Metal Detecting discussions and finds

Research is a huge factor when looking for old sites to detect. Good luck and enjoy the ride!

 

Thats a cool find! I wonder if its something like a hat ornamet, since it doesnt have a pin to put it on a coat

 

It is kinda cool! It's hard to see but it has a loop on the rear where perhaps a strap or something can retain it. I think maybe it is worn on a hat.

 

Thats my thought. Looks like gold

 

Yes, prolly 10 or 14 carat solid. It's a nice little find!

 

Very cool id be happy with a find like that!

I need to find some historical maps i can purchase. Such as old stagecoach lines and old city maps, i saw some online but id like to see one in real life vs a section.

 

I’m sure it’s been searched many times and likely off limits now, but Virginia City isn’t too far from where I live. That would be pretty cool.

 

Yeah, maybe they will just run you off...lol

i cant wait to get some time to metal detect down in az....its going to be hectic next few weeks..
Packing, moving, living in apt til house is done.

 

Hey Shane! Look at my previous post here regarding Sanborn insurance maps...

 

So we spent last weekend out in Cadiz Valley (Ca Mojave Desert) and got to go out on a dry lake to look for meteorites. It had a bunch of basalt rocks that flooded out onto the lakebed at one time or another, so if I GPS traced my tracks, they would’ve been zigzags all over the place.


Well that lasted for a couple hours, and we did find some interesting rocks - but no meteorites. I also got to go play with my detector at nearby hills where there were some old prospects and found pieces of lead. Lead was all over the place out there! Big lead pieces in a little itty-bitty pieces. In fact, it was everywhere! Even though it was legal to prospect in the place we were, it is still in the same valley region where General Patton’s WWII Africa Corps training camps are. In fact, there are still tank tracks running through the area all over, so I was sure to not take anything besides rocks home and left everything else where I found it.
These were both taken in the same vicinity near the dry lakebed in Cadiz Valley.

Cadiz Valley is such a cool place, we had the whole area to ourselves and didn’t see a single other car the entire time we were there. It was simply beautiful!

 

Did they do any nuclear testing there?

 

No, the desert training center was the Africa Corps’ training area. Patton’s 3rd brigade and other tank units did their drills out there. There are some really cool sites there, my wife did archaeology surveys out there for a BLM contract and they found some wild stuff like machine gun nests and a giant dumpsite filled of just beer bottles - a couple thousand of them. Obviously the troops had some giant parties - perhaps before the units left the US for Africa?

 

Off subject but if you’re interested in that kind of stuff (or the wife), Beneath Flanders Fields is pretty interesting. It was one of my main sources for a 20 page thesis about trench warfare in WWI. The writers spent 25 years unearthing the trench works and researching the life of a soldier serving there in 1917.

$60 Beneath Flanders Fields: The Tunnellers' War 1914-18

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Flanders-Fields-Tunnellers-1914-18/dp/0773529497/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=beneath+flanders&qid=1582090295&sr=8-1

 

I knew about the trenches, but had no idea about the extensive use of tunnels in France during WWI. Wow, and some of the mine craters they made to destroy enemy tunnels and their positions were huge and still remain today.

 

Thanks for that information, I find our history fascinating when you are looking at an artifact like you uncovered after hiding under our feet for so long, the next generation can appreciate what people on this thread pull out of the ground and appreciate our history too.

 

It IS fascinating. Alot of great things will never be dug up which is sad. Never really cared too much about history when I was younger, metal detecting has changed that. The tangible quality of the stuff we dig really puts things in perspective. My girlfriend is a middle school social studies teacher and brings in some of the stuff I have dug when it relates to their lessons and the kids love it.

 

Once you get into it, it’s even more so then you think. Breathing systems, ways to detect seismic activity in the event of countermine operations. It was largely a war of attrition with each side bombarding another’s trench. Lots of advances in warfare during the that time. You could argue that’s really when modern warfare truly started.

 

@Hobbs...Sorry I dont know much about cowboy attire...but maybe that buckle is something like this?? I posted in treasurenet also.

 

We talked about that today, a Bolo tie. The rear of the thingie has a slot that looks to me like a slim band might go through. Like a band you might see on a hat. The piece is bent inwards so it is difficult to tell what was going on.