Do we have any other metal dectorists besides me here? I recently found some old musket balls and an iron arrow head, but nothing that beautiful yet.
I’ve always wanted to get a metal detector, for kicks and giggles. But I wouldn’t really know where to target an area for anything of value, especially historic worth. Most Civil War battlefields have basically been stripped clean now. Areas that were fields of trees then are gone now, and vice-versa. I was raised on a mountain ridge on the MD/WV border, and as a kid I’d go relic digging with a childhood friend. There used to be a farm on the hillside, and we’d find all manner of things with our bare hands - patent medicine bottles, milk jugs, old glass electrial insulators from poles from back in the early 1900’s. Too bad we didn’t have a metal detector back then. The hillside we searched as kids is still undeveloped - too steep. I bet there’s a lot of hidden goodies still there, just under the topsoil.
Re beautiful:
Being a “Forged In Fire” afficianado myself, I look at that piece of ancient hardware and think of the time, sweat, and effort that went into making it.
The fact that it was probably a standardized, mass-produced weapon type, forged by some village smithy “under the spreading chestnut tree” as the old poem goes, is intriguing. He did the “heat, beat, and repeat” method over and over again to produce that piece, and probably a few hundred others...
How cool would it be to find several more Of those, all made by the same blacksmith.... I wonder if those Metal Masters back then put their own identity marks on their creations.
I am. All I ever find is a few coins and beer can pull tabs from the 70’s.................