metal detector yard find

[toddrandolph]

I borrowed a cheap metal detector last spring and found a few silver coins, a bunch of modern change, and about 30 pounds of scrap iron and other metal in my yard. It was fun, so I just bought a Fisher F2 detector. Not much I can do with it right now with the snow and ice, but I took it out for a few minutes the other day and found a brass military button. It has an eagle on front with a C in a shield. Back is impressed Horstmann Allien N.Y., hard to read. The loop in back is braised on. I looked this up and it seems it is civil war era and the C is for Calvary, so I looked up the civil war record of the first owner of my house, William H. Bettes and sure enough he was in the Ohio Calvary. I thought that was a super cool find. The pic shows the button along with a 1909 quarter in amazingly good shape, a 1956 quarter, and 2 mercury dimes all from my yard. The coins were found last spring. I'm hoping for some more silver.

 

[JohnDeereMoxie]

Nice finds, I just got a detector too lol. Good luck!

 

[2find4me]

The Barber Quarter and the Button are killer! Hopefully some day I can upgrade my detector.

 

[hemihampton]

What year was your house built? Did you dig the Privy yet? LEON.

 

[botlguy]

I don't mean to be a nit picker but thought you might like to know that the Army guys who rode horses were called the Cavalry. Calvary was where Christ was crucified. Many folks make that mistake.[8D]

 

[toddrandolph]

Thanks for the spelling clarification, lol, I do not have much knowledge of military stuff. The quarter is in amazingly good shape for being in the ground all those years. I haven't found the privy but have a good idea where it probably was. Anyone in the area with probing experience is welcome to come over and help me find it. The house was built in 1870 and I've found a few pontil shards around the yard so there could be some good stuff in it.

 

[cobaltbot]

Nice finds, especially the button and the attribution to an earlier owner. Would be nice to find a picture of him and put that in a shadowbox with a little biographical info!

 

[bobble]

 

[Plumbata]

Great button and coins, hopefully you can add more goodies to your stash as the weather improves.

 

[toddrandolph]

I went around some over the weekend, weather permitting. Someone must have busted up a stove and thrown it in the back yard in the distant past, so I got about 5 lbs of cast iron and some misc. other scrap and 4 post 1959 but real copper pennies. Nothing interesting except what looks like an early hubcap of the type what were used on Model T era cars. It has a DB monogram on it, the only thing I can think of is Dodge Brothers?? I haven't cleaned the dirt out of it yet, so I'm not sure it is even a hubcap, it looks to be made of aluminum or maybe zinc, I am not sure. I am still learning how to use detector and trying to figure out the best setting of sensitivity and discrimination, realizing that big pieces of metal will override the discriminator and I am getting a lot of either false hits or just stuff I can't find. I probably should have spent a bit more and gotten a better detector.