paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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Had to post this up! I didn't even know what I had found until today, days after I dug it up. I habitually keep any non-ferrous metal I dig at any site even if it's just scraps of brass and zinc. Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site, but sometimes I find neat little fragments. Nothing like this though!
I was exploring new sites last weekend and the primary foundation ended up being an 1870's to 1890's cellar hole. While it was surrounded by targets, nothing was very old so I decided to explore further. I did a wide sweep away from that foundation and found a square stone formation on the side of a hill. I was hoping this was an older cabin footprint, but I only pulled a single button out of the ground so either detected before, or just a seldom used outbuilding. It had a road leading further down the hill so I followed it and found a definite cellar hole!
The very first signal was a bunch of crumpled up brass sheets. Very thin and the plug was full of them. I grabbed as many as the detector picked up before filling in the hole and continuing. The rest of the foundation produced a couple of large cents and a few odds and ends, but much less than I would have expected. I didn't clean up the finds until yesterday and left them to dry off without tinkering with them. Today, once everything was dry, I decided to try my hand at the brass puzzle. Covered in dirt I couldn't see anything, but once dry there were a few stamped shapes visible so I thought it might be a bucket label or something similar. I was obviously missing pieces and it was a weird shape, so it took a good amount of time to fit it together, but once I did, my jaw dropped:
I saw the shield first and then the eagle!
Definitely US military, but I'd never seen anything like it. The only pieces I knew were this thin would be hat plates, but this once was distinctly different. I looked though the Campbell's Military Insignia book and the closest I found were the 1814 patterns:
Mine is distinctly shield shaped though and I can't find a match anywhere. These plates are incredibly rare and I can only find a small handful of specimens online to compare mine too. Maybe a period variant of smaller production? The eagle seems to match Figure 11 the closest, but the wing isn't folded over:
The shield is angled the opposite direction and it has crossed flags around it instead of draped ones too:
So obviously I'm going back to that site to sift for every solitary scrap of brass!
I can probably get it a little closer to complete, and I'm sure the top right edge is down there somewhere! I'm also going to grid in the overgrown areas to see if I can't find some buttons or other parts from the uniform. I'm beyond excited, this is an epic relic recovery for me and I can't wait to find out more about it!
I was exploring new sites last weekend and the primary foundation ended up being an 1870's to 1890's cellar hole. While it was surrounded by targets, nothing was very old so I decided to explore further. I did a wide sweep away from that foundation and found a square stone formation on the side of a hill. I was hoping this was an older cabin footprint, but I only pulled a single button out of the ground so either detected before, or just a seldom used outbuilding. It had a road leading further down the hill so I followed it and found a definite cellar hole!
The very first signal was a bunch of crumpled up brass sheets. Very thin and the plug was full of them. I grabbed as many as the detector picked up before filling in the hole and continuing. The rest of the foundation produced a couple of large cents and a few odds and ends, but much less than I would have expected. I didn't clean up the finds until yesterday and left them to dry off without tinkering with them. Today, once everything was dry, I decided to try my hand at the brass puzzle. Covered in dirt I couldn't see anything, but once dry there were a few stamped shapes visible so I thought it might be a bucket label or something similar. I was obviously missing pieces and it was a weird shape, so it took a good amount of time to fit it together, but once I did, my jaw dropped:
I saw the shield first and then the eagle!
Definitely US military, but I'd never seen anything like it. The only pieces I knew were this thin would be hat plates, but this once was distinctly different. I looked though the Campbell's Military Insignia book and the closest I found were the 1814 patterns:Mine is distinctly shield shaped though and I can't find a match anywhere. These plates are incredibly rare and I can only find a small handful of specimens online to compare mine too. Maybe a period variant of smaller production? The eagle seems to match Figure 11 the closest, but the wing isn't folded over:
The shield is angled the opposite direction and it has crossed flags around it instead of draped ones too:
So obviously I'm going back to that site to sift for every solitary scrap of brass!
I can probably get it a little closer to complete, and I'm sure the top right edge is down there somewhere! I'm also going to grid in the overgrown areas to see if I can't find some buttons or other parts from the uniform. I'm beyond excited, this is an epic relic recovery for me and I can't wait to find out more about it!Amazon Forum Fav 👍
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