A Few Of Guessologists Finds

[Bush Chook]

Guesso - Is it possible that "USA" might actually be part of the word EUROA (as in the Victorian town)?

Coincidence that the ANZACs badge was also found in the same area -

https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/person/291796

 

[Guessologist]

Definitely USA, otherwise extremely coincidental!

Went to town on it with the Andre's pencils and steel wool and got some of it back to yellow brass, mystery solved it's an ancient kero tin lidbit:

WILLIAM RIGG PAT..... (abbreviated patent pending?) USA 25 FEB 68
DOWNER STANDARD OIL BOSTON

Not many references to Downer Standard Oil out there, but dates it pretty tightly to 1868-1871 ish

The house site is ~100m from a relatively major mine that operated on and off from 1861 to 1920s, works out pretty well I think.

 

[Bush Chook]

Excellent sleuthing. Chronology and context are bang on.

 

[Guessologist]

Couple of coins from yesterday arvo, I just couldn't make heads nor tails of the penny as it gave me wierd numbers and wouldn't pinpoint properly, I almost had it pegged as a large piece of falsing iron but dug it anyway. Turns out it was on edge, I assume that's why it was being strange. The sixpence gave a nice mellow 26-27 which was a good change after digging a bunch of blaring 26 aluminium caps.

The penny has a beaut die crack all the way across, through the E and Y.

 

[Guessologist]

This one's got a membership number on the back, I'll have to get in touch with the local RSL and find out who it belonged to...

 

[Guessologist]

I've spent a few hours on a new patch, an old police station that was active from about mid 1860s to roughly mid 1890s. The relics are also telling the story of a long occupation after the closure of the station into the 1920's-30's. These photos are everything that I've dug out of there so far including junk, anything that was giving a consistent number above 11 or so on the 600. I could probably ease off and start digging some low numbers now as it's getting pretty hard to wangle stuff out of the iron.

First the crud:

Now the better stuff:

• 1899 and 1944 pennies, 1889 half penny and a 1921 threepence[/*]
• button - Palmer Casey & Co 32 Poultry (London tailors, not many refs, 1870's?)[/*]
• bullet - measures out to .45-ish (potentially police-related?)[/*]
• thimble, aluminium - Invicta Essences (brand active 1900's to 1940's probably '20s?)[/*]
• 2x Thomas Walker buckles and a smaller G&B Solide buckle "Hyan Oxford St"[/*]
• Fob watch parts and a UMC shotshell[/*]
• Cricket buckle! This one's not in Brian's book yet (I've sent it through)[/*]

 

[Jaros]

What a grand display. I bet you're glad you went there.

 

[Guessologist]

Yep, and glad I just went back with some different settings too! Just needed a little more time to grow some more goodies:

The buttons say Gray Bros. Manufacturs. and the good old Best Ring Edge (everyone can all probably read them but I like to put any text on my finds in my posts so it's searchable for anyone who might have found something similar)

 

[user 794]

Great finds!

That cricket buckle in particular is a beauty!

Congrats.

 

[ChrisD]

Love the design of that cricket buckle, its a ripper.

 

[Dave79]

Very nice buttons and buckles, few different rare ones there.

 

[Guessologist]

Turns out I forgot to switch to the small coil at any point on this site, here's the results after an hour with it, the locket's my favourite:

Thin silver disc with a bird in a tree (the proverbial partridge in a pear tree?), rang up low for silver, around 16 on the nox

A really cool bubble locket, which on close inspection contains some hair. I'd love to nail down the date a bit more but it's at least 100 years old at this site.

1862 half penny

Interesting button, Dalent?

More buttons, "Our Own Make" and Advance Australia

The large buckle probably goes with the cricket buckle found earlier. The smaller one isn't quite from this site but it has a design I've never seen before on this style.

 

[Guessologist]

I felt the need to dig some big copper coins which have been thin on the ground for me lately, so I hit up my favourite bush site despite the fact that I haven't pulled a coin or much worthwhile at all out of it for six months now. I'm fairly sure this site at least at the beginning used to be an old slab hut (early 1860s), at about 4 inches down there's a 2-3 inch thick layer of extremely hard clay which must have been the floor - I originally thought it was just baked clay from a fire but it covers a reasonably big area which correlates well with the abundance of relics. The ground returns to regular compacted loam below the clay so it's definitely a man-made layer. The fun thing about it is that a lot of the relics below the clay, with a lot of mid-1850s tokens and coins in good nick wear wise, which gets me thinking about whether there was a previous occupation before everyone moved into the area in the early 1860s.

I decided to mix it up a bit and run Park 1 with no iron rejection at all. For giggles I turned the iron bias off completely as well, something I haven't tried seriously before. When .22 bullets started jumping out of this fairly well covered ground I realised I was onto something! It didn't take long before I managed to work up an intermittent but stationary 18-19 in among the nails. I broke through the floor clay layer to find a sandstone / quartzite ball that someone a) carried a long way and b) spent a lot of time making round - the site isn't stony at all, the creeks nearby don't have any stones in the beds and the ones that do a bit further afield never have round rocks. The signal was coming from under the stone at a depth of nearly the length of the pinpointer:

Can't trust the numbers, these pennies usually ring up solidly in the mid 20's! At a deep 18 I was certain I was digging an old belt buckle or large chunk of lead. I've been over this exact patch many times running on an iron bias of 1 with no target, now I get to do it all again with none. These are my favourite coins to dig, I rate them above all the old silver, they're just so chunky!

 

[Sandta]

VERY NICE !
Cant wait to see what else you find

 

[Hacksaw11]

Some great finds there ?

 

[Goldpick]

The good thing about those earlier large pennies is that they almost always come out of the ground in great condition, lovely chunky coin. :Y:

 

[Guessologist]

Been back, didn't find any coins this time but buttons are slowly working their way out of the ground:

The Moses Levy & Co button dates solidly to the 1850s-1860s looking at the bell curve of Trove newspaper results, and the other one is unmarked but made of an unusual metal. The bulk appears to be a pewter or similar white metal composition, some of the little oxidation warts have small bits of copper in them which maybe was a plating?

 

[Goldpick]

I must track down the chart that shows all the different coloured metal buttons and their compositions, saw it trawling the web one night.

 

[Guessologist]

That'd be awesome, I'm pretty bad with my white metals, really only know silver well. Here's another button from the police station site, Royal Northern Yacht Club this time not sure of the date. Had a poke around there again after locating another Victorian era house site marked on an old town map although this one had a lot of recent detector holes already... They didn't quite get everything though, I found a large brass buckle and a boot tap with the nails still in, lots of big iron masking to work around so there will be stuff left.

 

[numpty]

thats a rippa button :Y: