As I suspected the meteorologists had it all wrong when they told tales of how cold and nasty this weeks weather was going to be. Instead of the promised sub zero temperatures, we were blessed with comfortable expedition conditions with around +10 Celsius most of the days. This of course meant that Mr. Metal Detector, Herr Shovel and the rest of the gang didn`t get their well deserved rest just yet, and we all had a busy week.

Monday morning, as soon as daylight allowed it, I was stepping out of the car on the parking place near the Luftwaffe lazarett. Earlier I had checked a very good signal and found the top of a round object with ventilation slots, in my mind a part of a stove or heating system. That day I was tired so I hadn`t dug it out, so that was the mission this morning.
 40-50 cm below the surface the shovel touched metal and I brushed away the sand from the top of the thing and saw that all the field green paint were intact.
 I feared it was going to be a tall item that would take forever to dig because I wanted to get back home before lunch when rain was supposed to come pouring down.
 The sand was very easy to dig, with only the odd rock to remove, and the item was shorter than I imagined so soon I pryed it loose and got it to the surface. It had a large hole cut in the side, but no markings or clues to what its purpose had been, perhaps some of you know..

Under where the thing had been I saw a couple of half buried bottles and the pinpointer indicated metals as well. Was it possible I had a dumping pit under my feet? I dug out several bottles and a few bits from a backpack. In the side wall were leather straps and digging those out revealed a small red cross made from leather. It was a ponyfur backpack for a medic! Totally rotted to bits, but the cross and its white background were still intact. A lovely find that will bring some color to a display. 
 Bottles and soon small medical ampoules flowed out of the pit that only got larger and deeper as the clock ticked past lunchtime. One of the bottles was of a bit more surprising kind, but maybe not unusual for being in a hospital. A urinal bottle.
 Deep in the hole a corner of a metal box appeared. I love to find unopened crates and such, but sadly this one was empty and rusted to pieces. The whole wall around the box hid bottles. First an ether bottle, then a few alco bottles and then a whole ore of pee bottles. Soon I had a large pile of those cock jars stacked up next to a birch tree, nine of them, and there were broken shards from possibly seven or eight more :D

The only metal signals now came from directly below, so I began digging deeper. All I could see were lots of rods jumbled together and it took a lot of work getting them all loose. The first relic was a splint for keeping a broken leg stable. One of the rods was the handle for a small hand cart, in very good condition. The other things I have no clue what are, but these were three identical "legs" of some sort. I hope some of you guys can give them a positive ID. 
On the bottom of the now deep and large hole was a full K98 stripper clip and something as bizarre as a ramshorn handle bar for a bicycle.

The day had passed quickly and just as I prepared to carry the heavy load back to the car the skies opened up and I was soaked before reaching my van.
 Later in the afternoon when I was relaxing with a little gaming, a bone cutting shriek sounded from the kitchen when the GirlfriendWife walked in and discovered a mountain of muddy pee vases on the kitchen bench. Orders were yelled out and I promptly had to relocate all the fine glassware, and desinfect the kitchen. She also resonated poorly to my idea of using some of them as kitchen tool holders, toothbrush holders etc. Jimmy on the other hand was on the phone almost immediately after seeing pics of the finds to buy a couple. :D


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A couple of wet days passed with no digging, but thursday arrived fresh and dry so again I found my way to the woods as soon as it was light enough. I mentioned in my last report that I had some places I wanted to have a closer look at before winter, and one of those was a Gebirgsjäger camp I had briefly visited back in 2019. I had recently re-discovered it when looking at some old maps and with Lidar so I needed to go out there and see if it could be a camp to start next season with.
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 Nearly instantly the detector picked up a strong signal and these were two powder charge tin lids for field artillery and a 15cm shell protector from a transport case. Nearby I dug up a small mortar grenade box. It looks like it will clean up nicely and is in good condition with only a small hole rusted through. A third signal in the same place was a couple of small powder charge tins, for mortar rounds. One of them had two silk bags with the charges inside. 
 I spent almost the whole day searching around the ruins of a large barrack. I found several Glühzünder 28 fuzes, a few clasps from backpacks and Y-straps, buttons and lots of cream tubes. Under a fallen birch I dug up a göffel with the owners initials punched in, and the second iron signal of the day was a field shovel in pretty decent condition. On my way back to the car I found a canteen in laquered steel, together with its carrying clip.

Friday came and went, but Saturday morning I was back to continue where I had dug up the canteen. The first item that found its way to my pocket was a MG34 bolt body. Between some large pine trees I saw one part of a bunkerstoves burn chamber, and 150 meters away lay the other part. I found a hole punch plier and some parts from a horse harness. A couple of creamtubes were strewn around as well, but most of the finds from morning till lunchtime were food tins. A whole section of the forest that once was an army camp seemed to be littered with those.

I ate lunch next to the river and when I was back on my legs I moved out of the food tin area towards where barracks had stood. Here and there barrack stoves were overtaken by moss, and I walked around pondering if there would be a nice intact example somewhere here when the detector yelled at me to stop. There should be some metal a few centimeters below the pine needle covered ground. 
 Only 5 cm or so down I brushed soil away from a rounded shape. It couldn`t be, could it? But it was. Moments later I knew it was a helmet I was working on freeing. I had hoped to find a EKM or medal before winter hits, but this was just as great.
 A few minutes later I could pull it from the ground and it looked to be in very nice condition. I saw a little of the paint and winter camo present, and it were very few rust bubbles on it so it has a chance to clean up nicely. This was like getting a big old warm hug from the Relic Gods!

I checked the surroundings and nearby was a RG34 cleaning kit for a rifle and a few 7.92 rounds. Not too many steps away I found a dumping pit. It was a depression in the ground about a meter and half long and half meter wide, full of signals.
 From one corner I began digging and kept at it until the dusk came creeping in between the trees. This made it difficult to see and easy to miss relics so I decided it was time to call it quits. From the few items I dug out I gathered it could be good stuff waiting there. But for now the only things that came with me home were the catch from a belt, but no buckle yet, a few cream tubes, a very flat perfume bottle, a losantine tablet box and a few gaming pieces.

We are almost in November now and I am beginning to hope this will be a repeat of the long season we had in 2021 when I could dig until mid December before winter took over, but we`ll see, the weather guys is again telling stories about how terrible next weeks weather will be, with snowstorms and whatnot..

In any case, thanks for reading, I hope it was enjoyable. Have a great week, and Keep Smiling :)

After some days with mild, but wet- and relatively terrible weather it looks like the frost is returning with full force. Most of the days the temperature have been around +5 Celsius, except one day when it jumped to a summery +15, and the last days it its been around 0 degrees. 
It is no fun at all searching and digging when the soil is muddy and heavy, and so cold that it feels like needles of ice are stabbing through the flesh and you can feel it pulsating in the fingertips hours after returning home to the warm house with its red hot fireplace. 
 Nevertheless I`ve been in the woods doing some probing this week. Trying to find a couple of ditches to dig next season.

The first trip went to the Luftwaffe field hospital where I have found many interesting things before. It is darker longer in the mornings now, so I think it was around 10 when I started searching. The ground had a cover of snow, but a light rain removed most of it the following hour. It was very cozy walking around in the silent forest. Other than the detector and the crunchy noise from each step I took the only other sounds were from a raven couple talking somewhere in the treetops. Mornings like that are invaluable.
​ I opened up the forest floor to check a signal and found it to be from a food tin. Together with it were several bottles, a fork, a car battery connection and some rubber from a rubber boot. The latter had some interesting markings: " Gr.11.XII.40 ", which I guess is either a unit or maybe more probable a date.

 Close to the foundations of one of the field hospitals garages I struck upon a rust deposit. It was a six or seven meter long ditch with some signals spread out through it. I spent the next hours digging a couple of holes to get a sense of what it could contain. Of course the ditch had been topped of with layers of river rocks which were just awesome to dig through with cold and increasingly painful fingers, but the hassle was kinda worth it. Ca 45 centimeter below the surface I found the first piece of metal. A small aluminum box that had contained a medical syringe. Then a pair of belt support hooks, perfume- and medical bottles, gaming pieces, a blue- and a green dice, bits of a leather coat, uniform pieces, and a few cream tubes.
​ Digging deeper more bits surfaced. Parts of a radio headset, a few tools, a bucket, a tin full of hardened paint, bits of a door and two vinagre bottles. On the bottom was some kind of a mystery piece, which I think might be from a small sink as it had a faucet tube which came loose in the process of digging it out. A bit farther along the ditch I made another small probing and pulled out a pile of food tins. This ditch could certainly hold interesting things and it ll be fun digging it next year.
 Four-five hours after I began searching I had enough. I was soaked to the skin, cold, hungry and happy, but needed a warm fireplace and a deep comfy chair and perhaps even a glass of red wine. 

Some days later the mild weather returned so I went for another little excursion. I had some Tetra fire extinguisher racks piled up behind a tree from earlier in the season and  wanted to collect them. I swung the detector around the trees there a little and found two more racks, one of which for a large extinguisher, nearly a meter long, and I have such a large extinguisher, which I need to go get now, stashed away in another camp.
 I spent a few hours strolling around fantasizing about  dreamfinds like a Luger or Schmeisser, or handfull of EKMs, but in the end all I got were creamtubes and a thermometer, bottles, a shovel, a hammer and a razor, and I ended the day with a very nice tent peg marked Nowa 1938.

 If the weather report for the next week has any truth to it I guess it is safe to say that we are shutting her down at this point. Doing full days of digging in near sub zero temps and snow doesn`t tempt me at all and it is time to begin focusing on the winter projects. Cleaning finds, writing and making art and continue working towards getting our own place and opening a museum.
 We are not completely done before the snow hits though. The last days I have been spending with books, maps, coordinates and Lidar, and might have discovered four or five "new" camps. We will try to visit some of these areas to locate the camps and we have plans to check out a relatively large coastal fortress complex as well.

It has been an amazing season, lots of great nature experiences and I have found rare things I didn`t even dare dream about digging out of the ground. 
 I am very grateful for all yours support and thanks for reading :)
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Have a great week.


 
 

Last week it looked like the season was about to close due to winter, but now we are getting some milder days again. It could come a lot of rain, but that is way better than frost and snow, so I have greased up my boots to have them ready for another week of searching and digging.

Snow and rain dominated the weather this week and the first morning I went out swinging my detector everything was white. It was -3 degrees Celsius and from the start it felt like needles were pushed into my toes and fingers. The top of the ground had hardened, but not enough to stop the blade of the shovel from sinking into it. I was in the camp that had housed a gebirgsjäger headquarter, and began searching around the ruins of a barrack where it had been a workshop. 
 Lots of tools, bolts and screws litter the grounds there but this morning the first flap of soil I turned over contained half an Erkennungsmärke. Unfortunately it was a blank tag, but  it was exciting moments. A few meters away I found the other half of the ID tag, and using the pin pointer I found one more broken in half blank tag.
​ I kept going after the zink signal in hopes of more tags, but instead I found an ashtray with the typical vikingship design on it.

For the longest time I dug up crate parts and rubbish, and loads of Nato food foil and the red plastic training ammo, before a large signal woke me up again. The ground looked a bit sunken in, so here was a dumping pit below the tufts of frozen grass. This kept me busy the next hours, and at one point one of my trouser legs froze to the ground, thats how fresh it was. In the ditch were several karbid lamps and -parts, plus lots of food tins and bottles. Nothing interesting at all really.

Kneeling on the cold ground for so long was probably not doing anything good for my knees, but picking up the detector again and hunting signals up and down a slope quickly brought the warmth back. While I was digging up uniform buttons and a bunch of k98 rounds it began snowing and it became very cozy and christmassy, but my luck had ran out and so was the daylight, and I was soon heading back to the car.

The following days were cold and snowy, before it suddenly shifted back to almost pleasant weather again with a few plus degrees. This of course meant another round in the gebirgsjäger headquarter. 
 This time I began swinging the detector on the oposite side of the workshop and my first find was a nice lighter. I hunted EKM signals for a while but found only scrap metal. Under a large old tree I discovered another dumping pit. A square, ca 1x1 meter, in the ground, looked sunken in and had a mass of signals. I removed the top layer and bits of crates began showing. Locks, clasps, hinges, corner pieces and nails. And tons of them. Between 50 and 100 crates, at least, had been crushed and dumped here. In between all this was also a few cream tubes, a couple of Kriegsmarine buttons, a bakelite powder charge box and a small piece of silver, a part of a pocket watch.
 To find Kriegsmarine buttons inland, and in a Gebirgsjäger camp might sound strange, but after the sinking of the battleship Tirpitz not so far away, many of its surviving soldiers were spread around to nearby laying camps, and also during the withdrawal from the North and later the capitulation, lots of the camps housed a mix of units.

After having backfilled the crate ditch I crossed the workshop area in a hurry, ignoring all but the most interesting signals (which I did check but were all rubbish) and went to search in a small patch of forest where a few soldiers barracks had stood. Some modern trash laid on the surface and a few of the first signals were Nato rubbish, but I also spotted a flattened triangular barrack stove that clearly was from the war time. 
 Next to the stove the Fisher F5 picked up a strong zink signal and I dug up a folded piece of metal. It looked very much like a semi modern Nato cargo tag, so I unfolded it just to be sure before tossing it away. Oh, am I glad I did! It was a field made luggage tag from a German soldier ! On it was written " Obgefr. A. Rückbeil FPN 33380 ". That Fieldpostnumber indicates that the soldier belonged to 6. Fahrkolonne Gebirgs-Divisions-Kolonne 91. A really super find!
 
A few minutes later another very good signal rang out. From under the moss came another amazing find! I saw a small brass square in the soil, picked it up and turned it over. It was another name tag! This one looked like it had been nailed to a crate, and it was very nicely made and engraved. This one read " Hfw Rauter 06400 ".  "Hfw"  is an abbreviation for " Hilfwilliger / HIWI " which basically means an auxiliary volunteer. The number indicates a butcher unit -  " Schlachterei-Zug 91 ".

I kept combing the copse of trees, and for a few moments I was oblivious to the fact that one more treasure was awaiting me this day. After digging up a few bits of Nato garbage I was again picking up a more interesting signal. I emptied the shovel of soil on top of the grass and spotted a pointy cross. It was a medal ! A KVK with swords ! It had the ring intact and looked to be in quite decent condition, but the swastika had been carved away. 
 I went over the area twice more before I started the stroll back to where I had left the car. The dusk had began creeping in ,and the rain seemed to gear up its intensity too so it was a good time to call it quits.

Later that evening the sky cleared up and we could witness the most spectacular Aurora Borealis imaginable. The entire sky was covered with green, pink and red waves, and this could be observed in large parts of Europe apparently, it was quite the show.


Thanks for reading, and I wish you a great week :)
 

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When I went out for my first trip this week it was cold and a bit wet. The snow had crept down from the mountaintops and well into the treeline towards the bottom of the valley. I was going to a forgotten Wehrmacht vehicle workshop, and the forest road taking me there was white, covered in frost and snow. It was early in the morning but I could see fresh tracks on the road and when I parked I saw hunters were out on the fields scouting for moose. I waved to them and pointed in the direction I was going so that they wouldn`t shoot any "moose" that way.
 
I had picked up some interesting signals last time I was here and I wanted to start the day checking those. The first piece of metal I dug up was long and round, so naturally I thought I had found a Panzerschreck. While I dug, moved rocks and cutted roots I realized it was just a rotted smokestack. I got it out of the way and pulled out more scrap metal before finally a good piece turned up. The front of a rear Notek lamp which seemed to be in good condition, solid metal and all the glass intact. I dug up a mystery part, looking a bit like an old vacuum pump perhaps, some kind of mount to secure a box or a crate to a vehicle and a pair of rotted woolen gloves. At this point I would have worn those gloves if they had been more intact, coz the frost made it feel like my fingers were falling off.

 I moved to the next signal and when I could see the metal I was dead sure I had the front rim of a helmet under the soil in front of me. "What an amazing find to end the season on!" I thought as I kept digging. My dreams of going home and making it a nice and warm oxalic acid bath shattered when I dragged the piece out of the ground. It wasn`t a helmet. Instead the relic gods had offered me a large meat grinder, a really heavy beast. I placed it back with the hope that one day another digger will get the same emotional rollercoaster.
 Up next was the end of a dumping ditch I had abandoned a couple of seasons ago because of laziness and a very difficult root and rock blocking the relics under there. I still had many hours of daylight ahead and had worked myself warm already so today I was getting to the bottom of it.
 With the help of my saw and the bayonet I got the roots away and could loosen the rock so that could be rolled out of the ditch. Now I had to dig loose two bands from a 200l fuel drum (luckily the drum itself was no longer there) which lay on top of some other stuff. The rest was easy. Some shovelling of sand later I had recovered a large vehicle heater, two times the size of the ones I have found before. A lamphouse with a kerosene lantern inside, probably to hang on a wagon I imagine, some kind of box which looks like it should be on a vehicle or wagon and two parts which I believe are covers to be attached to headlights so they are not visible from above.. but maybe Im wrong and some of you will give me the correct ID :)

Two days later I braved up for another cold morning in the forest and went to the gebirgsjäger headquarter. Last time there I had found lots of signals in the bottom of a slope and fantasized about helmets and guns waiting for me to dig them up. The first signal there was very promising, the "flap" from a rear Notek light. Im sure someone restoring a lamp will need it. The following signal was much better but was just a handfull of rifle ammo. 8mm Norwegian rounds for the Colt machinegun, but produced under German management in 1943.
​ The signals in the bottom of the slope were checked one by one, but other than the two first finds it were all parts from crates and boxes, and one padlock.
 I went over to the radiobunker to cut barbed wire for a few hours, That was as always a terrible job. They are hard to cut and it takes forever to make a big enough clearing for searching under them, not to mention the large bits of rocks stuck between the layers which have to be removed so they doesn`t slide out and fall on my hand or head. 
​ In the end I had very little luck, except not getting cut by wire or glass this time. I found a small pile of relics, one cream tube, a pencil, a few perfume bottles, a part from a Norwegian "shoe box" mine, 8 large "eyelet" screws and the top of a Drahtgabel, a hook for hanging wires and communication cables.
 Now I was pretty cold, wet and stiff so I had to get up and move around a bit. The cold temps made it difficult for the batteries on my detector. I could barely hear the signals it was giving, but still, the next hour it really did the job. On a small hill it found me twelve german coins and a brennzunder, but after that it was the end, it just died, no more juice in the batteries. I was anyway pretty ready to go home. I wanted a warm dinner and to construct a pillowfort in front of the fireplace.

The last couple of days it has been getting colder, and the top of the ground is feeling quite hard, even after six-seven hours of sun, but I need to make another go tomorrow, coz the rest of the week the night temps will drop to -10 Celsius which will be the end of digging, unless there will come some warmer periode again. So I am getting ready some warmer gloves, a scarf and I will bring warm coffee with me. 

​Thanks for reading and enjoy your week. Keep Smiling ;)
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