The Perfect Hunt!

        The fall hunt was perfect in many ways and we couldn't have ordered better weather! We pulled our trailer out to the Fly Wheeler's show grounds on Wednesday so that I could drive out on Friday for our friend, John Dudley's birthday party. I didn't get there until after dark, but it was easy to find the party because of the big bonfire. John had lots of friends show up and we had fun visiting and roasting hot dogs. By the way, I got the last of some great potato salad! It was kind of dark, so I'm not sure, but that is what it tasted like!

        I stayed the night at the campground, but I left John's party a little early because I had a few jobs to finish up on my trailer. We have owned the trailer since 1999 and I still haven't learned that yellow jackets love to build their nests behind the outside door covering the gas hot water heater. I needed to tighten up the drain plug so that I could turn on the water to the trailer. I fumbled around in the dark and was having no luck. Finally, I took the time to get out my flashlight. When I could see where I was working it caused me to jump away from the trailer! I was actually bumping into a nest with at least a dozen bees present! Those nasty little buggers have nailed me before, but thankfully not on that night!

         It was such a beautiful night to sleep in the travel trailer. It had been hot that all that evening, then sometime after midnight a storm front moved through. I don't mind rain when I am camping as long as it is at night. I wouldn't mind a little rain every night for that matter because the sound of rain on the RV roof makes a soothing sound.

        That night I slept like a log! The next morning, as I left for work, I looked around to see how many other club members were camping. I was surprised to see that I was the only one! No wonder I slept so well! It was so quiet-- apart from the rain.

        Saturday morning I left for work and I had about one hour to make the forty-five minute drive. I headed down the road and was nearly to Grand Junction before I realized I forgot my wallet! I don't know how I could have forgotten it. As I drove back to the trailer, I was beginning to fear that I may have lost it! Well, it was there, but my stupidity made me fifteen minutes late for work.

       When I got to work, I checked my answering machine for messages and there was one from our president, Mike Walker. Mike's message was that the hunt team agreed to cancel the Saturday night Buffalo Nickel Hunt due to lack of interest. That didn't sound very promising. I was afraid that someone might be upset if they drove up just for that hunt at today's gas prices!

      Things sure started to look- up on Saturday evening. When I got to the Fly Wheelers, the gang had a nice campfire going and everyone was clearly having a good time! The weather was perfect and we were enjoying a star-filled sky and a big, full harvest moon! Man, it just doesn't get any better than that! I didn't realize that Rick Seymour had not been to the Fly Wheeler's before! Rick and his wife came up to enjoy the bonfire with us Saturday evening, and they brought a nice young black lab that they were dog sitting.

       Saturday night, back in Kalamazoo, my wife was going to leave work, pick up our granddaughter and then make the long drive to South Haven. By 10:00 I started to worry when they didn't show up. Deb is up as early as 5:30 am to go into her nursing job where she works a so-called 12-hour shift. Often, it turns out to be a 14-hour shift! I worry about everyone who drives through the fruit belt area of southwest Michigan after dark at this time of year.

       One night, just a few miles west of Kalamazoo, I slowed down my car when I saw deer crossing about a quarter mile ahead of me. I nearly coasted to a stop and they were still crossing the road! I looked onto the moonlit, fresh-cut corn field and I counted over 50 deer!

       By Saturday evening, we had several campers and many others like Rick and his wife, who drove out to enjoy the evening. It was about 11:00 when my wife and granddaughter safely arrived at the campground. Little Madison was out like a light and my wife was dead tired, so we went to bed, but it was the end of a great day!

       We slept in until it was about time for me to present the group with the Sunday morning worship service. During the whole weekend, the absence of our deaf friends and Kathleen our interpreter was very noticeable, especially at the worship service. These people have become very special friends to all of us!

        There was a good turnout for the worship service and I believe with all my heart that God, through the study of his Word, spoke to all of us!

        I had been studying a topic out of the ancient book of Proverbs, when my eyes were opened to an amazing situation involving today's churches. I don't take credit for the Sunday message -- the praise is rightfully God's. I know that many people said that the message was a real eye opener and provoked some real soul searching! I wish to thank each one of you who attended the service!

        We had one of the best potluck dinners ever! That covered grandstand area, where we usually are for our dinner, was blocked off, so we had to go to plan B. The work crew from the county jail was working on the grounds, so John Dudley talked them into using one of the old tractors and a farm trailer to bring some extra picnic tables over to our camping area. They were happy to do it. This would not have worked out so well without perfect weather, but that is what we had... it was perfect! The area where we held the kid's hunt, potluck, and prize tables was different this year and it worked out so well! Everything, except the hunt fields, was right near the campfire circle.

       Ron Wilson camped with his wife and grandson, Paul, and the lad enjoyed gathering up leaves to put on the fire. Occasionally, the wind would change the course of the smoke, which would find him in trouble with his grandpa! He had a great time, as did all the children!

        My granddaughter is a dinosaur lover! She has all of the Land Before Time videos and a collection of stuffed and plastic dinosaurs that is vast! Her grandmother spoils her! One of the last dinosaurs Deb gave to her was one that is still in its egg. You take the egg and place it in a clear jar of water for 72 hours. After the first day, the egg develops crack marks all over the surface and, by the next day, you start to see the nose poke out, then a foot and so forth. What you get is a small toy made of a dense sponge-like material. She calls it, "My baby dinosaur!"

        It is only about three inches long and small enough to be hidden under a leaf. It is painted with fall colors-- green, yellow and burnt orange. Well, she dropped it some- where amongst thousands of leaves that are the same colors! Three or four times, we gave up on finding it. Finally, one of the hunters spotted the little toy in a clearing under a tree with no leaves around it! Getting her baby dinosaur back sure made her day.

       Madison got herself in hot water with president Mike! Instead of yelling at her he hollered, "Grandpa!"

       Mike and Shelby were trying to plant the coins for the kid's hunt. The problem was that Madison was finding them faster than they could plant them-- without a detector! That night, after the busy day was done, Deb emptied Madison's pockets before putting her jeans in the laundry. Deb put the trinkets on the end table next to my living room chair. I recognized what I was looking at as Madison's treasures, because I noticed several green and red bingo chips that the kids were finding in the grass. Mixed in with the plastic chips were two quarters: one was clad and one was a 1959-D silver! So, John, if you are still searching for that last unreported quarter-- we found it.

        We had so much fun it was hard to believe my ears as I walked into the last board meeting. The talk was about doing just one seeded hunt next year, instead of two. We only had 17 hunters! I know, it is hard to believe, but it is true! There are probably many reasons for this low turnout. I think that it just simply didn't work out for most people this time. I do know of a few regular hunters who have stopped attending the hunts because of health problems. Also, the higher gas prices and the $30.00 hunt fee have caused some to shy away.

        We don't actually keep track or publish a hunt winner. We have never done that and it is a good thing because, if my hunt results were published, it would usually be embarrassing! I think that I did about average and maybe even below average at the fall hunt. If I include Madison's quarter with my hunt finds I have: 1 silver dollar, 2 silver half dollars, 6 silver quarters, 7 silver dimes. That is a face value of $4.20 and the coins weigh 105.1 grams and the scrap value is $41.47! I think that many people found back most of their hunt fee in silver. If you have never been to a hunt like this, you are missing a great time!

        The Saturday before the antique bottle club meeting, a couple of my bottle digging friends gained access to an 1850 home in Kalamazoo. They probed the back yard and found two outhouse pits, which they dug. Both pits were the last two that were used, and newer, so they were somewhat disappointed. Clearly they had not been dug before because the root structure was intact, but the bottles were common. Well, you just never know until you dig!

         The fellows, Sanjit, (pronounced Sän'gee) and Bill, cleaned up the dig site, then went to the door to thank the homeowner. The guys figured that the original, older outhouse pits had been destroyed when a newer outbuilding was built behind the house, so they questioned the homeowner about that. She had no knowledge of the builders finding any bottles. However, she did say that a carpenter found an old bottle when they had the front door replaced.

         You see, these two diggers are professional! Seriously! You must leave no stone unturned!

         In one of the digs that I was in on, a big three-car garage was built over at least two outhouse pits. The contractors do not completely dig the pits as we do, sometimes they just peel away the cap, but they do expose some old bottles. In this situation, the homeowner picked the bottles up, thinking that they may be of some value. However, by now he had all but forgotten about them-- until we asked!

        We found that he had stored the bottles in a wooden box, back in a corner of that new garage. As I recall, there were a few keepers, including a rare Michigan whiskey that was worth at least a couple hundred dollars! Here is the kicker, the homeowner insisted we take the entire collection for free!

       Meanwhile, Sanjit and Bill waited while the lady went to get her antique bottle. She had told the guys that the front door of the old house was big and had no window. After a long search, they found a modern door that fit well with the old home's architecture, but it was bigger and would require all new framing. The new door was much taller, so the area over the old door had to be removed. There, hidden in the wall was a bottle left by the builder 157 years ago!

       Sanjit and Bill knew that it was what collectors call an "Historic Flask." Knowing just enough to know it was worth some risk, Sanjit offered the lady $100.00 for the bottle, which she gladly accepted. After leaving the home with their treasure, Sanjit phoned me on his cell phone.

         "Al, are you interested in buying a nice bottle? We came across something that I think you might like."

          I turned my first thought into words, "At this time of year, I am nearly broke!"

          Early fall, when the kids are going back to school, it gets tough! Most of the guys are thinking about deer hunting, and many of the county fairs are going on. Well, folks are not thinking about metal detecting. Not me; fall is my favorite time for detecting and privy digging.

         "Well, Al, at least let us run it over for you to see."

         "Hold up, Sanjit! About how much money are you thinking?

        " I don't know for sure. Al, you have all the books, why don't you look it up?"

         "OK, I'll look it up, tell me what it is, then call me back in five minutes."

         I found the bottle listed in the big Auction Price Report , but my copy is very old. It was printed in 1996! When Sanjit called me back, I told him that there are 9 different variants of this bottle, and in my older report they range from $120.00 to nearly $3,000.00! I told him;

        "Sanjit, I still don't have a clue what this bottle is worth."

         "Well Al, let's narrow it down one step at a time. It says, 'Traveler's Companion' on one side, and it has an eight-pointed star. On the other side, it says 'Ravenna Glass Co.' and it has another eight-pointed star."

          That narrowed it down. It put the bottle in the most desirable grouping!

          "Al, the color is medium amber, and it is iron pontiled with a sheared top."

          Amber is nearly, if not the most valuable color! So the price shoots right up! Iron pontiled means that this could be one of the oldest variants, so the price shoots even higher! The last part, the "sheared lip,"... well, that detail takes the "could be" out of the last sentence! This bottle is indeed one of the oldest! Also, because it is not chipped, scratched, and in an un-dug attic-mint condition, the price soars even higher!

         "Sorry Sanjit, this bottle is out of my league! To be honest, I don't even want to see it! I would be better off if I didn't even know about it."

         "Al, we put all of our cash together to buy this bottle and we need to raise some money so we can keep digging this weekend."

          "Sanjit, just so that you will understand my situation, the very most I can spend right now is $300.00! So now you can see that you are barking up the wrong tree! I wish I could help you, my friend."

         You could have knocked me over with a feather after hearing Sanjit's next remark!

         "Al, $300.00 is just what we were thinking!"

I took the bottle to the bottle club meeting and it was a real show stopper! The experts were very impressed! Sometimes you just get lucky!


      The bottle still has its cork in place however the former owner attempted to pull it out and damaged the cork. The bottle still has stains from the whiskey that it once held.  
   
        Behind the flask is a war log that was given to me by my friend Chip Manion. Chip found the war log at the location of the battle of Rocky Face Ridge in Dalton, Georgia. I had two great, great, great grandfathers who were involved with the fighting in Georgia during Sherman's March to the Sea.  The war log has a 50 caliber Confederate bullet lodged in it.

       Our treasure hunters were busy and having some great success! Two of our newest members had some mind boggling treasure on display, but they didn't know how to enter their items into our Find of the Month contest. That sparked some discussion at the board meeting of re-starting the issuing of our "new member kits." which was the brain child of Greg Stonerock. Speaking of Greg, has anyone seen that fellow? We sure miss that smiling face at the meetings and the hunt!

        My long time friend, Eileen Burns, and Sharon Balyeat received permission to hunt a very old home after helping the family close an estate for them. Under the floor of the old Michigan cellar, their detector let out a strong loud report! A little digging revealed two tin jar lids.

        The jars were the large size, cobalt blue Noxzema Skin Cream jars and together they contained 27 Silver Walking Liberty halves, 22 silver quarters (mostly standing Liberty), 20 silver dimes (one Barber dime), and 25 Buffalo nickels!

       Now I know at least one or more people must have taken a picture of their cache, one that we can post on the club web site -- right? What an awesome find! Other people displayed treasure at the last meeting as well. Chuck Stephens had his summer's water finds for folks to drool over!

       Also there was an assortment of display cases filled with awesome relics found by our club members who went to the big Relic Shootout's Colonial Hunt. If you missed the September meeting, you missed a great one!

1. Colonial Era Cuff Links                                                            By: Charles Turner

2. Frog Pendant                                                                                  By: Rick Burch

3. Victorian Lover's Pin                                                         By: Michelle Raskoskey

4. 10-K Gold Ring with Gemstone                                                     By: Steve Brown

5. Victorian Earring                                                                       By: Jerry Lipscomb

6. Antique Silver Ring Amber Stone                                                     By: Dick Rook

7. Victorian Pendant Bezel                                                                 By: Mike Walker

8. 10-K Woman's 1938 Class Ring                                                     By: Jim Arnsman

9. Silver Ring with Purple Stones                                                   By: Deb Wittkowski

10. Gold Catholic Cross                                                                        By: Ron Jenner

11. Colonial Era Broach Pin                                                                      By: Shawano

12 18-K & 14-K Two Tone Ring                                                  By: John Assenmacher

         I usually start the newsletter at least a couple weeks after the previous meeting. That is when I have really come to appreciate all of the hard work our Find of the Month team does! Linda Sherwood is really under stress trying to organize the find entries without Linda Randolph's help and, at the last meeting, one of our newer members, Alta Herman, volunteered to start lending a hand! Thanks, Alta!

      Another hero in the Find of the Month program is Dan Clark! Dan does a super job of photographing all of the finds and then running the club's projector. On top of all of that, you can go to the club web site and enjoy a slide show of all the goodies! That is a huge help to me and, when I can look over each item in my leisure, I find that I can appreciate them more.

        Take this for example; Michelle Raskoskey's entry slip simply said, "pin front." Well, that did not jog my memory at all. So, I went to the club web site and looked through the slide show and there it was. Do you remember it? It is a very beautiful Victorian Love pin! It is a great addition to Michelle's treasure collection and I wish I had found it! So check out the slide show and be sure to give Dan a big thanks!

      Jim Arnsman was our winner with his 1938 woman's class ring. If she is alive today, this girl would be in her late 80's by now. This would be a fun ring to return, but I don't know how much information is on the ring.

COIN FINDS

1. 1899 "V" Nickel                                                                                 By: John Frederick

2. Ho-Nan Province Chinese Coin                                                             By: Tom Herman

3. 1860 Seated Liberty Quarter                                                                 By: Rick Seymour

4. 1934 Walking Liberty Half Dol.                                                        By: Nancy Lipscomb

5. 1893 Indian Head Cent                                                                           By: Mike Walker

6. 1785 Nova Constellatio Copper                                                            By: Charles Turner

7. 1916 Mercury Dime                                                                                    By: Ron Jenner

8. 1909 Indian Head Cent                                                                           By: Jacob Kudary

       The winning coin was a product of hard work and a very good treasure hunter! My dream, first as a coin collector than as a detector user, has been to find a colonial copper coin! I used to pour through the front pages of the coin value guides and marvel at the crude beauty of these old coins! 1785! What an awsome find Charlie! Charles Turner, You-da- man!

1. 1942 Colorado Chauffer's Badge                                                           By: Tom Herman

2. Holiday Inn Token                                                                                     By: Dick Root

3. Warren Dunes Souvenir Token                                                          By: Deb Wittkowski

4. 1969 Cheshire Co. Dog Tag                                                                    By: Mike Walker

5. Token from Congress Hall Hotel                                                          By: Rick Seymour

6. Good Luck Rolled Penny                                                       By: (Mr Lucky) Ron Jenner

           Rick Seymour asked me if I knew anything about Congress Hall in Saratoga, New York, and I surprised him! I have some beautiful emerald green mineral water bottles from the Congress Spring and Empire Springs located in Saratoga, New York, and these are some of my favorite bottles! The spring water is what put Saratoga on the map in the mid-1800s. I read an article online about these mineral springs. It was first written in 1861. The man described the springs as flowing out of solid rock! This was because the rock had been formed by the rich minerals magnesia, lime and iron which are held together by the carbonic acid in the gas from the spring. In 1861, the rock for the Congress Spring was 24 feet across and the spring's opening was one foot in diameter. This spring water was claimed to cure whatever ailed you! I don't know how good it was, but they sure used some high quality bottles!

Looks like I need to dust.

1.Me & My Buddy Click Gun                                                             By: Michelle Raskoskey

2. Cache of Buried Hand Tools                                                                   By: Charles Turner

3. Cat Face Brass Ash Tray                                                                            By: Tom Herman

4. Large Brass Mail Bag Pin                                                                          By: Rick Seymour

5. Toy Airplane-Car & Motorcycle                                                                   By: Billy Knapp

6. Eternal Life Key                                                                                    By: Nancy Lipscomb

7. Old Monkey Wrench                                                                                     By: Marie Burd

8. Colonial Button                                                                                           By: Mike Walker

9. Colonial Buckle                                                                                                  By: Shawano

                We had a good turnout at our last meeting but not as large as usual. We did have Rob Osborn and Sally Brown join. This fun loving couple are to be married soon! They not only joined the club at the last meeting, but have also already taken part in their first seeded hunt! It sure was fun to watch them because they really were having a blast! Another guest was Rick Fowler from Grand Rapids. Welcome one and all!

More Winners!

                 We always have dozens of great prizes to pass out at each meeting. John Dudley and Carol Firlik split the 50/50 money! A total of 91- 50/50 tickets were sold!