F@*k'in A! I finally found one!

Today was the day I finally found the piece I've been looking for long and hard, in sweltering summer heat and frigid cold winters. There were many variables in finding it today and everythingl fell into place for today to be a end to my quest.
It all started with being assigned to the Rifle Range today at Stone Bay which is located down Hwy 17 towards Rocky Point and Castle Hayne and not too far from Richlands and Belgrade. I was up at 0400 and on my motorcycle and headed down the Hwy at 0445. I threw in my helmet in case for some reason it was a quick range, since after all today is Friday and the mines are open in Eastern Carolina!

After doin some shooting with the other couple hunnerd Jarheads, we wrapped it up. I pondered what I should do since it was god-almighty swealtering hot, and I was dripping from head to toe. But I figured, “what the hell, I'm dirty smelly and feel lucky” and filled up my 48 ouncer with water and headed to the mine.

After checking in at the mine and asking if anyone else was poking around, the manger said “Are you kidding! If your lucky maybe you'll get some rain in there to cool you off.” I left after he wished me lucky in finding something good and rode the bike down the gravel rode and past all the trucks moving thru the pit. I thought to myself that I'd only be able to last a couple of hours at most in this burning rotisserie of fossil hunting misery.

I headed to a area that looked like it was some new work and wandered around when I suddenly spied a large Ricky's enamel pasted in the dirt of the crushed roadway. Sure'nuff after prying her out she would've be a beauty if she was complete but, they never are....

I was thinking these types of thoughts knowing that somewhere in here there must be a complete money making, picture taking, I'm not faking, complete Big Boy Aooowricckcuuueliiiiitetisssss. I looked down on the ground and there it was looking up from the dirt.

I had to catch myself from tinkling in my pants, then I pulled my Gerber out and started to dig away the dirt around the blade of the tooth. As the Gerber kept going down and I kept seeing perfect blade I gently pulled and in a nanosecond could see that this was finally the one that I've been looking for these past three years! After 10's of millions of years this perfect black with gray striped mottled enamel birthed in just shy of 4inches!

I almost called it a day right there but that's not me, so I pulled this odd-ball tooth out a little while later, it's fragile as can be and I've haven't noticed around on the boards anyone know what it is?
“When its boiling summertime, it's time to hit the mine!”

OMG! Noids

I pulled into the lot about 1230, and some girls from VA. Tech were just coming out of the pit, dog-tired and sweaty. "Didn't get much at all, and it's too hot"! They warned me as they hightailed it back to Ole Virginia. Me and Fred the Foreman swapped some Marine Corps stories, then he mentioned that very few fossil hunters have been coming by during the summer. And folks, he was right! I only saw one set of footprints and that was in the popular Kellum Zone.

Rocky Point has changed quite a bit from the springtime. First, the Northern hills which were old and weathered and where most of the Auriculitis's were found in the past is, well..... all gone. You can kiss your Ricky finds goodbye. Like Fred the Foreman said " There isn't many teeth coming from the southern edge of the mine". And he's right. There just ain't much of a chance in finding any big teeth on the south side. However, if your into Noids errr I mean Echnoids then you are in for a treat. At least I was cuz there hasn't been anyone through the area. Noids were plentiful, I only picked up perfect ones and the others I chucked at the birds. I follow that great fossil theologian Meg-Head's motto which is "Buddy! Just how many Noids do you really need? They're a girl fossil man!”
But hey, I did find some weird stuff, and as always weird stuff is good! Maybe I'll be enlightened on some of these ultra-rare finds and Bill Gates will contact me soon thereafter.

Army of the Potomac

Last week I was able to visit a old stomping ground near Fredricksburg Va. since I was attending a Marine Corps conference up in Quantico. About ten years ago I was able to get a few three ringers and some lead slag in this tiny valley between two hillocks in the woods off of Interstate 95. I always wondered over the years if there was anything left as I did not do the area justice with my old Tesoro detector.

Army of the Potomac Company "B" cap badge

Nowadays with armed with a Minelab Excalibur I jumped into the woods from a newly laid parking lot and searched for the area I knew "they" were at from my hunt ten years prior. I walked along the ridgeline of a meandering hilltop which may have been a footpath long ago, and stumbled upon some old hand formed bricks haphazardly strewn about under the leaves in places on a flat plateau.

With mosquitoes buzzing and ticks crawling I did manage to find a very old piece of silver spoon and a flat button also some old iron kettle pieces but nothing definitive. I was getting a bit tired as the Minelab is no lightweight machine and it was getting late in the afternoon so the woods were darking up a bit. I decided to head back straight over some ridgelines and toward the sounds of traffic.

I soon descended into a small valley and pondered that this may be the spot from before, so I slowed down and started to scan the center wherein the past runoff from rains carved a small depression. It was nice to hear the detector sound off after a long silence and lead slag was soon in hand, then a foot away the first bullet sounded off. I knew this was the spot, and started to work every inch slowly, as the time before I just ran thru and never had the opportunity to go back like I planned.

Supply tin and lead bullet

As I flipped over the divot with my boot and saw the companybadge lying in the dirt, I knew the relic hunting gods were treating me with a favor! The week before I lost a WW2 lapel pin I just purchased at a military show for 50 clams and I guess this was a payback from the Gods for being such a swell guy! What I really need to I.D. are these pieces of some sort of tin. Some ofthe pieces have a copper threaded stud soldered onto the top. It was found within a few feet of the cap badge and some minne balls. Anyone have aclue on what was inside 147 years ago?