Featured My coolest metal detecting find so far...probably.

I believe it is a militia officers belt buckle (partial) from the 1840’s. There was about ten feet of brush and wild rose bush/prickers on the side of a field that had bulldozed/bobcatted into the woods at some point in the last few years. It exposed a section of ground that probably hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. An old treasure hunter told me these fields have been hunted before, but not this part! This was barely an inch or two down! Probably got pushed by the machinery. About ten feet or so away in the swampland that borders the field sat an 1840’s large cent. Probably fell out after his buckle broke. Looks like a natural path someone would take to cross a small stream and head up a hill to some houses. I’ve found dozens of musket balls in the area so I’m beginning to wonder if I found a training ground.

 

neat find.......

 

Nice find! - I, unfortunately, cleared the park down the road of all their bottle caps and pull tabs.........

 

are you going to clean it up?

 

Doesn't look like it needs a whole lot of cleaning to me. Good find!

 

Wowser. Great find.

 

SO AWESOME to find a piece of history!!!!!

 

Very cool find!

 

Very cool. Very patriotic design elements same as presidential seal.

 

Just curious... roughly where are you?

 

Wasn't hard to find,what took everyone? https://www.virginiarelics.com/bran...ia-officer-s-tongue-for-two-piece-belt-plate/

 

He identified it as a buckle.....

 

I bet your eyeballs did a cartoon pop when you pulled that up. Congrats!

 

Wonderful, J, you're lucky to have found it.
I wouldn't do much cleaning on it.

 

That’s the most likely thing to find. Unfortunately bottle caps sound and read just like coins, and pull tabs just like gold rings. You need to dig those in order to find the better stuff. I go out of my way to hunt places that have as little modern trash as possible. Less likely to find gold and silver that way but more likely to find interesting old things.

 

I gently brushed the loose dirt off with a little wood skewer. That’s as far as I’m going. IMO it came up looking near perfect.

 

Agreed!