Found old spoons buried. Any ideas?

Perhaps, when our lives are back to normal, you might take your spoons to a metals dealer, coin shop, etc. that has an XRF spectrometer, then you will have percentages of the various metals present - and maybe consider a local museum's opinion of your finds.

Latten is an old brass type alloy, roughly 3/4 copper, 1/4 zinc, usually with a bit of iron also in the alloy; old pewter will be mostly tin, usually with a bit of lead, antimony and copper added. Latten was often tinned because of it's high copper content - 'nature's gilding' is a shiny gold surface change on glass or metal, usually pewter or tinned objects, a chemical reaction caused by long-term contact with some soils.

Have no idea what "shiny pewter" is, other than pewter polished to shine...

~Cheryl

 

I looked up antique Korean spoons and found quite a few examples. Sure enough, that is what these spoons are. I even found pictures with the half-moon handles and found similar spoons with square handles. Now the questions are, why and when were there six Koreans living in the woods of Zelienople, PA and why were the spoons all together in a pile? I'm not really sure how to go about dating these.

 

You were using a metal detector and found them, right? Have you really scoured the area for other finds that may shed more light on your spoons?

 

Yeah, I went back yesterday and didn't find anything. I am going back with a bigger coil tomorrow to see if anything is really deep. I was really hoping to find something else to help me with this. They were in a row along a span of two feet, like they fell out of a bag. If they fell out of a bag, the original camp could have been anywhere which is a real bummer.

 

Gosh, I hope you find more. This is very exciting! Please let us know!