GKMan
Well-known member
I have been detecting the area of an old Quaker meeting house that ceased operation in about 1860, Barely a remnant of the old meeting house remains at the edge of the field and there is an adjoining cemetery that now has barely a few stones left in it with writing on them, in fact most of the stones are just a piece of shale that has been stuck in the ground in rows. Today I was walking to an area near the meeting house that I call Button Hill since a couple years ago I hit the mother load of buttons there. On my way to Button Hill I stopped in my tracks and almost dropped to my knees and Praised Jesus ! What I seen was that the field next to the meeting house had been turned over for growing corn! I have been beating my way through this field for three or four years now since all it was used for was hay and it had not been turned since then.
This field has produced late 1700's american coins, buttons, and 1700's British coins but diminishing returns had set in and my hopes of ever seeing the earth turned over to uncover some new finds was not even on my mind today.
The corn now growing in the field is only about a foot high and the rows are about two to three feet apart so it gave me enough room to detect. After covering a couple rows I was rewarded with a button. Of course I had to be very careful not to damage the corn with the detector or my feet so it was slow going and I know that I am missing something where the corn is already growing but I will have to wait for the corn to be plowed back under before I can discover what is there.
What I was able to see today and never before was that there is a lot of shards of pottery, glass etc, and of course the ubiquitous clam shells that our forefathers loved to leave behind. These indicators of past activity were along every row I detected and really gave me a better understanding of the area of activity. I should note that we just had a couple days of really heavy rain which washed a lot of the soil away leaving small stones and things like the shells, pottery, earthenware very easy to spot.
The finds of the day was the nice little batwing buckle, and the Vermon Auctori. The obverse side of the coin is in really great shape, but the reverse although clean is pretty worn down.I believe the coin is of the Brittania variety. Besides those finds, I recovered a beat up 1817 Large Cent, (my second in a couple weeks, strange), some really nice buttons, pocket knife and some interesting pottery shards.
Besides the Vermom coin which was the first of those I have had the pleasure to recover. I also found two pieces of tombstone (never found one of those before) in the middle of the field. It's a shame that the nicer stones have long ago been looted from the cemetery and almost sadder that this one ended up in the middle of the field broken in pieces.
In case your curious my detector settings and methods have always been fairly simple. Swing slow and swing low to the ground, I use very little discrimination just because I like to hear what is in the ground. With the CTX I have been using the setup frequently referred to has GoneHunting.
One thing I would like to mention is gridding. I know it isn't nearly has much fun as walking around exploring. But I have found that I do much better going back and forth again and again making sure to cover all of the ground rather than just random wandering
Happy Hunting
This field has produced late 1700's american coins, buttons, and 1700's British coins but diminishing returns had set in and my hopes of ever seeing the earth turned over to uncover some new finds was not even on my mind today.
The corn now growing in the field is only about a foot high and the rows are about two to three feet apart so it gave me enough room to detect. After covering a couple rows I was rewarded with a button. Of course I had to be very careful not to damage the corn with the detector or my feet so it was slow going and I know that I am missing something where the corn is already growing but I will have to wait for the corn to be plowed back under before I can discover what is there.
What I was able to see today and never before was that there is a lot of shards of pottery, glass etc, and of course the ubiquitous clam shells that our forefathers loved to leave behind. These indicators of past activity were along every row I detected and really gave me a better understanding of the area of activity. I should note that we just had a couple days of really heavy rain which washed a lot of the soil away leaving small stones and things like the shells, pottery, earthenware very easy to spot.
The finds of the day was the nice little batwing buckle, and the Vermon Auctori. The obverse side of the coin is in really great shape, but the reverse although clean is pretty worn down.I believe the coin is of the Brittania variety. Besides those finds, I recovered a beat up 1817 Large Cent, (my second in a couple weeks, strange), some really nice buttons, pocket knife and some interesting pottery shards.
Besides the Vermom coin which was the first of those I have had the pleasure to recover. I also found two pieces of tombstone (never found one of those before) in the middle of the field. It's a shame that the nicer stones have long ago been looted from the cemetery and almost sadder that this one ended up in the middle of the field broken in pieces.
In case your curious my detector settings and methods have always been fairly simple. Swing slow and swing low to the ground, I use very little discrimination just because I like to hear what is in the ground. With the CTX I have been using the setup frequently referred to has GoneHunting.
One thing I would like to mention is gridding. I know it isn't nearly has much fun as walking around exploring. But I have found that I do much better going back and forth again and again making sure to cover all of the ground rather than just random wandering
Happy Hunting
