Here in Northern Norway the moose hunting season started on Sunday, so my chimera camo smock has been swapped out for a bright red hoodie to prevent any mis-shootings from happening. Some of the areas I am usually searching are now full of hunters so I found it wiser to check out a few other places, and yesterday morning me and the Girlfriend made a quick recce trip to a Luftwaffe camp and vehicle workshop. 
The camp had housed around hundred soldiers, and probably far more by the end of 1944 when masses of German troops were evacuating the northern front. We had a map showing where some of the barracks had been and we began by trying to locate one of them. After some wandering around we realized that the markings on the map didn`t really fit with the actual terrain so it took us a few kilometers of walking before we found some concrete foundations from a building. I swept the detector around but it picked up quite few signals. A waterfilled hole or crater nearby had some good signals, but except food tins I only found a broken Luftwaffe marked soup bowl or terrin and a condom. On a small hill next to the barrack were more signals but it was mostly rifle casings that looked like they had been cooked off in a fire.
We moved into the vehicle workshop area where the signals from metal in the ground were far more frequent. We had wasted a lot of hours trying to locate the barracks but there were still some time left for searching before we had to get back home. 
In a small dug out in a slope the Fisher F5 suggested I should do some digging. First I dug up some scrap metal, and a crate full of heavy accumulators. Then I began removing rocks and broken concrete to get to a very good signal. A few minutes of work later I could wipe sand off a white metal plate with black numbers on. A license plate! I could see the letter "WL" which meant it had sat on a Luftwaffe vehicle. It was in very nice condition, far better than any plate I had found previously. Very satisfied with the find I went hunting for more of the same signal but by now the days luck had been exhausted. I dug up a handfull of mystery parts and a hole that was full of modern army excersise ammo from a heavy machine gun, caliber 12.7. 
We didn`t have much more time for fun and games so we slowly moved to the car and headed back to the civilization. But I don`t think it will be long before we go back to do some more rust hunting there.
At home I gave the license plate a wash with soap and water and am pretty happy with the result. Pics of the cleaned relic on the bottom of the page :)

I wish you all a great week. Stay safe :)

This last week just blew away in a hurricane of roadtrips, housework, potato harvesting and metal detecting, so I think it is true the saying that time flies fast when fun is being had. Early in the week me and the Girlfriend took the car and explored valleys and forest roads in the region, enjoying the amazing views autumn creates. We harvested ca half the potatofield and are amazed by the result. Dinner for most of the winter is free this year :D
 I spent nearly fifteen hours over two days searching on a new permission. A rather large area where it had been quite a lot of activity during the war, with soldier camp, storage area, workshop and a POW camp. This place has been well searched before me but I am sure some goodies are still hiding out there, just waiting for the right digger to come along. Anyway I walked around there for hours but didn`t find much. The first day I ended up with a few enamel food bowls, a couple of mugs, the spoon from a göffel, a enamel urinal and a large zink bucket with "Stube 10" (Room 10) written on it. 
 
The next day started out like Christmas in September! I checked a small ditch that had mainly three signals. Good in each end and kinda iffy in the middle. I began with the middle signal and half meter down I scraped sand off the side of a German helmet! Out of the ground I noticed a bullet hole on top of it, so I guess someone had fun shooting at it. Now I was hoping the rest of the ditch would be filled with amazing relics. but after removing modern food tins from each end of the ditch it was completely silent. Not even a nail. I tidied up around the ditch and went for another signal. Now I got the base of a Notek headlamp, and its bracket. Together with some rubbish I later found a small shaving mirror, with a Dunlop advertisement on the back. A very cool find.
Hours passed and when I was back at the car the only other thing worth saving I had found was an empty M24 head with a shrapnel sleeve on.

Today it was again time for "Jimmy and Inkas Adventure Afternoon" (name pending, and should we get jackets with logo made? :D ). The traditional Sunday search was on around lunchtime, shortly after Jimothy had fell off his livingroom table and woken up . I on the other hand had been up since before the squirrels, and was fresh and ready with the metal detector. We opened up a ditch he had found earlier which had a few good signals spread out in it. It didn`t sound like it was full of things, but it could be deep and it was worth a check. The signal I dug first turned out to be half a Kraftstoff barrell. It was laying on its side so it was a chance it had stuff inside. I removed rocks and soil until I could use the flashlight and get a peek inside the barrell. It was clean and empty. We didn`t have  much more luck on the rest of the ditch either. Some bottles, a MG ammo belt, two Soviet rifle oilers, a tent peg, a K98 muzzle cap, a few broken porcelain plates, a gasmask and canister, some karbid lamps, six shovels and some 7.92 rifle ammo was about the only stuff we dug up. 
We moved over to another place. To a square hole dug into the ground that had lots of signals. We had to remove rocks and roots but pretty soon broken glass, food tins and rusted cutlery were piled up on the side. This pit had as so many others like it been set on fire, coz we found lots of melted glass and metal, and it was also full of ashes and charcoal. I was searching one of the corners and a little bit into the wall I hit todays jackpot! Out came a aluminum disc. A German erkennungsmarke! It looked like it was a bit corroded, but a great find. Of course Jimothy had a rage fit and threw his detector so high up in the tree that he had to call the loggers to help him get it down. We dug through half the pit and saw that the layer of burnt relics seemed to be only 20-30 cm deep, but just before we had to leave​  Jimmy was following a signal that seemed to go much deeper. We decided to save it for another day and then bring the Fiskars shovels and do some real digging. 
Strolling back to the cars we checked a few signals but found nothing but a lid for a canister of some kind. 
​ At home I cleaned the ID tag and it reads " Stellungs Art.Abt. 118".

Tomorrow is a new day and the plan is to search around a bit in a Wehrmacht camp and at the same time try to pick the seasons last berries to make sure the freezer is really full before winter.

​Enjoy your day :)

We have been very lucky with the weather lately, and have tried to spend a lot of these beautiful autumn days outside. Before the weekend I joined the Girlfriend on a short mountain trip for her fieldwork. She had set a trap for collecting insects earlier and now we were collecting it, and picked a lot of huge blueberries on our way down again. The next day she was going to another locality much farther into the wilderness, while I was going to hunt for some rust in the bottom of the valley. I hadn`t been back to that camp yet this season so I was excited to see if I would find something nice there still. A couple of hours in I dug up the first good finds. A mess kit and two canteens. In a small trash pit I uncovered a small wooden box. It fell apart when I tried to move it and inside were a few hundred nails. Also in that pit I found several parts from a welder, a tent peg, a shotglass, perfume bottles, glass jars, toothbrushes and such. Later I dug up two bits that looked like those large pegs they secured the legs of Flak cannons to the ground with.
Lunch was consumed sitting with the back leaned to a tree, gazing into the forest for any squirrels and ravens. I only saw a couple of ravens fly between the treetops as they screeched their messages to the forest. Back on the search I checked a small hole in the ground and the detector gave a pretty bad signal, but I decided to dig it anyway. 40-45 cm down, under a barrell band was a helmet with intact leather liner! I think that some color will be found under the rust as well. For a while I could only find rubbish but then the detector went crazy again. It was another little dumping pit. This time full of food tins, bottles and small food buckets. I`ve found similar buckets in POW camps before. Inside one of the buckets was a Soviet soldiers enamel mug, and he had decorated it with a nice yellow flower. One or two hours later, just before I decided to head back home, I found another relic worth rescuing. A vehicle headlight, maybe a Bosch. The glass was missing but the rest were in very good condition.

Yesterday I met up with Jimmy for our traditional Sunday search. He had found a large dumping pit and we were gonna check it out.  It was ca 2m x 2m and after some time we figured out that it was pretty deep as well. Food tins, bottles and coins came out in a steady pace. The coins were mainly Norwegian, but it was a few Finnish and Danish ones between them. Quite soon into the dig Jimmy touched the edge of the pit and out fell a beautiful KVK II with Swords. The guy is like a medal magnet..
When we were done being impressed over the find, we continued the work, trying not to cut ourselves on all the broken glass sticking out everywhere. Then Jimmy found a really nice bottle. A large brown 0.7 l, marked Albert C. Dung, which was a chemical factory in Germany. I dug out a civillian coffee- or tea cup with some abstract decorations. I have found some of these old civillian cups before and am slowly growing a collection of them. On the bottom in one of the corners of the pit we found a whole lot of gaming pieces.
Now we had to check the walls and edges, so we worked our way around it with pin pointers and knifes. A coin fell down in front of me and when I checked for more of them I found something completely unexpected. It knocked me out of balance for a moment, so I just whispered to Jimmy that I had found a medal. I opened my hand and showed him an Iron Cross! It was a bit caked in muck, but it was really an Iron Cross that had found its way into my hand. Of course Jimothy wanted it so he threatened to stab me with a rusted fork, but I tore of his Lego-like arm and threw it into the forest to calm him down. No, I lied, he was as surprised as me, and just slightly less happy than me about the find :D 

We had checked the edges and began to close up the ditch, checking the spoils thoroughly for any missed relic. I still had a little luck left, so when I sweeped away some sand I suddenly saw a Wound Badge! It had a tiny bend to it and missing its needle but other than that in great shape! An incredible end to the day!
​It had been a lot of work and we were both tired and hungry, and it would be dark within an hour so we just sweeped the detectors around the pit before we strolled back to the cars making plans for future digs and projects.

​Until next time, have fun :)

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We haven`t had more frosty nights since last week, but when I drove to the dig site yesterday I noticed that the fresh snow on the tops had crept a lot closer to the tree line. The forest covered hillsides, and most of the ground everywhere else are now a mix of green, yellow and red. It is really beautiful, so that the days are a bit wet is a low price to pay for such spectacular views. 
In the morning sun I did some walking around with the metal detector while enjoying all these colors going on around me. A few signals in I scored a mess kit, and a small box for ignitors. Near a little curve in the river going alongside the camp was a nice view point and there were a lot of food tins and bottles laying around under the moss and berrybushes. Clearly a place the soldiers had enjoyed hanging around after duty.  Nearby I dug up a very nice Finnish coin, a broken wall clock, an orange smoke candle and some cable reels.
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 Near the ruins of a small building I began digging a rather weak signal. It was half of a door hinge some five centimeter under the ground. I took it away and swept the detector over again. Now I got a weak but clear signal so I continued to dig. Soon I met large rocks and began suspecting it was a trash pit under them. The layer of rocks were ca 30-40 cm, but then metal, glass and bits of planks began showing up. Some of the bottles I pulled up had labels, or parts of labels intact, and it is always interesting to be able to see some of them since most bottles don`t have them any longer. Deeper in the pit was a Juwel primus, and then another one next to it. When I removed them I saw a leather pouch. I thought it could be for glasses or sunglasses, but inside there were some dentist tools, a big tweezer, scissors and a thermometer. What an odd and cool find! The next item also gave me great joy. A trench art cigarett case! Quite large and it looked to be nicely made. The motive on the lid was a man drinking champagne, and on the backside prehaps the name of the one portraited; "Hans Düppelhofer. Liinahamari (which is a small village in Petchenga, Russia) 1944". A super find! Something as unique and personal as a good trench art item is hard to find. The next item to be carefully tucked onto the pile of relics was a full ampoule. And then a intact lightbulb.

Some time later the bottom of the pit was found on ca one meter but how much was left to any of the sides I didn`t know yet. After widening it a little I knew what direction it went and I continued that way. Now I found the side of a possible box, and a little scraping and digging later I could take out a MG ammo box from the earthen wall. The handle was missing and the lid had a hole but other than that it was complete, and best of it all was the tri-tonal camo it was painted in! I`ll definitely find a good way to display that one. 
The well started to dry out but I was still fighting one of the last relics loose from a rock holding it tight. A gasmask canister, and inside it someone had stuck a Heer axe head, and a wooden pestle for a mortar grinder. The canister looked like it has lots of color left so I will give it a go in oxalic acid to see how much of the rust I can get off it. 

 It ll be a rainy few next days but I think we ll be able to squeeze in one more trip to the fields of rust before weekend comes with all its relaxiness ;)
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Last Friday morning the world had become frosted. The grass was white and we had to scrape ice off the car windshield before heading out to the forest. On the way I noticed fresh snow covering the highest mountain tops, so we have arrived at the point of no return, winter is coming. The first couple of hours it was quite terrible searching. My fingers felt like they were about to fall off, but when the sun got its blasters set on full it became quite comfortable. I was in the Gebirgsjäger camp where I have spent much of the summer and by chance I went with the detector straight on a small dumping ditch. Except the usual rubbish I found a nice tent peg, an empty leather EKM pouch and a green plastic coffee cup, produced in Norway probably before the war. In the edge of the ditch I found lots of metal fittings for a variant of the Schu Minen, which probably had been produced in the camp and sent to the front in Finland. The last items to come out from the ditch was a wooden bit in the shape of a shield. I wonder if it could be from the production of Lappland Shields as it has roughly the same size and shape. A meter away from the ditch I pulled out a metal piece that really looked like an oversized Lappland Shield, but I suspect it is just junk.
During the weekend me and the Girlfriend went for a small expedition to find berries. We didn`t get the best haul but it was lovely being outside in the nice weather, and we did pick enough to make some syrup and jam for the cold winter months.

One of the next days I joined my friend Jimmy to search in his Gebirgsjäger camp. An enormous camp filled with signals in the ground. That was very exciting. He had done some stunning finds here earlier so I had hopes that we would find some treasures. We discovered a ditch near the foundation of a barrack and went to work as we got some big signals from it. Since it was late afternoon we only dug about two meters of it but had a very nice and rare find. First we dragged up a soup container, but it had several holes in it from being hit with a pick axe. Then a nice and empty M24 head before we started uncovering a large piece of metal. At first we thought it was a small wagon or hand cart, but when Jimmy managed to tear it loose from the ground and get it to the surface we realized we was dealing with a mystery part. I sent photos around to some guys working on German vehicles and soon after Morten G. came up with the answer. It was a Pak wheel holder for a Krupp Protze vehicle. Not many of those around thats for sure.
We closed the ditch up to complete it a day we have more time, and began searching for signals again. Then Jimmy began digging something, and soon after he called me over, having problems hiding his grin. He had found a pistol! And in quite good condition. What a lucky bugger! I am not sure what type it was but it looked a bit like a Browning. We will know for sure when he has cleaned it up a bit. We didn`t find much else before we were back at the parking place, where I ca 30 meters from the car dug up a Notek lamp in nice condition. Hopefully we`ll be back there soon to finish up the ditch though.

Yesterday I did a short morning trip to another camp I`ve been searching many times. The first signal I opened was a small hole full of radio parts, a smashed bakelite radio, lots of bottles and several flashlights. Soon after I found a nice looking Göffel, and then a very good signal grabbed my attention. The piece of metal was stuck under a rock. I got it loose and thought it was just some scrap, but then I turned it over and it was full of text. I had in my hand the largest luggage tag I`ve ever seen. It read: "Heinz Gelbstrauss In Kittlitz Kreis Angerburg Ostpr" and on the back side his unit "I. GD. N.A. 91". Back home I tried to find Kittlitz in Ostpreussen and it is the small village Kietlice in todays Poland. I am very happy with this find! 
Later on the morning I began digging another good signal. It was food tins, but next to them was porcelain! A tea plate, almost intact and nicely stamped with eagle and producer, but two bits were missing and couldn`t be found. I emptied all the junk out of the hole and on the very bottom was a bunch of buttons. Kriegsmarine buttons, both metal buttons and some made of glass! Also a very nice and interesting find, specially since the site is almost on the mountian. It must have been the Gebirgs Marine :D

Weekend is once again upon us and who knows what the next days will bring of weather and activities. For sure I will be doing my best to enjoy life, and hope you guys are doing the same.

​Until next time, Keep Smiling, and if you can ,stay muddy :D

Several days ago I went back to where I found the 11 helmets. The last leg of the road to get there is sort of a forest road, and when I came driving down it I became aware of a big "something" in front of me. It looked towards the car for a brief moment before it jumped off the road and into the forest. I am quite sure it was a lynx, or a cheeta or some kind of experimental super-cat, although we dont have too many of those here. It was anyway a pretty good start on the day.
It were ca 4 meters left of the ditch to dig and search through, and with one meter to the bottom it took many hours. The finds were few and it was no more lids there. For several minutes I thought I had one, but it was just the edge of a up side down frying pan I was uncovering. One of the only interesting things in it was a square can in very good condition. Its original green paint had survived, and it had a Waa ink stamp on the bottom. A stencilled text on it says " SIKKERTIV". Towards the end of the ditch came out the top of a mess kit, and it had a name engraved; " Hafner". 
I still had half the day left so I wandered around and checked sometimes a good signal. One of those signals was a small brooch, set with some pink rocks, or glass. Almost a treasure. The only other good find I had that day came just before I went back to the car. Together with two wine bottles and a food tin was a knife I always wanted to find. A Luftwaffe gravity knife! Its wooden grips were long gone but the metal wasn`t that badly deteriorated.

It was early when I took the first sweep with the detector today. I hoped for a pistol, but it was an axe head. A small ditch had interesting signals and I hoped for helmets. It was horseshoes. Then I got a strong and clear good signal. Now I hoped for a medal. It was ! At least half a medal. It was a German Ostmedaille, looking like it had been broken in half. I went over the berry bushes again with the detector and picked up two or three more identical signals. It was a few melted blobs and one full Ostmedaille! Between them all was a MP38/40 magazine loader. Great stuff!
Later when back home I discovered that one of the blobs was a partly melted Ostmedaille, the half medal was melted, not broken, and that the full one had signs of having been touched by the heat as well. 
 I found a big metal box, that seemed to be intact. It took some effort to get it free from the ground and up to the surface. It wasn`t what I had dreamt about but still a good find, a drawer/box that was mounted under the Opel Blitz, prehaps on other vehicles as well. It is in good condition so it ll find its way to one of the many Opels being restored. I couldn`t be dragging that heavy thing around all day so I leaned it up against a tree that I would have to pass on my way home. Not far away I found a little cluster of signals. I removed the top soil and saw it had been a big fire. At least one crate and a radio had gone up in flames there. Some boots too, and cutlery. Melted blobs of glass and metals, and bits of charcoaled cloth outlined the fire pit. Using the bayonet I scraped my way through the layer of ashes. Coins had survived. The first one was a beautiful 2 kopek coin from Soviet. The rest were Finnish coins. A small square piece of metal met with the tip of my bayonet. I gave it a rub against the clean back of my glove and saw the word "Petsamo". Wow! The badge had a motive of two soldiers in winter gear firing a machine gun, with the word under it. I am not sure what this badge is for, but that is research I am looking forward to do. For sure it fits right into my Finnish/German collection :) The last pieces I dragged out from the ashes were a close combat knife, a bike wrench, a pad lock, spork and a canteen.
 I had begun the journey back to the car when I see a 2 m x 1 m hole in the forest floor. I peek into it and there is a few bits of metal laying on the surface. I open up one of the corners of the pit and seconds later I see the back side of a helmet! It seems to be in decent condition even if the leather bits are missing. I decide I have to go through this pit before I can go home, and one and a half hour later I was happy I did. Under the helmet were two bakelite karbid boxes, a Einheitslanterne and two different spare parts boxes. One of metal and the other in bakelite. The rest of the pit held some coins and gaming pieces, a field torch, leather ammo pouch, a candle in a bakelite container, perfume bottles and cream tubes. Enough spoil to fill the pockets two times over. 
The weekend is coming up, with plans of berry hoarding, but if lucky I might get a few hours searching done tomorrow:)
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Bumblebee or wasp nest.