It was time for this seasons last searching together with Baard. His vacation is coming to an end and he has to get back to reality soon. We continued searching for old war relics from early morning yesterday. A friend of Baard has a garage where it was a Wehrmacht storage, next to the Gebirgsjäger camp and thats where we began. The place looked promising with several ditches and partly filled holes spread out through the forest. The first signal I got was iron and resulted in a large timber axe. The biggest I ve seen actually. It was next to the remains of a dug-out and inside there was a lot of good signals. The luck would have it to be nothing but wires and a piece of chain. Most of the ditches and holes was empty, or had some rations foil or practise ammo from more recent Nato and army excersises. Baard found a small ditch with relics from the wartime, but it was nothing much in it only a few nice bottles and several ski bindings, and in a small pit I found part of a ski pole and the spoon part from a Göffel. We figured this was not much to shout Hurrahs for, and decided to move into the next forest where we have been doing all our searching lately with somewhat better results.
We strolled the ca half kilometer through the woods while we swung the metal detectors in front of us. I walked closest to the road and picked up signal after signal, but it was all junk that idiots had thrown out of their car windows.
​ When we found the first of several barrack foundations we threw down the backpacks and did a quick sweep around the foundations before it was time for coffee. The summer had returned and it became a bit boiling in the open so soon I was back on my legs and went into the shade under the trees. Here I found a harmonica, some k98 casings and more rubbish from passing cars. 
When we met at the backpacks for lunch a bit later Baard had dug up a nice Norwegian coin. A bit bent and from 1952 but a pretty neat find. I had found a wet marshy ditch where I picked up a uniform button, a cavalry stirrup, a strange looking horseshoe tool (at least thats what I think it is), food tins and a small glass jar. We were sitting next to a large stinging nettle patch and Baard the lunatic just wandered into it checking for signals. He proved there was metals under the soil there but to what cost? We dug a bit from the sides of the patch as one probably would get stung to death sitting down in the middle of the bushes. From the soil came a half rotten Gebirgsjäger boot, a pair of spurrs, a padlock and two lanterns for candles. It was a pain digging there though as the nettles kept stinging and when putting the shovel in the ground some of them would fall over and whip their stingers across face and hands. Not terribly comfortable, so we moved on into the camp area and made plans to chop down the nettles before our next attempt there.
​The rest of the day we dug up some gaming pieces, M24 grenade parts, stripper clips and rifle casings, a field shovel, some cream tubes, a wallet and a silver spoon. Also a small chewing tobacco tin with a name engraved, a large wrench and more of the mine parts we found last time. 
The day had passed way too fast and we could agree that it had been a very nice trip out in the nature even if none of us felt we had gotten any really good finds. It ll be a year until next time Baard will be back in the North, but I am hoping to get a trip out again one of the next days. So until then, Keep Smiling :)

Just after 09 on Sunday morning me and Baard continued searching the remains of the gebirgsjäger camp. We were digging some signals when a loud explosion ripped through the silent forest, followed by the sound of a vehicle putting its breaks on and the clanking of a ruptured wheel. It was a trailer on the nearby road that had lost one of its wheels. Luckily it all went well with no accident happening. We continued to pull rusted items out of the ground but it was from a burn pit so most of the metal was in very bad condition, and glass and alloys came to the surface as melted blobs. Now I discovered that my pinpointer didn`t work any longer. I could turn it on and off, but it wouldn`t detect any metals. I sat down and had a closer look at the old tool. A small hole had developed and water had gotten into the electronics. How frustrating! I immediately found my phone, went online and ordered a new pin pointer. The searching went a bit slower after this as it took some extra time to locate items the detector picked up signals from. Luckily Baard hadn`t lost his pin pointer yet so now and then I had to borrow his machine. 
In front of the barrack my Fisher showed me a great signal and I began digging around it. It lay quite deep and for the longest time I was sure I had found a British helmet, but the promising looking rim was just part of some kind of bowl. Underneath the bowl was a few bottles. One small ether bottle with the liquid still inside, and a bigger bottle with some nasty looking yellow stuff inside. 
Next to one of the barracks I spent half an hour digging up a large metal plate and under it was a small metal tin with the paper label still intact, and a few M24 screw corks and ignitor cord pull balls. Baard was busy digging up some other metal fittings for the stickgrenades but we didn`t find any of the heads, or any intact wooden sticks. But I am sure they are somewhere in the area. Leaning against the barrack foundation stood several wooden wheels for carriages and some sleds rotting away in the undergrowth. We could see parts of ovens and rotting wooden crates. Also a large boiler from a kitchen was tipped over next to the ruin. It is such an interesting site to search! Next to the boiler I found half the instruction plate to the kitchen and a nice field made ashtray.
The hours flew by and the piles of scraps and finds grew steadily. I found some k98 ammo here and there, and a not so good signal turned out to be a great little find, a close combat knife where parts of its wooden grip had survived. Baard found a couple of sheet metal fittings that we saw had to be from mines. It looked like the construction used on wooden Schuminen, but it was larger. A little bit later while digging next to a ditch we found piles of these parts under the long grass growing there. I didn`t count how many but it had to be 30-40 pieces. After some research and posting them online we figured out they were German copies of Norwegian mines, named Befehls Schützen Mine M43 (n) ( Beh.Sch.m.M43 (n) ). 
It was a day where we mostly found scrap and rubbish, but still a great day, and as our energy ran out the evening was upon us nearly 11 hours after we began. The weather had been perfect all day long. Nice temps and almost no bugs and just a few drops of rain.
We had planned to continue the search the next day but rain ruined that plan so hopefully we ll get another chance around the weekend if the stars align perfectly.
Until then, keep enjoying the summer as best you can :)

I guess some of you read the title and eagerly clicked the link, but no, it is not the `Blue Öyster Bar` kind of leather this will be about, I am reffering to some old leather from military equipment I found yesterday. Me and the Girlfriend went out to the woods to forage some plants and to hunt for relics. These days we are collecting Fireweed. We will make syrup from the flowers, and later we ll harvest leaves from the plant to make tea. Tasty and pure goodies from the nature. While Girlfriend filled two bags with flowers I went up and down the slope with my metal detector and dug up a bunch of rubbish and rifle casings. The only good find I had was the lid from a Wehrmacht soup container. A couple of hours passed and Girlfriend left to trek up a mountain to check on one of her insect traps so I moved along and into an area where it was a few remains of barracks. Here I found a German messkit which looks like the owner engraved his initials on, a bed pan, sadly it was rusted through and a lid for a tea pot. Then I dug up a small enamelled soup ladle, the type that fits into the lid of the soup containers. A very nice little find!
I walked into a small open patch in the birch forest and there was a lonely signal waiting to be found. When I saw the square piece of metal that was one half of a Stalag tag (POW ID tag) I was really happy! Like I mentioned in my last report, I haven`t found any stamped tags for years but this week it is raining apparently. I placed the tag safely in my pocket and went over the moss with the pinpointer. 5 cm away it goes "BeepBeep". There was the other half of the tag!! The day couldn`t be any better. Or so I thought.
I found a dumping pit and spent an hour digging it but it was all broken glass and metal bits that once was something, and then I walked around for an hour not finding much. I began my journey back to the car and strolled into a bit of a marshy area. Here the detector picked up an interesting signal. I was dry but I couldn`t pass on this one. With the pinpointer in hand I submerged my arm into the cold dark amber colored liquid. Elbow deep. I could feel the pinpointer touch something so I placed it on dry land and stuck my arm back into the water and felt around. I grabbed hold and pulled out two leather frogs for the K98 bayonet! The next handful was two k98 ammo pouches! This went on for the next half hour- forty minutes. I had a whole pile of the stuff next to me. I had pulled out a piece of cloth too which was the rests of a jacket, but the only salvageable from it was some buttons. It was a pretty exciting session. I did another sweep with the detector and got an iron signal, and I was hoping for a bayonet or even a gun, but insted a small piece of thin metal that once was a German helmet came up from the marsh. But together with it was the chinstrap in good looking condition. This place will be visited again soon, coz who knows what more might be around there. Maybe nothing, but maybe something; this thrill of not knowing is a big part of the joy this hobby gives me :D
Today it is raining a lot so I emptied the bag with the leather and did a count, 23 intact frogs, 9 that has fallen apart and 5 incomplete ammo pouches. A pretty good haul that!

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There are two things that can get me up before 06 in the morning. That is hearing the cat trying to throw up in my shoe, or expedition plans, and yesterday morning it was expedition. The bell rang ten to six and without too much struggle I managed to put my feet into the slippers and find my way to the coffee machine. Baard and I had planned to check out a few places so when breakfast was done I was on the road heading to our meeting point. In a hillside overlooking the valley was the ruins of a small Wehrmacht guard house, and the landowner was going to meet us there. While waiting for the landowner to get ready we spent an hour detecting a thicket where it once had been a large Gebirgsjäger/Heer camp. Much of the camp is gone today because soil has been taken out, but a few percent still exsists as an overgrown forest. It was loads of signals from different metals picked up, but we hadn`t found anything interesting when we drove off to the guardhouse site.
 The farmer told us the little he knew about the place as he showed it to us. Through the forest we could see what a great lookout post this would have been back then. It was nothing more than the foundations of a small house visible. With the detectors we checked the foundations and the surrounding area. A little bit of nails and metal scrap probably from the building was the only thing we could find. Except a modern army tent peg and a few red plastic 7.62 excercise rifle rounds it was completely silent in the forest around. While digging some scrap in the foundation Baard discovered he had lost his pin pointer. It had been ripped from its cord. As he hadn`t had time to walk around in the forest here yet, we knew it had to be somewhere between where we were standing and the last place he dug in the thicket. We strolled back to the car and drove  to the camp. 

 The tall grass showed clearly where we had walked earlier so a minute after leaving the van we had found the pinpointer. Now we decided to just spend the day searching this camp and found a place to put the food and backpacks. Baard went into the forest to search around a barracks foundation while I investigated the area that made out the top shortend of the camp. Here was a ditch going along the entire lenght and it had lots of different signals all the way. That was very interesting and it is probably filled with junk from the camp. Of course I wanted to open it up but it was filled with fallen and cut down trees of all sizes with new sapplings and shrubbery growing. Clearly a job where we will need a tractor, which we are pretty sure the landowner have, we just need to ask him. Then I went back into the camp area and got a nice signal from the Fisher F5. Ca 5 cm under the sand I found an enamelled lid to a kettle or large frying pan. Under it was a padlock, a little scrap metal and a handful of gaming pieces. I went over to Baard with them. Since I had filled the jar I wanted to fill with gaming bits I had promised to give him all the ones I dig up. Around the barrack he had found a couple of coins. A Norwegian one and a beautiful Finnish 5 Markkaa. After walking around for a while we began digging a ditch that gave some strong signals, and we could see the leg from a medic stretcher sticking out from the ground so it could be something interesting in it. It took us a few hours to dig it all up, and it was a lot of hard work, including one or two coffee breaks. As usual the top layer in the ditch was big rocks and roots, and my fingers and muscles are still aching from it. We got out two and a half medical stretchers, all parts in pretty good condition, plus some fabric from the stretchers. We also dug up a large muffler from a vehicle and a square enamelled lid of the size of a Roman shield, I suspect it might be from a field kitchen, but I could be wrong on that. The other finds from this ditch was some tent pegs and a surgical tray together with a small medical bottle and some tins. 

After a small break we continued into the forest and found the foundations of a massive building. It was full of signals, but  had a lot of logs and rotting trees so it ll be for another day. Around the building there were also signals everywhere and soon I had started digging one end of a small ditch. The signal I had picked up was an enamelled bowl from a field kitchen and next to it was a bottle. As I opened up more of the ground more relics came out of it and in just a few minutes I had a pile started. Here was toothpaste tubes, cream tubes, several perfume bottles, a hole-punch machine, a tent peg, pocket knife, parts of a primus, a Daimon field torch and then one half of a EKM (Erkennungsmarke/soldier ID tag)! It even had some letters and numbers on it!! I was so happy! I tried cleaning it up a little and could read that it belonged to a Gebirgsjäger unit!! the quite famous Regiment 139.
I continued digging through the ditch and picked out more bottles, parts from boots and skibindings, a small bakelite box, a purple soap tin made from early plastic and a replacement ski tip made from metal, in good condition! Another awesome find!! After taking out a smashed coffee kettle the ditch began to look empty. I began checking the edges and out fell three halves of EKMs! And then more and more and more! All but one were broken in half and seemed to be blank with no stampings on, but Baard, who had been digging scrap metals from the other side of the ditch looked through them and said some more of the bits was stamped. I couldn`t wait to have them cleaned up and see what was on them. We filled the ditch and tidied up around it and decided we had to quit for the day. For 11 hours we had been searching and digging, so now old knees and joints had begun to tell tales of torment. Covered in mud and clothes kilos heavy with water we discussed the next trip to this camp as we strolled back to the car. I drove Baard back to his summer cabin where he will spend the next three days trying to dry his boots so he is ready for more treasure hunting. We have a crate full of Iron Crosses to find! 
This morning I cleaned up the EKMs. It was 12 blank zink tags (all broken in half), one half alu tag with "GRAZ" and some randomly placed letters and numbers stamped, so probably a "test" tag of some kind. One alu EKM broken in half from Geb.Jäg Regt. 139. It is an interestig tag coz the "R" is made up from a "K" and a "-" . It was one whole blank alu tag in the lot, also very interesting coz it is a field made tag with the centre square holes punched and filed out.

When we stepped out of the car the clouds had begun to disperse and made room for all the blue needed to fill the sky, and soon we could feel the temperature rise. It was still early so there was no doubt the day would become warm. Luckily a birch forest was spread nicely out across the area we had decided to search. My friends Baard and Skule had arrived to the North for the summer vacation and we were gonna check if we could find any nice old war junk or even more helmets were we had dug out three lids last summer. We started by checking the area where we had found the helmets thoroughly. After a while it was obvious that we needed to head deeper into the forest because here was only a few rifle casings, a coin and a single gaming piece between some iron rubbish and absolutely no helmets. We had put our backpacks near a huge anthill so naturally the army of tiny workers had made highways towards the food bag and became a bit grumpy when we brushed them off and grabbed our stuff. We made a new "Headquarter" between a few of the dumping pits we opened last summer and searched on from there.
 An hour later we had a coffee- and food break as one need that after combing the forest floor. So far all I had found was a few coins and I think Baard had a similar haul. He had upgraded to a Fisher F5 detector from his old Garrett, which Skule had inherited and was now learning how to use. 
The place we was searching had supposedly held a big number of German soldiers, barracks, stables  and even a shooting range but this far the finds we had could not come from any large number of people, so we continued moving into the forest to try find the living quarters and kitchen area. A little later I found what seemed to be a dumping ditch and began digging in one end of it. It was the blade of a German shovel that was the first item I dug up, followed by some rifle casings and a few gaming pieces. Skule and Baard came to help and began opening up the rest of the ditch. Skule immediately found a nice Red Army canteen and soon after Baard picked up the screwcork for it. I kept digging up gaming pieces and in between was a couple of coins, casings and tooth brushes. Ski wax, a few Red Army grenade primers, padlocks and bits from a rifle cleaning kit also came out of the ditch. Baard found a leather holster for a smaller pistol and like that he had new energy to continue digging through what more and more looked like a burn pit judging by the amount of melted metal blobs, ash and charcoal.
While we were digging we heard some strange barking sounds coming from deeper into the forest, and soon the sound came closer, and closer to us. It was kinda creepy as long as we wasn`t really sure what kind of monsters could be dwelling here. The source of the screeching barks was now very close to us. Fifteen, twenty meters prehaps, but the vegetation made it really difficult to see anything and I was half expecting some samsquanch or hyena to jump out in front of us. But then we spotted the orange fur, and the face of a fox peeking out at us from between the trees and grass. It stood still for a moment, studying us, before it barked and continued up the hillside behind us. That was such an amazing experience. We think that the fox probably had cubs nearby and wanted to chase us away.
Not long after this we had emptied the dumping ditch with not many more finds. Well, in the end of the ditch I had begun there had been some more gaming pieces waiting under the soil and I had now filled the whole shovel blade with them. A big, fat pile of colored glass bits. Later at home I cleaned and counted them. 201 pieces in total. Quite a pocketfull!!
The rest of the day passed with not many finds worth mentioning. I dug up a rotted close combat knife while Baard topped it all with a super nice Italian coin from 1941!
Around seven in the evening we went back to the car, happy and tired after a ten hour long search. We still can`t say that we are sure if this camp had housed a large number of soldiers, so far the finds point to a very small number. But prehaps we ll be back there soon to make sure once and for all :D
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At last I am back to searching the forest after two and a half week without any rust hunting. I was kept away from digging by the hot summer weather​, and me and the Girlfriend did a week long course, and now this last week my car had broken down which I was happy to get back from the workshop yesterday. I really missed being in the woods, smelling the freshly dug soil and the sound of an interesting signal from the detector, and on Monday I finally managed to sneek off with Girlfriends car for a few hours searching. I went to continue to check the area where I dug the last dumping pit. I had gotten some very interesting signals from three ditches there and was hoping for them to be full of relics. The first one just had a smashed zink bucket and some rusted food cans and the second one had parts of a fuel barrel. The third had lots of food tins, an ashtray, cream tubes and bottles but the only interesting find was next to the ditch. There was a German SA Sportsbadge! That was a very nice find. Other than some more food tins I found a dinged up mess kit. Mr.Squirrel had entertained me with his tree-parkour while I was digging the ditch, it is always awesome to watch.
Yesterday the Girlfriend was going to the mountain to place an insect trap for her fieldwork and I was commandeered to be the driver. When she strolled off towards a top I took direction towards a nearby German camp to have a look. Not many meters into the stroll I threw the backpack on the ground, ripped it open and tried to find my mosquito net as fast as humanly possible. It was crazy. It felt like all the little vampires on the entire mountain just had seen me and came flying in for a feast. Protected my the fine mesh I could continue, but now with a buzzing cloud following me, diving at me trying to grab me through the mesh. Everytime I made a stop they all wanted to land on me, and I swear I could feel the weight from them. Or maybe I just imagined feeling it, we will never know for sure. One thing is certain though and that is if I had been abandoned in the wilderness like this without a net I`d just set fire to myself, one must be insane to be able to handle such an amount of hungry mosquitos. The camp was interesting. I found many foundations from buildings and it was lots of dug outs and trenchlines around. Metal peeked out from the moss here and there, and relics such as food tins and bottles laid on the surface and between rocks. I also saw a big owl flying through the mountain forest. A very promising site I need to get back to.
This morning we woke up early since Girlfriend was driving north for a few days of fieldwork. As she filled her car I took off to the Gebirgsjäger camp for some hours searching. I was really happy to discover that the forest had less mosquitos, also a light breeze probably helped keeping them away. I walked towards a previously discovered dumping pit, digging signals along the way. A button here and a zunder box there, and parts of a field radio over there, and of course some rifle casings, stripper clips and food tins. Opening the dumping pit was basically removing a large chimney cap. Under it was the lid from a MG ammo box and then rocks. After removing the layer of rocks and roots, leather bits began popping out as I removed soil. Parts from boots, pouches, mittens, Y-straps and horse harness bits. Most of the stuff was destroyed but some straps and belts were intact. Then I found porcelain. A complete unmarked plate, and a broken and almost complete plate with a Heer eagle on the bottom. Then I found a bayonet frog, and a soldiers belt, sadly no buckle though. It took many hours to go through the ditch and I had found a few nice bits in the end. I ended up with three leather frogs for bayonets, three soldier belts, all missing buckles but with the catches, a kitchen glass, a knife,spoon and fork and a long soup ladle for a field kitchen. I also found a great little trench-art item. A bakelite lid for a jar, engraved with flowers and ornaments, "1945" and initials in cyrillic. Im really happy with that one! The second best find was probably a simply constructed belt buckle I think is a German officer buckle. The single rubber glove of the medical kind took the prize as the strangest find of the day.
I had been out digging now for 6-7 hours and had more energy to spend but the rain came. At first I just ignored it, but when it shifted gears and felt more like it was throwing buckets and water balloons I scooped up my findings and began the retreat to drier grounds.
Hopefully I ll be back at it tomorrow, and the next day and so on :D