Friday's Finds, Chinese Gardens Gives up a Little SIlver

[William-NM]

I decided to head over to the creek ruins since it's been productive. I wasn't disappointed - I dug a 1926 D Mercury Dime in pretty nice shape.

A little while later, I dug the pewter (?) 'Match King' box from the front yard of one of the stone ruins. It's a new one on me - basically a re-usable match. There's some felt around the top of the matchstick and a flint that protrudes up from the center. You strike it on the grooved side of the box. A quick search says that they were manufactured from 1933 through around the '50s.

Of course, I found my daily axe head, well-used, a tiny brass funnel, a 'Timken Rocket Gauge' the corpses of some unfortunate knives and cutlery and some whatzits.

Just a few bottles, though I like the little booze bottle, it only has a '9' on the bottom. The taller white jar says 'Dorothy Gray', and the little aluminum top/cup says 'Jas. E. Pepper & Co., Established 1780".

And there you have it-
Hope you're all out finding treasure this weekend.
William

 

[Johnny Cache]

Wow, lots of great stuff...and that dime is beautiful!

 

[marcomo]

Judging by the condition of that merc, I'd say it was probably dropped no later than a couple years past 1926.

Nice finds, congrats!

 

[mudpuppy]

Nice work indeed! Are your Chinese gardens neatly stacked piles and rows of rocks where the Chinese went through the mining spoils a long time ago? I saw an entire valley of such wonderful mazes up in an old gold mining valley in Idaho once...
Mud

 

[William-NM]

Thanks, guys!
Marcomo- yep, the Merc has the most detail of any I've dug & they're beautiful coins.
Mudpuppy- Hah, just the opposite, they're the ruins of some tiny stone and adobe homes along the banks of a creek where some Chinese families lived and had some terraced produce gardens (and I suspect, a laundry, too based on the variety of buttons, snaps, and zippers I find. The area burned at some point, and many of the finds are found where you dig down to a layer of ash. The town landfill was at the top of a hill, just above the area and between the major floods and some later earth moving, it's kind of a mish-mosh of new and old.

One interesting point - while I was in the hospital, one of the nurses told me that there was a tunnel that the Chinese used to get to downtown (just a couple of blocks), as they weren't welcome on the streets. Apparently, a couple of the businesses still have access, so I'll have to see if I can v erify that and get access. I hadn't known that there was that much racial tension here.

 

[senda]

That good finds! I like their findings, their photo essays and stories. It is unfortunate that Mr Google translate as bad as I the English haha. Not as get those bottles but are great, I like!
Best regards