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old farm gives up HUGE crotal bell

G

Goes4ever

New member
I got permission to hunt this 1887 farm house yesterday, today it rained almost all day, but it broke up just long enough for me to hunt about 1.5 hours. I have standing permission to dig here all month, because it is empty till July 1st.

The owner told me to just have fun and dig all I want. It is 2 miles from my house so I am gonna try to dig all signals! This bell is the only keeper I got today, nothing else but large iron, some clad, pull tabs etc....figured if I dig all surface targets it may just reveal some older deep targets.

This is the first crotal bell I have ever dug intact, most I find are broke in pieces, so I am happy with this find, it is huge! look at it compared to the penny!
 
Excuse the dumb question but, what were those bells for?
 
that is not dumb, because I am not sure myself, I thought they were used on animals?? not positive, anyone know for sure?
 
Here are a couple quick pics that I just took.

The bells were used on horse harness rigging, Ever heard the song sleigh bells, one horse open sleigh.

It is raing lightly here so I took a pic, a little blurry.

The attachment point was a little different back then. Mine are prolly65-70 years old.
 
That is a great find! congrats on it. I have 2 questions. The 1st is did it blast your ears off? The 2nd is what kind of VDI # do the give off?

Once again a great find, Beale.
 
Beale actually no it was not a loud signal it was a POOR signal bouncing all over in fact from low to high 20's, but I decided since I have almost unlimited time here I am gonna dig all I can
 
Neat find, Does it still have the clinger inside?
 
Wow thanks for the link!

I found one of those bells near an ghost town in southern Idaho last year. I had no idea what it was used for or even worth keeping.

Thanks!
Swayne
 
I have found this same type of bell with no 8 marked on the bottom. Do you know what time period it's from and is there any value to it.
 
Some designs are referred to as "petal bells". And here is a pretty good link to an information site.
http://classicbells.com/info/fakeBells.htm
 
with no numbers are old also. They were made around the early 1800's at a private blacksmith shop. I found the ones with no numbers at a
old Ghost town that I have hunted for years. The same site has given up Civil War relics and many many coins. Just this past Dec. I found a
1854 1/2 dime.

The really big bells are hard to find if they come out of a field, as they are most of the time broken. The biggest crotal bell I ever found was a
number 11 and I found it in St. Petersburg Florida at a old old site. You just never know what you will find in this hobby. LOL

HH, Ringfinder
 
talk about an OLD post...whew!!!!! I JUST dug a size 10 bell a week ago in the field.....I can't believe it wasn't broke! here it is
 
Nice find indeed G4E
I thought you were swinging a CTX these days ...good to see you still with an Xterra

Crotal bells were used on horses, horse teams pulling carriages etc
As Lizardchaser said....They were attached to the horse harness and rang from the animals movement to warn pedestrians that danger was approaching
Many accidents and deaths involving horse drawn carriages happened in those days when people and horses often used the same roads outside the city
T59:ausflag:
 
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