville, they used the name Brockville Carriage Co., but soon incorporation of the new Canada Carriage Co. was granted on March 28, 1892.

By 1895 this plant was possibly the largest of its kind in the Dominion of Canada. The company manufactured carriages, surreys, traps, phaetons, wagons and sleighs. These were shipped throughout Canada and the United States, as well as foreign countries. About 300 to 400 men worked in the factory, and the payroll amounted to $3,500 each week. On Jan 4th, in the winter of 1905, in the late afternoon, the plant again caught fire, and within three hours the entire structure was in ruins. At the time, they had 4,000 orders on file and no place to build the merchandise.

In the fall of 1909, James B. Tudhope, owner of the 'Tudhope Carriage Co.' of Orillia, purchased the Canada Carriage Co., along with two others, E.N. Henry Co. Ltd., Montreal, and Munro & McIntosh Carriage Co. Ltd., Alexandria, and organized all his businesses into the 'Carriage Factories Ltd.' This new company became a selling and distributing agent for the vehicles of each factory, but they retained their individual names and identity."

Thanks very much for looking,
Dave

 

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[ANTIQUARIAN]

Nice variety of finds Dave an nice pic.I guess we all dream about good shape for our finds. Lucky once in a while some good show up .

Merci Denis.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or in this case the guy who found it.
Dave

 

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[terryna]

Very nice,congrats

 

[Trezurehunter]

Very nice mix of relics and coins.

 

[washingtonian]

Badass! This is cool. Way to go. I especially like the 2 center and the glass bottle stopper. Congrats on a great day in the field!

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Very nice,congrats

Thanks very much Terry.

Very nice mix of relics and coins.

Thank you TH... all my partner dug was coins, now how boring is that.
Dave

Badass! This is cool. Way to go. I especially like the 2 center and the glass bottle stopper. Congrats on a great day in the field!

Thank you for the post and for your kind words washingtonian.
I'm one of those guys who loves making eyeball finds almost as much as detector finds.

Best of luck to you Sir,
Dave

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Very nice work, congrats!

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Very nice work, congrats!

Thanks very much Professor.

 

[Wildcat1750]

Excellent finds, Dave, and I always enjoy your informative background histories of the items that you find!
Congrats on the 2 Cent piece! Maybe I need to come to Canada and hunt to find my first ...still diligently searching!
Nick

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Excellent finds, Dave, and I always enjoy your informative background histories of the items that you find!
Congrats on the 2 Cent piece! Maybe I need to come to Canada and hunt to find my first ...still diligently searching!
Nick

Thanks for your post and your interest Nick.
I'm certain young people today aren't aware of how varied our currencies used to be here in Canada.
Depending on how close these early homestead sites are in relation to the US/Canada border, will often dictate whether we find early US or Canadian coinage.

Personally, I love finding 'foreign' currency, mainly because it gives me the opportunity to research it's impact on our countries history. It also 'sounds different' then what I'm used to hearing.
I like to imagine what the journey must have been like for it to have been lost here in Canada.

Best of luck to you in finding yourself a 2-center... although I'd much rather find an early Connecticut Copper!
Dave

 

[Wildcat1750]

... although I'd much rather find an early Connecticut Copper!
Dave

You and me both, Dave!

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

You and me both, Dave!

Sounds like you and I share a similar passion for saving history Nick, it would be fun if we ever got together for a hunt.

With the snow falling yesterday, I had a chance to do some restoration on the Victorian sash buckle I found.
I've found a lot of these buckles over the years, but this is the first one I've ever found with a patent mark on the back.
Unfortunately, it's virtually unreadable.

Here are the before and after pics.
Dave

 

[Wildcat1750]

Sounds like you and I share a similar passion for saving history Nick, it would be fun if we ever got together for a hunt.

With the snow falling yesterday, I had a chance to do some restoration on the Victorian sash buckle I found.
I've found a lot of these buckles over the years, but this is the first one I've ever found with a patent mark on the back.
Unfortunately, it's virtually unreadable.

Here are the before and after pics.
Dave

This is so true, Dave. I think of my metal detector fondly as a time machine that connects me to those missing pieces of history, just waiting to be found and researched. Nice job cleaning up the Victorian sash buckle. I've found a couple as well, mostly in my yard. The family that lived here in the mid 1800's had 5 daughters! ...as well as 2 sons.
Nick

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

This is so true, Dave. I think of my metal detector fondly as a time machine that connects me to those missing pieces of history, just waiting to be found and researched. Nice job cleaning up the Victorian sash buckle. I've found a couple as well, mostly in my yard. The family that lived here in the mid 1800's had 5 daughters! ...as well as 2 sons.
Nick

Thanks for your post Nick.

I often ask myself, "why am I even going to the trouble and time of cleaning this piece up"?
These pieces have no monetary value and the people who owned them have been gone for almost 200 years.

The answer of course is, "because we're all passionate about finding and preserving history for generations yet to come".
In 25 years from now when I'm gone, these pieces will still exist... probably in a storage container in my daughters basement.

Dave