Hunting with the Treasure Whisperers.

I've been thinking of what it must be like to detect a known battlefield, colonial fort or some other historical site and I started to realize that a lot of the excitement I get from finding old military related relics on the farm comes from not knowing how they ended up here. Each relic recovered is like a newspaper clipping and slowly, hole by hole, we get to stick it all together and hopefully end up with a headline and possibly a paragraph or two that bring to the surface past events that perhaps, have never been passed on or written in the history books.

Although the cold weather has prevented my lazy bones from getting to watch the sun rise over the cane fields I did manage to get out a few times this past week during lunch and for some sunset sessions. On one of those sunset sessions, while failing dismally to finish a lane before it was completely dark , I got a decent mid 50s signal. The Nokta Makro Simplex has a backlit screen which really comes in handy as I seem to have a habit of hitting good signals in those few minutes between just being able to see and complete darkness. 

American Great Seal Pocket Button.

 Another Great Seal pocket button, so now I have four Great Seal buttons from four different locations on the farm. This one has a clear back-mark "City Button Works NY". The references I could find point to WW1 but the people on the forums I belong to reference   collectors books that put the manufacture date from 1902 to the end of World War 1. 

I've tried to research the link these buttons have to the Boer war and I can't find anything online other than fellow detectorists saying they find a lot of them at Boer War sites. If it wasn't for the Transvaal Artillery Button I found here too I think I would be looking for alternative theories. The 2nd Boer war ended in May 1902 and 2 of the Great Seal buttons found here were manufactured somewhere in 1902. From what I've read the Boers were in the Guerilla warfare phase of the war by then and were dressed as civilians so the theory of uniforms being bought from America doesn't quite seem to fit but I am determined to find out.

Another item I dug up recently in the near darkness that is also still a mystery is a small badge that looks like it had a pin at the back. I'm not sure if it's military, a family crest or a school badge. None of the forums or groups I belong to have been able to identify it and my Google searches haven't turned anything up either. 

The weekend finally arrived and we got to enjoy some family time on the fields. I didn't get anything good on Saturday but my wife got this really old bullet. Definitely from the right time period to be colonial or Boer War related. 

I was under pressure to produce the goods but then on Sunday she got another old bullet this time a very out of shape Martini-Henry bullet. 

Fired Martini-Henry Bullet

Together with it's friends. 

Earlier that day I did dig a mid-tone that didn't look like much coming out the hole so I just left it in my finds tray. I usually clean these "junk" items anyway, just to be sure. What I thought could be a button turned out the be the back of a button with an identifiable back-mark. "Smith & Wright Birmingham" went straight into Google and what do you know? Result after result for British military buttons. I do wish this had come out whole, I only have one British Military button from the fields so far but it's a good indication there will be more.

My wife and daughter have been working on a fitting name for their detecting duo and on Sunday afternoon they nailed it! "The Treasure Whisperers". So now it's Digable Tones vs the Treasure whisperers and let me tell you competition is fierce! Oh, and I seem to be a bit behind at the moment. 😀

A new field of possibilities, freshly cleared. 

On Sunday afternoon we took a quick sweep over this field and got some harmonica reed remnants, 2 keys, a 1c coin, and some pieces of very fine brass mesh that I need to research. I find bits of this stuff everywhere. The field looks promising but it's about a 1.5km walk so it looks like we will need to leave early one weekend and pack some lunch.

I still get the feeling that there is a field out there that is going to really help us fill in the backstory of this beautiful farmland. It's just a matter of time, and a few cane-fires and we'll find it.

Ominous Sunset.

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