What do you do with all the iron junk that you find at old log cabins?

[John 'n' W.Va]

I leave a lot of the big stuff at the sites. Yesterday I left a double and single bladed axe. Some ornate cast iron pieces, plow blade and always a chimney damper. I have so many hitching rings, some big and some small. I have brass harness guides and iron square nail galore. I have a big cast iron lid to a pot, if only I could fine the pot. I keep looking for that cache and man do I find the mason jar lids. I always pick at the dump a little and grab a bottle or two, but I'm not into bottle collecting much. I break more than I find trying to dig them up.

In fact, cabins in W.V. are trash dumps. The people that lived in them were poor as dirt its self. The poor lived in them up into the modern area. The beer cans testifies to that. Coal cinders are sometimes in piles around the cabins. I got lucky yesterday, I found a 1941 wheat cent. Most of the time, I don't find a cent. The cabins are everywhere, so I keep MD'ing them. On the way home I eyed another one.

I live in the country, they are close to home and I can detect them on the spare of the moment. I love to MD the late 1800 homes. People were more affluent.

My wife is ready to throw my iron collection out.

 

[dixiedigger57]

dig the dumps! ooo my gosh! button havens here in the south , GA, for civil war era. make a two prong bottle digger fork out of a cast 4 or 5 prong digging fork, and use a probe rod, t handle, made from a piece of spring steel rod from under the deck lid of an old car. yea we break some but find some too. whiskey jugs rule! i have made some money on the bottles. the axe heads sometimes clean up, and shape may mean something. old trash pits are great for goodies. i sift when i can. when we dig out a well or cistern, one always detects the throw out at least. brass trigger guards, buckles, i have seen some goodies appear. dig when its damp so not so much dust and ground soft. let the local bottle club dig out the holes on shares, and you detect the dirt. thats how i got started. made 2500 hundred in five digs on a choice site, now forever gone under a building. bottles sell . we always put the horseshoes up on something for good luck at the site. gotta have some fun! the probe finds old wells and privies. cellars too. the dirt is softer if it has been dug, and remains for a long time. dig it! a retired bottle digger of 40 + yrs found a pot with 1500 + silver coins once, digging for bottles. made a mint, pre civil war coins buried behind a hotel on a river bank. hotel occupied by Sherman's troops. what a find! was bottle digging a waste pile. you never know!

 

[Jim West Pa]

Once i handle somethin', If i don't take it with me then i concider that litterin'.
A lot o' iron pieces make cool 'decorations' if ya electrolisis 'em clean.

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

Once i handle somethin', If i don't take it with me then i concider that litterin'.
A lot o' iron pieces make cool 'decorations' if ya electrolisis 'em clean.

You make me feel bad. I agree with that philosophy, dig it keep it. These places are trash dumps and it is impossible to carry it all out. After a few beeps , I would be done MD'ing.

If, it would be possible, I would have to back a truck up to the site. I would be full time loading scrap iron. The last thing I found at that site was bed springs and rails.

Also thought that since this site is older than 50 years that I needed to leave things where they are for future archeological digs.

 

[Jim West Pa]

I agree John, there are times when carryin everything out jist isn't feasable.

 

[edjcox]

No sense in MD where the pickins be slim to none...

Part of MD art is to know where to MD and where the likely targets will be. Your sites might turn up the interesting relic or two but as you know wealth did not exist in these places. I guess it's all a matter of what your detecting for.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

No sense in MD where the pickins be slim to none...

Part of MD art is to know where to MD and where the likely targets will be. Your sites might turn up the interesting relic or two but as you know wealth did not exist in these places. I guess it's all a matter of what your detecting for.

Thanks for sharing.

I guess you are from eastern MD. Drive the western panhandle on route 40. The first national hi-way. Plenty of places to detect.

I just can't get myself in to digging trash dumps at these old sites. Thing is, where my mother grew up, her dump ended in 53. My grand pap told me where the dump was before that one at the house where he grew up. Then told me where the dump was before that one. Privy anyone? Not me.