Love those river dumps.

[cobaltbot]

Thats some great history and finds! I know what he means about the pitchers at the New Bedford museum, worth seeing!

 

[luckiest]

I like that butter pat, I tried to start a collection of local hotel and steamship china, but you need more then one piece to call it a collection! Great stuff to look at!

 

[Noleakjohn]

Disturbing to say the least!

 

[coldwater diver]

Potlid your depressing me, say it aint so. Well what is to stop someone who is a certified diver from getting his exercise scuba diving in the rivers? Do you know if the rivers are clear, deep etc? I might have to plan a dive vacation.

 

[bostaurus]

ORIGINAL: Potlidboy

coldwater

The States of California & Oregon wish to protect anything of historic interest for the people....a great notion. Our very liberal states frown on collectors removing historical items from public land & waters....again a great notion. Oregon recently forbids individuals from removing items on private property, even with permission from the owner or in owning the property itself...not such a great notion. Its a new time...upsetting in many ways. Many other states employ private parties to assist state archeologists in the recovery of meaningful artifacts. For example, South Carolina issues permits to recover fossils which are recorded by the state then returned to the finder. All of the items I have were recovered strictly following the law.

It is a large topic. Common sense and personal responsibility must prevail.

Potlidboy

I have mentioned this here before....the first bottle club i joined was down in Florida. There was a collector there that also dug the Native American middens that were up and down the coast. Many of these were just bulldozed when they were ready to put up more hotels and condos. There was a guy that came to the meetings, curator of a state museum, and this digger would show him the things he had found. They were both up front and honest with each other, the way it should be. the curator could learn about what was being found in local sites, he could add important pieces to the museum through loan or purchase, and he did not end up with thousands of bits and pieces sitting in boxes, taking up storage space, never being seen by anyone.

 

[surfaceone]

​

Braco Mike!

A great story & really fantastic artifacts! Just complete historic knock outs...

 

[Brian M]

Great finds. I like the nautical stuff. I started diving about 5 years ago in and around the Great Lakes. I plan to do some bottle diving this summer. I have founds lots of junk that I have brought home. It is a great hobby. In Michigan you can not remove artifacts from the shipwreck preserves, which includes old dock areas. Rivers and inland lakes are fair game.

Metal detecting and digging is ok in Michigan as long as you stay away from Federal land and state parks. We don't advertise where we are digging either, try to stay under the radar.