I gotta agree with Bill. There are bound to be other goodies, too. From the sample, I'd think there is little of extreme age to be found, but Merc's? Hey, I'll take them any day. I don't care what anyone says: the 'art-deco' coins were the nicest in our history.
The most beautiful one is the Liberty, Walking, half dollar, IMHO.
As for the shotgun shells. Of course you do know that they breed ubderground, along with pulltabs, right? Yep, someone in a remote Russian lab did the research on this in the eighties and proved that, under the right sub-terranean conditions, they actually clone themselves. You can see the story in the back-issue archives of the World Global Sun StarQuirer.
Once you acquire a lot of them, put them to use. Study them and learn the eras they come from. You can trace our American history with them, as they have varied quite a bit over the years and they can help you date a search site.
The one you found is a Union Metallic Cartridge Company (U.M.C. Co.), "New Club" with 8 point flat star, manufactured roughly from 1900 through 1934. After that the name became Remington-UMC, as UMC was absorbed into the Remington Company.
The term "No. 12", indicates that it is a 12 gauge shell of course, however the term generally fell from use after WWII and the "GA" marking was used after that. Thus, shells were marked as "12 GA" to reflect the popular use of the term as it grew. They're still marked that way today.
Along with such research, you can collect them. I used to take them and clean them up and make a nice display out of them.
And my ex wife was working on a 'detecting vest' for me, years ago, and we were gonna use old shotshell bases as buttons! I oughta pick that idea back up...
So you see, there is good even in old shotshell bases.
I'd wear that vacant lot out, if it was me.
David
