Remember Your Best Day Relic Hunting??

[olddigger]

I'll never forget mine. The end of August 1994. Had permission to hunt a building lot just south of the Crater in Petersburg Va. The builder had just finished digging the footing when I started relic hunting. Temperture in the 90s, ground hard as a rock but I stayed til dark. The pictures below will show why. A 30 pound Schenkl still loaded with dated 1861 fuse intact. 4 other fuses, grape and cannister shot. 22 bullets, a cannon ball plug and a lot of shell fragments. One is a complete nose of another 30 pound Schenkl and a piece of cannon ball with the fuse still inside. The site was a Confederate artillery battery. There is a house sitting on top the site now. I just wonder how much more relics a under the house, because they built the house so fast I never really had a chance to hunt it good. The shell was 28 inches in the ground. Hope you enjoy seeing my best day digging. Would like to see your best day. hh all.

 

[VOL1266X]

Now that's a dream day OD!!! Very impressive!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

Lots of great memories, but just a few......

 

[olddigger]

Very nice. I like the tongue to the tongue & wreath buckle and the token. Is that a Hotchkiss shell? Keep digging the goog stuff.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's a 3" Hotchkiss for case shot. One of my best ever, and here's why: I found a Union battery site. Went in to it with one of my custom Sovereign's, using Disc mode. Found lots of non ferrous relics; bullets, buttons, friction primers, lead token's and lead carved "things," brass gun parts among thousands of square nails, AND a brass Hotchkiss fuse, a full lead sabot from a Hotchkiss shell that appeared to have been chopped off with an axe or hatchet. Cool finds for sure, but the iron relics would come when I switched over from Disc to All Metal. I worked the site digging only the larger iron signals. Gun parts, an exploded breech section from a .69 musket, tools and then a Hotchkiss "cup" or base section. Then the complete nose section of the same shell. Once home I began cleaning up the nose section. Alas! It had never been threaded to accept the fuse. The cast hole was there, the cavity was hollow, but the threads were missing, rendering the shell useless. The Art'y crew cut the lead sabot off and discarded the shell. Now my surprise wasn't over. When I began cleaning the brass fuse (called a "paper timed fuse" for case shot) I discovered there was a casting flaw inside the tube of the fuse. A flange that closed one half of the tube was present. Why didn't they just take a rat-tail file and clean it out? I found several varieties of files on the site, but I gues the Federal Gov't was just like today; Glut and Pork fat, so they threw it away. Lucky me I thought!
Good hunting,
David@Dixie

 

[d-2]

Good Lord, man. If I was to have found that much in a day, I would still be dead. Those are great finds...d2

 

[tog]

4 3.80 Hotchkiss bolts in pristine condition--Vicksburg,Ms. Feb.1978.