Well there's your problem!

I just came home from a 2 week vacation in Kragerø and London. Sadly, I forgot to bring the metal detector to Kragerø, so it will have to wait for next year, when I'm going to stay there for a month. I did see some very interesting places on the island, though. A tall wall which seemed to have been some kind of road, and some very very deep mines which would be awesome to explore, but somehow I feel it might be too dangerous (excellent for throwing rocks into though).

England was very nice, and some of the days it was actually quite hot (about 17c). Sadly, I can't say the same for Norway. When I got back, it had gotten a lot colder, and the earth is beginning to freeze, making it very hard to dig some places. Not to mention all the leaves that would probably distort some of the signals.


So I guess this marks the end for metal detecting this season. Too bad I only got about a month to actually try it, but it was enough to at least find some interesting things.

I will be back as soon as winter has passed. When that happends, I will probably search some more open grassy areas.

~Quantonium

More bullets

Not much turned up today either.. I found some more old nails, some small bullets. I did however find quite a big bullet, which was pretty nice. I don't know what caliber it is, but as you see on the picture, it looks like a relatively normal hunting bullet.


Anyway, I'm finally done with the woods, and will have to find a new place to search. I have a number of options, so it won't be that hard to find a good spot. I'm hoping to find some more coins, since that's usually the most exciting thing to find, and since I haven't found any in a long time.

Ye olde axe!

I continued my way up the forest path today, but found very little. It seems it's not as much things of interest in this upper part of the forest as I hoped for. I'm soon finished with the whole woods though, so after that I have a lot of interesting places to visit.

Anyway, as I was searching, I thought I found a coin. It had a strong signal, and did'nt seem deep in the ground at all. I was very wrong though, for I had to dig about 15cm (6"), and what I found was quite unexpected. An axe! I have no idea how old it is, but it doesn't seem that old, because the wood that is left looks relatively new, and isn't really any squishy. I'm guessing that the handle probaly broke, and that the person just left it there. Consindering the debth and how corroded it is, it might be maybe 80 years old (at least that's what I hope). If this is true, this axe might once have been used for something while there was still ice block activity here.

A little update

Well, the last two days haven't really been that good. Yesterday i brought a couple of friends, even though it was pouring down. We only found a nail, and a tuna can. Today I continued up the forest path almost up to the dam. The soil is good here, so it's really easy to dig. I didn't really find anything of interest, although I did find a 50 øre from 2003. Not really great, but a coin is a coin.

My crap collection is getting larger, and my coin collection.. not so much. I'm hoping to find something around the dam in a couple of days.

More on the buckle

So I've asked around on some other forums about the buckle I found. Cryptic from allempires.com helped me eliminate a lot of possibilities, so that I now can say for certain that it is hand forged. Heres what he said as a conclusion:

"I think that the buckle was hand forged because:

- It is not perfect

- No mold lines

- The edges on some parts of the pin and some parts of the buckle look sharp. (first, third picture)

-The scatch (file) marks that you circled are all in the same places on the buckle. This implies personal attention and not mass production from molds

- The pin looks like alot of personal attention was put into making it square (first picture)

My guess is that it was hand forged as an individual buckle in a small shop before 1750."

On my metal detecting walk today I didn't find anything else than a round piece of metal under a large tree root (took me 45 minutes to hack the root away.. poor tree). My walk wasn't all bad though. I met an old couple who asked me what I was doing. So I told them of the buckle I found, and they nodded in agreedment. They told me that appearently this forest path is one of the oldest in Vollen (where I live)! It was used by pilgrims many hundred years ago, and the path it self was probably made around year 1000!

After hearing this, I can easily imagine some man from the 1750's running in the forest, and maybe ripping his pants, so the buckle fell of. I will have to search the area I found the buckle more thoroughly after a while, but for now I will continue up the forest where I went today, since there is much less trash there.

Another from the 50's

Today I wanted to go back and check around the area I found the knee buckle, so maybe I could find the missing part. No luck, though, so I decided to follow my original plan, to go upwards in the forest instead of downwards which I've done since I got the detector. And I must say, It was way better. Very few roots, and very few rocks. I found a lot of crap, some of it is in this picture of my crap-collection:


As I've gotten better at pinpointing, I'm also getting better at knowing when it's a bolt/nail, or something round like a bottlecap. This saves me a lot of time, but also takes out possible awesome finds, sadly. But all in it's time; I might go back there for relic hunting another time. For now I'm just coin shooting.

And I did in fact find a coin today. It's a 5 øre from 1952! So that makes this my third coin from the 50's (out of the 5 coins I've found so far, I'd say thats a pretty nice catch).



Hopefully tomorrow will be as good as today, and that the terrain doesn't change much from where I went today.

What!?

I asked on a metal detector forum what kind of metal the buckle was. The response I got was nothing short of shocking.

"It's no belt buckle , it is a colonial knee buckle. most are made of brass but they are made of various other metals too. It could be silver or pewter or even a tombac material. It's hard to tell from the pictures what exactly it is composition wise. But it is a neat find."

... Colonial knee buckle? Now, I live in Norway, so it can't be a colonial one, but appearently these buckles was used universally. Appearently it might be as old as the late 1700's! I seriously hope it is this old, but it might be newer.

The inner core seems to be iron, since it's very corroded. Appearently one of the "handles" have broken off (maybe the reason it fell off?). It seems very much like it is hand made, since there are irregularities all over it. I can't see any sign of a signature, but there are scratch marks all over it. It feels quite heavy.

I'm going to research this more, and probably take it to someone who knows their stuff about this period. I'm seriously psyched about this, and really hope it's old.

Belt buckle!

Today was a really bad MD day. I spent about 2 hours searching through the most trashy area I've seen, and didn't find anything else than rubbish. On the way back however I felt the urge to quickly go over an area longer up the forest. After a while I got a really strong signal, which turned out to be a belt buckle. Now, I have no idea what kind of metal it is. At first I thought silver, but after further inspection, I found out that it can't be.. It seems too rough and dark. I don't know how old it is either.



Anyway, I'm done with the worst part of the forest now, and tomorrow I'm going up instead of down. This part has been used way more the last 40-50 years, so I hope I'll find some coins there.

Danish coin?

So I just came home from my MD walk. Today was a relatively disappointing; I found a lot of crap, and nothing of real interest. I did however find a danish 50 øre from 1996. Sadly, I didn't even have to dig it up, it just lay there on top of the soil! Not very interesting, but at least it's Danish, which is a plus..

I'm getting close to being finished with the first part of the forest I'm currently searching. In fact, I'm probably done with it tomorrow. As for the day after that, I will be going up instead of down, as I've only done so far. There are fewer rocks there, but it might be more roots.. In any case, this forest hasn't been a good place to search. There is so much rubbish here it's horrible. Leaves, branches, smashed wine bottles, aluminum foil everywhere.. It's basically a dumpster. Plus very few people walk there, so it's not weird I'm not finding much coins. But here I am complaining.. I must not forget that I actually found 2 coins from 1950!

Anyway, it feels good to get more and more coins. Now I'm beginning to feel that I can say that I have a collection (even though it's just 4 coins and a button so far). Can't wait to test out other, more open and public areas.

Kragerø

I thought I'd take some time to talk about a nice place called Kragerø. We have a small house there, close to the water on an island called Langøy. Now, the interesting thing about this place is that it used to be a place Bærums Jernverk (Bærums ironworks) got their iron ore. There are lots and lots of mineshafts on the island, and old metal tractors are everywhere.

It's not entirely known when they started mining there, but it was sometime on the 1600'th century! Now, if I'm really lucky, I might find some really old coins there..

I'm going there in a few weeks, so it will be really interesting to search the island. Of course I will keep the blog updated.



I can't imagine how awesome it would be to find 400 year old coins :D

Coin shooting finally pays off

Well, good news. I finally found my first coins! I'm starting to get familiar with my metal detector, so I can to some degree now understand when I've found a coin instead of a nail.

I did however find some nails this time too, though this time one were a bit more interesting. I don't know if it's actually a nail, though. I am guessing it might have been used for a bridge or something, when people dragged iceblocks over there. I found it close to a river.



Anyway, for the coins, I found three. The smallest one, a 10 øre, somehow got lost when I came home, sadly.. But the 2 others seem nice.

This one is a 10 kr from 1983. I remember using these coins when I was little. I always loved these ones, and it's cool to find one now.


This one here is quite interesting, it's a 2 øre from 1953!


If you don't know already, 1 kr (or NOK)) is about $0,17. It's 100 øre in 1 kr. Kr stands for "Krone". In english that would translate to "Crown".

My first finds!

Well, I got up relativly early today, so that I could do some searching. What I wanted to do today was try it in my backyard. There was _a lot_ of things there. I didn't even bother to get them all, mainly because it seemed only to be nails.

Despite this though, the first thing I found was something cool. A button. At first I thought it was a coin from some weird age, but then i turned it over and saw that it had a small ring where one can attach it to a jacket or something.

I do believe this button is from when me or my brother were children. We used to wear Bunad (the Norwegian national costume), on the constituion day. As we were running around like madmen in our garden, perhaps one of us lost a button. I don't know, but it doesn't seem that old. Probably around 15-20 years. I'm having problems really understanding how old it is, and what metal it is, but it seems it is clad with a shiny metal, and some coarser metal inside.. Maybe iron?

Pictures

Here's the pictures of the metal detector. By the way, I tested it in the darkness in my backgarden. I threw my keys out there at random, and found them really really easy with the detector.. So it works :D

Now I'm going to read the manual that came with it, so hopefully I will understand the controls better.

It's here!

Well, good news. I went to the post office, and there i saw my detector waiting for me. I almost forgot batteries, so I had to go back again, but oh well. I came home as fast as I could, and assembled it. After a couple of minutes it was ready to be used. Now, I did encounter an annoying problem; the sound was non-ajustable. When I plugged my headphones into it, the sound was unbearable. Thankfully I found a pair of headphones that had a manual sound-level controller. They are not as good as the others, but they will work.

Anyway, I'm gonna eat some dinner now, and after that I will post some pictures of the detector.

Quantonium~

No mail!

So it's already gone past the point where it doesn't seem that there will be any mail today. Irritating, but mostly because we actually haven't gotten any mail at all. Anyway, I thought I'd take the oppertunity to talk a little about where my first search will be.

Now, the place I live at is called Isveien. In english that means "The iceway". The reason for this name is because about a hundred years ago, people used to cut out big chunks of ice from a place called Østenstad-dammen. Which is about a man-made pond about 500 meters wide or so. Anyway, as I said, people used to take ice-blocks out from that pond and drag them down to the shore, about 1 kilometer away. Here they were loaded on to ships, that sent them different places all around the world. The ice itself was used for cooling down food and materials.

What I hope to find is some evidence of this. Bolts, screws, coins and maybe even some equipment used for hacking out the ice (if I'm lucky).

P.S. As I wrote this, the mail actually came, but no luck. There was only bills.

Quantonium~

Ordered my metal detector

Ok, so I just ordered my first metal detector. A not too expensive Bounty Hunter Tracker IV which cost me 1700NOK, which is about $300. It has gotten a lot of nice reviews, and it seemed to be a good way to start what seems like an awesome hobby. There are a lot of places that I know of in the area that was used a lot about 100 years ago. I hope to find something interesting around here. If not, there are many other places I can check out.

I have no experience what so ever when it comes to this kind of thing, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I will hopefully find my detector hiding in the mailbox in 1-3 days.

Quantonium~