Got up to my brother's farm this past Sunday and got a few hours of hunting in. Got nearly skunked on coins - a single clad quarter on the way back to car to put my MXT away. There were some interesting non-coin finds though. First was a small brass buckle - the kind that might be found on a harness. Cleaning revealed a scalloped surface that suggests its been in the ground a very long time. The land has been a farm for 300 years so there is a broad range of possibility there. It was lucky to rescue this buckle because it was in a patch of ground that was dug up by an excavator the very next day for a new outbuilding.
A different part of the yard yielded up three things . . . a small bullet. It's crushed which makes determining the caliber a bit tough - maybe .22. Oddly the tip isn't damaged so I don't think it had been fired. Looks more like somebody squashed it with a rock. 2nd is brass compact case with the inscriptions "Pompean Bloom" and "Medium" on the back. This one dates to 1928-30 and I included a pic below of what it looked like new. 3rd is a brass tire pressure guage made by Schrader Co. sometime in the 1909-16 timeframe based on the patent dates that are/aren't on the side of it (it has the 1909 date, but not 1895 or 1916 as some of them do). This one apparantly was made for the United States Tire Co. as this company name is also on the side. Most curious is the list of suggested tire pressures by width (not diameter) - 2½"-50[size=x-small]LBS[/size], 3"-60[size=x-small]LBS[/size] . . . 6"-120[size=x-small]LBS[/size]. Nowadays we tend to put the highest pressure in the very narrow tires (like a ten speed bike) and lower pressure in wider tires like for the car - very strange.
The woods out back of the barn, site of a coin spill, circa 1935, that I worked a bit last summer, had one more surprise for me - a 2-hole button made of metal - not sure what metal though. It rang like a nickel (18-20 or so). After cleaning it up I rechecked it on the bench and it only rang 10-14. It failed the test for pewter. I posted a closeup of it below.
-pete
[attachment 312855 3may15_finds_crop.jpg]
A group shot of Sunday's finds.
[attachment 312856 pompean_bloom_1928to30.jpg]
A mint condition Pompean Bloom case.
[attachment 312857 button_crop.jpg]
Here's the button.
A different part of the yard yielded up three things . . . a small bullet. It's crushed which makes determining the caliber a bit tough - maybe .22. Oddly the tip isn't damaged so I don't think it had been fired. Looks more like somebody squashed it with a rock. 2nd is brass compact case with the inscriptions "Pompean Bloom" and "Medium" on the back. This one dates to 1928-30 and I included a pic below of what it looked like new. 3rd is a brass tire pressure guage made by Schrader Co. sometime in the 1909-16 timeframe based on the patent dates that are/aren't on the side of it (it has the 1909 date, but not 1895 or 1916 as some of them do). This one apparantly was made for the United States Tire Co. as this company name is also on the side. Most curious is the list of suggested tire pressures by width (not diameter) - 2½"-50[size=x-small]LBS[/size], 3"-60[size=x-small]LBS[/size] . . . 6"-120[size=x-small]LBS[/size]. Nowadays we tend to put the highest pressure in the very narrow tires (like a ten speed bike) and lower pressure in wider tires like for the car - very strange.
The woods out back of the barn, site of a coin spill, circa 1935, that I worked a bit last summer, had one more surprise for me - a 2-hole button made of metal - not sure what metal though. It rang like a nickel (18-20 or so). After cleaning it up I rechecked it on the bench and it only rang 10-14. It failed the test for pewter. I posted a closeup of it below.
-pete
[attachment 312855 3may15_finds_crop.jpg]
A group shot of Sunday's finds.
[attachment 312856 pompean_bloom_1928to30.jpg]
A mint condition Pompean Bloom case.
[attachment 312857 button_crop.jpg]
Here's the button.