A Few Of Guessologists Finds

[Guessologist]

I've had a prolonged period of bad hunts not worth posting about which has been doing my head in, I just haven't been able to catch a break even in the new site where the mid 1800s coins have been coming from. However, I managed to turn my luck around today with a decent day at my old's place which turned up a 1918 penny, 1935 half penny, 1936 sixpence and 1911 threepence. All in the front lawn that has the worst EM interference from the ancient buried power line, but for some reason the conditions and detector settings aligned to give me at least a hint that something was in the ground.

Then went for a swing at a new permission, my mum's family farm where an old house was demolished sometime in the 60's and the site converted to vineyard. I'm not sure if I quite found the house site as the metal relics were more farming oriented than domestic, but I did turn up 1921 and 1948 pennies, and a 1945 half penny. Other finds included a rubbishy pocket watch cover, lots of brass taps and drum bungs and a stonkingly huge lead rifle bullet that has to weigh just about a full ounce, measures out to something like a .470 elephant gun. Our soils up in the Mallee are seemingly extremely harsh on the old copper coinage, but in turn seems to keep silvers top notch for 100+ years.

 

[Dave79]

That's not harsh on coppers, lucky to see half the details on the ones I find round here. and my silvers are mostly black. Good hunting. Persistence pays off. :Y:

 

[Guessologist]

Ah good to know it's not just my coins that are warty and crappy. I don't know what it is about the roo pennies but they seem to end up in disproportionately bad shape for how old they are. Give me a nice brass Victorian penny any day, those are just the best.

 

[Guessologist]

Here's the best of the rest from the weekend, my favourite has to be the bullet mould (measures out to .32 cal), although the enormous .470 elephant gun round is up there too. It's nearly a full ounce of lead, slight overkill for rabbits running around your grape vines I think. The pocket watch cover is crusty as and looks to be nickel plate rather than silver. The thing with the trademark is really interesting, I think it's one of the old school padlock keyhole covers but I just can't do the right searches to find the manafacturer. I see a Stafford knot in a crown with a "W" but every combination that I toss into Google gets me nothing.

 

[Wishfull]

The W thing looks like an old dust cover for a padlock. But I cant find anything resembling it.

 

[Guessologist]

A lunchtime swing with a "full iron bias, dig everything that doesn't sound like a big coke can" mindset gave up the goods at the site that provided that last 1829 shilling. A gilded buckle, a Paris branded clothing buckle, part of a lock, few other metal scraps (and a couple of harmonica reeds not pictured) and my first Chinese coin! It's been holed for wearing but it looks like whoever did it couldn't read the coin, it would hang sideways. Not only my first Chinese coin, but it's also my oldest find by far as this particular one (Emperor K'ang Hsi) was minted between 1661-1722. I'll call it 1700s just to be safe. Didn't ring up high, I think it sat around 14 or so.

 

[Guessologist]

Few more things popping out of the ground with the rains setting in, getting much more lead with a bit of wet ground. Of note:

From the above site, a sporting buckle with winged balls minus it's centerpiece. It's in the book (7.2.4), it was a tennis buckle. Officially found more tennis buckles in this township than cricket now!

And from a bit of a later site (1910s) comes part of a cameo locket, 6.1g of silver unfortunately with no hallmark on this half. A scratchy 26 was the magic number on this one, I called silver (out loud to myself, bit of a worry) before I dug it, such a distinctive tone vs. even aluminium.

 

[Guessologist]

Had good luck earlier now that we've had some rain, I thought I'd film the digs today since there wasn't much doubt about what was under the coil!

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/fr0rYwMLLKk[/video]

The patina on the front of the half penny flaked a fair bit so I stripped it right back, it looks a bit rough. The other side is very well preserved. Even the roo penny is in good nick!

 

[Guessologist]

The results of a fruitful after rain session at the inlaws, the four coins on the left bringing my total from that locality to six predecs:

I've spent a lot of time over the last year detecting their place, it's only in the last two sessions though that I've cracked the pre-decimals for some reason... The 1934 penny is from near work and in particularly good nick for the location.

It's funny how the mallee soil ground balances on the Nox to such a different number to central Vic, I end up in high 30's mid 40's up north and usually between 10-20 in the south, would have thought that the goldfields soils would have been the higher based on visual and anecdotal cues.

 

[silver]

Nice finding...
ower: :Y:

 

[Greenhornet_au]

Some kind of plated decorative thing, a mid 1920's

That is a nice hair broach.

 

[Guessologist]

^^^ Aha! Thanks for the ID, it's still in my 'good' pile waiting for a cleanup.

Had a good lunchtime hunt, first dug target was a snake buckle hiding under a two-inch thick tree root. My first one!

Then on the way back to the car I jagged a very small but solid 19-21 which absolutely made my day:

Holed threepence with the initials DE, I'm sure this thing has a good story! Probably the house cat...

 

[Sandta]

Couple of nice finds :Y:
Not sure about DE though
I wonder how to tell if the cat was dyslexic :lol:

 

[Goldpick]

The threepence is a unique find, I'd be pretty happy with that too. :Y:

 

[silver]

C I E.... perhaps

 

[Guessologist]

Friday was rich in buckles, 2nd cricket buckle from this site, presented as dug with the other buckle pushed over it:

And then a big spiky buckle from J & D Holloway, with the text "REGISTERED 25 AUGUST 1856". All three teeth on the center bar were present when dug but were far more fragile than I expected and didn't survive the brisk clean that I gave it.

 

[Deepseeker]

Great finds Guessologist, that cricket one is an absolute cracker :Y:

 

[Sandta]

:Y: !? Another cricket buckle ?! :Y:
And a ripper it is too

 

[Goldpick]

Another very nice cricket buckle. They must have broken a lot of cricket buckles back in the day, I guess they were a bit fragile. erfect:

 

[Deepseeker]

They must have given great joy to the people who wore them also back in the day. It must have been like people nowadays who might wear say, a western style longhorn belt buckle, or with a horse, ford/holden etc, on it. It probably made a statement about how much you knew about cricket or how good you thought you were with a cricket bat.

Maybe I'll get one made for myself with a detector shaft & coil hovering over a Horseshoe & a bullet or a piece of rusty corrugated iron layful: