confessions of a newbie

[jesster64]

I was very lucky when i started out. i had a friend with me who knew what he was doing. He'd been detecting/digging for at least 5 years. The first time we found some musket balls in a field, he knew what they were. I would never have known. He taught me about hot rocks, looking for color in the dirt(green for copper), petina, and discriminating. He told me to look in groves of trees and ditches.When we hit paydirt with the dump, he recognized it immediatly by the glass and pottery fragments. I ran around like an idiot picking up every bottle i found while he sat back and smiled. He found an ash layer and kept digging, eventually finding 2 pontiled small bottles. I was picking up ketchup bottles in the weeds. Even while detecting , i felt like charlie brown at halloween. What did you get charlie, I got a rock. What did you find today jesster, i found a nail, nail, big nail, nail, and.... a nail. He was finding large cents and spanish silver. It got so bad he offered to give me some coins. I said no way. finders keepers, the lessons he was teaching me were invaluable and he had put in his dues digging all these years. Eventually i got a lot better at detecting and digging. I can spot something that looks out of place , like pajama buttons or pipe stems. I'm not as good as him yet. he can look at a piece and say, crushed matchbox or german dolls head. I eventually did find my 1803 large cent though. Last time out, i found 2 (indian head)coins, a button, and part of a watch. He only found 1 coin and a button. Also, while learning from him, i hit every bottle and metal detecting web site i could find. i hit the library and researched my areas history. I made friends with people on the historic commision. I love digging and collecting and have gotten the urge to sneak onto properties. Unfortunately around here, thieves have been stealing copper and all types of metal so i don't go anywhere without permission. but I think about it....
Almost everyone on this board has paid their dues and knows what i'm talking about. thank you for welcoming me and the great stories and pictures you all post. the sanborn map and password website is fantastic.
Without my friends help, i'd probably be looking for spare change at the beach. now i have a decent collection of coins, buttons, buckles, and bottles. The first time i bought a metal detector, my mother laughed and said what do you expect to find, gold? I told her no, but it was better than sitting in front of the tv, at least i got fresh air and exercise. And 3 months ago, i did find a little bit of gold.
I've been stabbed in the back by a fellow collector, going to a site I showed him without me, even though he said he would never. I've made friends with some older people in the community, who love to tell stories, especially about the history of the area. I've seen a guy detecting in an old graveyard. All in 6 months. I have 4 other spots picked out allready and can't wait untill it warms up a bit.

 

[RedGinger]

How do you know the buttons were from pajamas?[8|]

 

[jesster64]

my boss is a history buff, civil war reenactor. he told me the little white buttons i found are called pajama buttons.

 

[Plumbata]

Hey man, I don't know why you feel guilty about the place you're at now, you don't need to confess anything!

No one here was born knowing how to discern the gold from the garbage, we all started somewhere somehow at some time when another person, more wise about the world and what it had to offer than ourselves, showed us the door to the knowledge in whatever realm it was that got us where we are now; at a bottle digging forum on the internet. It is up to all of us to enter the door and see what we can internalize and remember, out of all the info available, and choosing to enter that door because someone helped to show you the way does not mean that the person is doing the walking for you. All you need to be sorry about is the fact that you could be absorbing, learning and discovering cool things during every waking moment, but aren't! []

It seems that for all of 6 short months, you are learning volumes and doing excellently and don't have a thing to worry about besides continuing on in your learning and possibly absorbing knowledge about other fun and profitable things to watch out for while out in the natural world, such as:

Indian artifacts
Vintage car parts, for sale to restorers
Sheets of metal which may be overturned rare enamel signs
Blackberries, raspberries, wild strawberries, walnuts, etc
Ginseng and other rare plants, such as bonsai trees in rocky areas
Large burls on hardwood trees to cut off and season, for sale to woodworkers
Rocks, fossils and minerals native to your area
Evidence of rare animals
Edible mushrooms
and the list goes on and on, lol.

So anyway, it is good that you got around to discovering the fascinating hobby of layman's archaeology, and since you seem to hold a debt of gratitude, be sure to eventually return the favor to future collectors by continuing to learn how to improve and expand upon what you do (which seems to be quite fruitful already), and you will do justice to your mentors. I can't wait for spring either, let's try to take it for all it's worth this year, eh?

Keep on digging, the treasures await you!

 

[jesster64]

Thank you plumbata. Signs, car parts, and bonsai trees, never even occured to me. I always keep my eyes open for indian artifacts, which are supposed to be all over this area. Unless its a clear arrowhead though, i have no clue what to look for. arrowheads, spear heads, axeheads, etc...
The absolute best part about this hobby is you don't get anything without putting effort in. No one really takes you by the hand and says "dig here". It takes effort on your part, but when you pull out a bottle that hasn't seen the light of day in 150 years, its unbelievable.
The first time i started bringing stuff home, my wife just looked towards heaven and said "now what". Now when i come home, she looks at everything i find and i hear her on the phone telling her sister. I even got my 12 year old daughter involved. she checks out dates on the internet, especially the names on pottery pieces.
But once again, if i did not have a friend who showed me the ropes, i wouldn't know what i was doing. Now i get excited when i find a civil war era button or a colonial buckle. I'm also looking for blob tops, hutches,bitters, poisons, and pontils.

 

[Plumbata]

Well, for indian artifacts, the easiest thing for me is to tune into unnatural forms in a natural environment. Try to filter all the regular stuff out, and look for faceted edges, cylinders, lines, patterns, regularly spaced conchoidal fractures, grooves, unnatural smoothness, and otherwise man-controlled factors. Then the weird things will pop out at you, including the arrowheads which fall into many of those categories at once, and if you go pick the items up and investigate, you will start seeing those scrapers and tools and pottery shards that tell of villages, and the edges of mostly buried clovis points, that are all waiting for you in fields and creeks that you've probably been through before.

The first time I dug a hutch, I stuck my scraper into the ravine wall and with one stroke, out rolled a minty local hutch, and a somewhat harder to find one at that! I can still relive the shock and amazement of that fine bottle's rebirth, and yes sir, it is an indescribable feeling!

My parents have been okay with my collecting, and my dad was the one who introduced me to all this, when he started taking me to flea markets with him back when I was a kid, so as of yet there hasn't been much grief, especially since im at college and took alot of the clutter with me, and thankfully my girlfriend knows what to expect from my interests so she is cool with all the old stuff too.

Also, your friend showed you the ropes, and made it alot easier for you by allowing you to gain benefit from his experience, but there are manifold paths to a single goal, and if you had the desire, you could have navigated the ropes a different way by yourself, given the time. Having the potential interest in these dirty old things to begin with would have brought you to detecting and digging sooner or later, and I say this not to take credit from your good friend, but to give you some where it's due.

And get that kid of yours out digging too! She will thank you for it later.

 

[jesster64]

Plumbata, you're absolutly right. they eye is the best tool. I remember i was digging in a 3 foot hole. The tiniest hint of blue caught my eye. My first thought was what was an M & M doing here. I knew it was out of place and put it in my pocket. It turned out to be a little blue ceramic button.
One word of advice, enjoy college. Those were some great years for me. Sounds like you will have one hell of a collection when you reach my age.
I am getting my daughter involved. Like i said, it's better than TV and its fun/quality time. i work the midnight shift so i'm off with her all summer long. She especially likes the older coins when you can see the dates. Plus I think she gets excited when she sees me excited. She holds the detector while I do the digging. She can always say she went on a treasure hunt with her father.

 

[earlyglass]

Hello... my name is Mike and I am a bottle collector.

I'm not sure how it all happened, but somewhere along the line, the sickness got the best of me. I found myself in the gutter holding a Bourbon Whiskey Bitters. I had lost my job, and many of my friends. They had enough of my "bottle" talk... the stories, the wild times... it's amazing that I'm still alive!

PLEASE think about the commitment to the hobby before you jump in, it may change you whole life. Don't find yourself on a street corner holding a "Will work for bottles" sign!

Band Of Bottle Brothers!

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