DJ Yost, Jim Bongiovanni, Bill Beers, Mary Shafer, Mike Benner & Paul Baldwin
(Not pictured: Eric Rump & Joe Mulacheski)
8 of us met for breakfast early this morning. This was the first organized hunt for the History Hounds, and I was excited to be a part of it. We all were.
After good conversation over good food, it was time to hit the soil.
History overlapped at one of the sites, which was a log cabin in the 1700's before a homestead/store was built in the 1800's. To us, the possibilities were endless.
The Historical Society did mention that this site had been detected before. That didn't matter, really. At a site like this, to me, it's always worth looking.
A few minutes into the hunt,
Jim Bongiovanni (with his classic pirate yaaargh face) hit the first target of the day,
and he pulled out a nice old flat button.
A few minutes later, I chased a deep, iffy signal, and found
an old hand-forged iron hatchet.
As we were digging, we would dig the find, and then "bag and flag" them. Simply put, this means that we placed the dug item in a numbered bag, and placed a corresponding numbered flag at the site where each item was found.
Later, we would identify each piece and label them on individual index cards.
I heard the familiar exclamation of my good friend, Mary Shafer. She was yelling, "Silver! I got silver!"
She turned up an 1899 Barber dime - the first silver of the day.
The next find was probably THE FIND of the day...
Paul Baldwin found a really cool iron cross medallion.
It hasn't been positively identified yet, but it has initials and a cross going through a crown.
Meanwhile, I was near the house:
I got a pretty good signal and found a nice flat button. I wanted to move onto the next target, so I eagerly filled the plug. But then I instinctively double-checked the target, and when I swung my coil over it, I got the exact same signal...
So, I re-dug the same hole and found the matching cuff button.
Overall, today was awesome. I'm pretty sure everybody had a really good time on this hunt. A bunch more was found - including a dandy button and an 1893 Indian head penny by Mary Shafer, and a dateless Indian head penny and a few pewter spoons by Jim Bongiovanni.
Bill Beers found a really cool old toy rifle mechanism (the lever action part of it).
The first hunt of the History Hounds was a great experience. It was so fun to meet up with everyone. Today we had great fall weather and we found some great items. It was fun to give back.
I was glad to help out and of course, I need to give a big thank you to the historical society, and to Bill Beers for making today's hunt happen.
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