Good for you. You kept after them, asked for and were granted permission. Finding those pieces of history and having them preserved for all to see is a wonderful thing. It would be great to be able to keep what you found, and hopefully you got to keep an item or two, but being able to see them in the museum is great. I would have loved to have been there helping you. I am sometimes envious of the treasure hunters who get to hunt the really old areas. I live in the Arizona desert and the area I'm in was settled in the early 1900's for the most part. I've been doing research and am trying to find the older areas to hunt. I just got city maps, courtesy of one of our members who posted that wonderful map site that has the Early city maps. I found maps from 1900 and 1940. They show where some of the first schools and a couple of church's were. It looks like some of the land is vacant now. I'm going to try and get permission to search these areas. Most areas are hard dirt without grass, so items lost were easier to spot on the ground and picked up before they had a chance to get covered up. A cache would be a great find. Maybe I'll hit one one day. I'm waiting for my 10.5" 7.5 khz DD coil to get here. I think it will give me the best chance to find the deeper objects.
You my friend are a true Treasure Hunter. I hope they give you more time to find some other artifacts. The buttons and buckles were fantastic finds. My hat is off to you !!!
Good hunting, John K
Can't tell the size.