M E T A L M A N 9

M E T A L M A N 9

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May 5, 2024 Bus Stop

May 5, 2024 Bus Stop

May 5, 2024 Bus Stop. Remember the Hollies…and their song… Bus Stop! Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say "Please, share my umbrella" Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows Under my umbrella For some reason that song kept playing in my mind as I worked / detected this bus stop. Bus Stop # 60042. It’s right around the corner and across the street from my house. It’s where for years, I took the bus to get me to work. I even made a few good friends there, bus stop buddies, while waiting for the bus. No, no romance and no umbrella needed today but 2 hours just melted away. I have metal detected this on this location before but as we know, an area is never depleted. See: August 6, 2020 - Bryn Mawr Bus Stop . There’s either something new that someone dropped recently or Mother Nature moves things around on us and a long lost coin will somehow find its way closer to the surface. Or we simply get better at detecting. Once the top layer of easy to detect items are removed, it opens the space to detect deeper things. Today, my very first find was right under the bus bench. A Twoonie! Great… that equates to 200 holes if I’m digging up pennies. I did manage to find a nice range of coins and of course pennies: 14 of them, the oldest dated 1969. Just look at the difference between older pennies and the recent ones. Five of them, minted after 1990 are in awful condition. On one, I could no longer read the date as it was just so blistered. The silver plated spoon was a surprise. It was marked “Revelation” and that dates back to 1953. Another fun find was the watch casing. ? One has to wonder where the rest of the watch is. Modern “Junk” for lack of a better word will be what detectorists of the future will be finding and digging up. The “THC – Powdered Donut” tin will last for years in the ground but will eventually end up looking like the unidentifiable round tin tops lying next to it. Pull tabs, being made of aluminum, will last for centuries. It’s interesting how the lead portion of the pencil survived nicely even if all of the wood had long ago disappeared and returned to nature. Roger Reference: https://silverpattern.com/i/silverplate-patterns/revelation- 1953-by-revelation-silver-plate

May 10, 2024 Group Hunt and Field Set Up

May 10, 2024 Group Hunt and Field Set Up

May 10, 2024 Group Hunt and Field Set Up. First things first. I have never set up a metal detecting group hunt before… So I’m kind of winging it! Also first things first: A huge “Thank You” to the land owner who is graciously allowing us, a group of mostly strangers, onto his farm field to metal detect and dig holes all over the place. Getting a “Permission” can be difficult but for an entire group… Again, Thank You!!! I made my way to the hunt location which is River Lot 153 / 154 near Letellier, right next to the historic Red River. My goal was to set up a search grid so that we could detect directly on top of a debris field. I made up eight rows with construction flags that could be searched both in a North - South direction, then again in an East - West direction. Artifacts can be missed going in one direction, all depending on how they are positioned in the ground but can be found when metal detecting from a different direction. That’s one reason why a field or a park is never cleaned right out. The easy finds come first, then the deeper items or the coins that are standing straight up start showing up. I make reference to a debris field… Often, the site of houses or homesteads that are long gone can be located by seeing what lays on the surface. Broken glass, ceramics, square nails and old iron is a telltale sign of human habitation. For a good example of this: See: October 22, 2022 – “River Lot # 159” . The site that I’m flagging on now is certainly one of these. The history books spoke of buildings and habitation since the mid 1850’s. A blacksmith shop, a grist mill, a rooming house called “Hotel du Cheval Rouge” (Red Horse Hotel). An early aerial photo from May, 1930, shows numerous farm buildings. Plus, we are right next to the river where all the traffic was. All that activity left a lot of evidence behind as to where some of the buildings were. I used this area to set up my flags. It’s an ideal place to start a group hunt. Everyone is bound to find interesting items. And there is a lot of field left over for the participants to fan out afterwards and metal detect at free will. I resisted picking up any of the many surface items. Once the flags were all aligned I flagged a few of the surface items outside of the search grid. The stage was set… From here, I proceeded to a different location on this river lot, the site of the old Two Little Points School. The ground conditions were perfect to see more surface items of which I did collect. I have detected a lot on this specific site but there are still a lot of artifacts to be found. The accompanying photos show some of what I found. From there, I went out onto the open prairie to do what I like to call Reconnaissance. I went to two other sites where people were known to have lived to see what could be found and to assess the potential for future metal detecting. More surface finds were collected and are part of the pictures. Mostly glass, rocks, bones, coal and some iron. By early afternoon, the wind had picked up to such a level that I decided to call it a day. Now, I’m looking forward to our group hunt. Roger

May 11, 2024 The Group Hunt and the Finds

May 11, 2024 The Group Hunt and the Finds. Wow… What a fantastic day. Sunshine, dry open field, lots of surface and below ground finds and great company. And knowing now, just how rainy it would become later in the week, well we couldn’t have picked a better day. By first name only, here is a list of the participants: Monty, Ray, Randy, Robin, Roger and Steve. Thank you all for showing such care and respect. And on behalf of all six of us: Thank You to the land owner for the opportunity to metal detect on private land. It was much appreciated by all. I think it’s fair to say that we all found some nice artifacts. Prizes were awarded to the Metal Detectorist with the best or most interesting find. By unanimous consent, top prize went to Steve for the 1893 US penny and Second prize went to Randy for all of the clothing snaps and small delicate items that he dug up. In all, over 55 lbs of metal was dug out of this field. Also found when I got home in the glass and ceramics bucket was an arrowhead. Sid and Pam, our go to archeologists, estimate it to be a Pelican Lake Projectile Point made from Swan River Chert. Estimated age: plus or minus 2500 years old. Some of the highlight are: 1 Indian Head US Penny – 1893 1 King George V Canadian Penny - 1929 2 Early lapel pins, Winnipeg and Maple Leaf 1 Religious pendant on a 4 leaf clover or Maltese cross 1 General Service button with King’s Crown. WW1 – WW2 1 1943 Manitoba Chauffeur tag 1 Ornate copper medal or ribbon 2 Ornate copper lockets 2 Eley London No. 12 shotgun shell bases 1 .22 short and 1 .22 long shell casings Various hand tools 2 Railway spikes 1 Lead salt or pepper shaker top (Yes, LEAD) 2 Half horseshoes. (Half Lucky) Twice. 3 more pieces of a Grist Mill Wheel 3 Lead paint tubes 6 Shoe and/or clothing buckles A multitude of clothing snaps and clasps 3 Partial horse collar bells 1 Bullet shaped Lighter 2 Spoon bowls 1 Model T valve stem (Comparative image provided) 2 Graphite writing stylus And much, much, more… See what all else you can spot! This is just a sampling of the many, many, many artifacts found by the group. It took me over three days to clean them. I did not however clean the big iron pieces. I am posting pictures of the smaller and more delicate items first, then of the medium sized iron pieces and hand tools and last, the really big and heavy iron items. Close-up photos are available upon request for some of the other artifacts. It seems that most of the artifacts recovered are from the 1900’s on. This is the site of an early pioneer settlement called “Gaultier”. The US penny takes us back to the late 1890’s. I had hoped to find a few items that could be dated back to the mid 1850’s but in all fairness, it’s almost impossible to date square nails or some of the small artifacts found. Very old finds may well still be waiting there, deep in the soil or just not metal detected yet. The search continues. Roger Reference: Reapers of the Valley 1882-1982 U of M h t t p s : / / d i g i t a l c o l l e c t i o n s . l i b . u m a n i t o b a . c a / i s l a n d o r a / o b j e c t / u o f m % 3 A 2 2 46399#page/28/mode/1up

May 11, 2024 The Group Hunt and the Finds

May 21 and May 29, 2024 Red River Lot 154

May 21 and May 29, 2024 Red River Lot 154

May 21 and May 29, 2024 Red River Lot 154. Wow… Am I ever glad I got this bit of Metal Detecting done before the rains came. It’s going to be a wet weekend and beyond. Then the crops start to grow and my spring metal detecting on farm fields will be done until the fall. Time is tight and the window of opportunity and access is quickly closing. That being said, I did score some interesting finds on this River Lot. This is the same general location, where we had our Group Hunt. See: May 11, 2024 -The Group Hunt and the Finds . I’m quite enjoying it here as there is so much more material and artifacts just waiting to be found. I’ve combined two days of metal detecting together for this post. Here are some of the highlights. May 21 Deer jaw bone Very old bone fragments 1 - Fulgurite See: February 5, 2024 - Fulgurites. A little round wheel ? Clock part or toy steering wheel .22 long bullet casing An unfired lead Swaged type bullet. (possibly) 1- Pull Tab. One only... What a relief. 1 Strange corkscrew thingy…? 1- Swather guard at depth. Lots of iron parts and pieces. Lots and lots of glass and ceramics. Bituminous Coal May 29 1- Flattened Coal Bucket found 2 feet deep. 4 - Ceramic Cup Handles 1 - Horse Shoe Nail 2 - Shotgun Shell bottoms. Dominion Regal and Eley London. 1 - Clothing Snap 1 - Copper Harmonica Reed 1 - Almost complete glass Bottle. To be reconstructed. Tons more glass and ceramic shards. More coal The sheer variety of finds is astounding. A little bit of research opens up a whole other world of human activity. The harmonica reed or plate is one such example. Who knew? What exactly is a swaged bullet vs a cast bullet. And once you learn something new, that knowledge is just so useful. Remember the Fulgurite? One other joy and true delight that I get out of walking around this historic site is spotting the non-metallic items. I quite enjoy the impressive color patterns and the craftsman’s names on the ceramic pieces and the beauty and range of color visible in the glass shards. Roger References: https://cartridge-corner.com/shotgun2.htm https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2013/07/swaged-bullets-part-1/ https://www.cosmomusic.ca/other-instruments--- accessories/harmonicas/replacement-reeds---plates