Back to the church-Lock, latch, and more.

Hi all,
Just spent more time at the old church, but now have move to the back yard area that appears to have once been livestock area for a short period, then wooded before that. I managed to soon find a couple shotgun brass casings that I was later to identify as being from around the 1900-1909 period, which shows me I'm in the right area! But soon I was mislead into digging many great silver type signals (12-44/46) showing from 7 to 10 inches, only to find shallow aluminum wire. Grrr....

Not much for coins but a lot of zincolns near the surface, but a couple surprisingly deep! I was about to end the morning and work towards the car when I got this deep signal that almost blew my ears off giving me a 12-48 to 12-49-last time I saw that was when I pulled my Franklin half, so I got real excited and dug real carefully. I was quite surprised when i ended up almost a foot down and pulled out a big heavy round bronze object with a key hole. Researching it later I found it is the front plate of a very old padlock! Just wish I could have found it whole...:shocked01: Still a nice find though. I also soon found an old latch with ceramic knob close by before I called it a morning.



This is what the whole lock I found looks like.

Cool. That plate came from a heavy duty lock !

keep at it Digger! that lock plate looks old

Just found an identical lock dated 1880 used on the Union Pacific RR. Identical to above pic, but shackle was stamped UPRR.

Thats old stuff. there should be more there.

Oh yeah, that lock plate cover is cool. I also wish the lock was whole cause the pictures you posted of the whole lock would be a great addition to any collection. I agree, you are in the right area, keep going back.

When I 1st got into detecting a guy with a very high end detector told me no matter what you spend on your detector.....they all lie....your aluminum wire.