A bit more than a week ago I ordered a bolt cutter so that I could get deeper into a dumping pit. Lots of barbed wire had been thrown on top of the rubbish pit making any more progress searching there difficult. I had found too many interesting things to just let it go, so earlier this week I picked up the bolt cutter when the post office opened and went directly to the pit to begin cutting my way in. I quickly discovered that this job was way harder than I had imagined. The wires are tough and the tool weighs some kilo, so now several days later I can still feel it in the muscles. Good training.
After ca 7 hours I had managed to cut open prehaps a 2 m x 1.5 m passage near the side wall of the "bunker". Relics had came out in a steady pace but nothing very interesting yet. Many small bottles went into the pile to bring home. Some bottles were new to me and one had a bit of the label intact, Nivea sun cream. I found a book where the title page was partly intact and it was fun to for once know what kind of book I had found. "Marie Verwhanen" by Joseph Lauff. A lot of radio parts continued to come out from under the barbed wire cover, and I picked out several bakelite contacts and connectors plus a few radio tubes. Filtered together were a bunch of cable hangers and when I lifted those out I found underneath a Zeiler field torch made from bakelite. I saw porcelain but got disappointed when it was only half a coffee cup, but thirty minutes later I found the other piece. Now it was only a small piece missing from the edge of it, so I picked up any porcelain part I could see for the rest of the day, and later I found one small piece that fitted. Some of the last bits I dug out that day were a very nice Göffel and a brass ashtray with a horse design, a Karbid box, a bakelite pen and two name tags made of some early plastic. When I was about to close the pit I noticed something white and paper like. I carefully pulled it out and it was the instructions on how to use a Wehrmacht radio . Awesome end of the day. I placed all the lenghts of the cutted barbed wire on the bottom of the pit and covered it up so no animals will hurt themselves on it. It is still a lot of work to search the rest of the pit and I wish I had some kind of mega-magnet that could just lift all the wire away in one go :) I might ask the landowner about the possibilities to get the help of a mini-digger next season.
The weather report for the coming week was not promising at all, showing days with temps down to -10 Celcius mixed in with milder days with snow. And Thursday afternoon I heard the Girlfriend shouting excited from her lab something about snow. Sure enough, when I looked outside there were a few flakes falling. A few hours later the cat wanted to go out and I had a big surprise when I opened the door. A few centimeter of snow covering everything! Damn, not good!
Yesterday morning the snow was still there, and it was all frozen with -4 below zero. After coffee I put the winter tyres on the car and got into my digging gear. If the promises comes through this would be the last chance for any digging. It was a bit milder and less snow in the Gebirgsjäger camp so I marched right up to one of the "signal hot-spots" I had found last week. Here I had also forgotten a Field kitchen drawer I wanted to bring home. I began searching between some trees. A small area, ca 1x1 meter. I spent the next hour collecting Kriegsmarine buttons. When it was empty I had ten of them, three of which the larger golden type. Very nice ones. I also had four standard uniform buttons and a small one for a cap.
A little further away, after a handfull of good signals that were just garbage I came across a ditch with a lot of interesting signals. Here I kept on digging until the alarm on my phone went off a few hours later, alerting me about other chores I could not postpone doing. If the season is really over now this is where I will start up again, and in any case I am going back as soon as the weather allows it. The first thing I uncover is a 1liter alco bottle with some very nice markings, and next to it I see a gun!! Wow!! It takes a moment before I realize that the slide and barrel is missing. It is only the lower part of the gun. It is always like this! This is the third time I find the handle of a gun. Never a full one :D I am anyway very happy with such an interesting find and I keep searching and digging until I have to go. I couldn`t find the missing parts now, but I took with me some cream tubes, a small ashtray and a glass part which I think belongs to some antenna system.
I really hope there will be more chances for digging this year but it ll be a miracle if we ll get such a long season as last year, but if it is really over I am satisfied with that too. I have had a great season, lots of amazing finds, dreams that came true, I dug with Baard and Skule, made friends with some other cool diggers and had some nice interactions with some of you who follow me on my trips through the screen as well!!
Now lets hope for bonus season, and a good next season. And in the meantime I will sort and clean finds, share pics of that and create some relic- and miniature art.
Have a great winter time my friends :)
After ca 7 hours I had managed to cut open prehaps a 2 m x 1.5 m passage near the side wall of the "bunker". Relics had came out in a steady pace but nothing very interesting yet. Many small bottles went into the pile to bring home. Some bottles were new to me and one had a bit of the label intact, Nivea sun cream. I found a book where the title page was partly intact and it was fun to for once know what kind of book I had found. "Marie Verwhanen" by Joseph Lauff. A lot of radio parts continued to come out from under the barbed wire cover, and I picked out several bakelite contacts and connectors plus a few radio tubes. Filtered together were a bunch of cable hangers and when I lifted those out I found underneath a Zeiler field torch made from bakelite. I saw porcelain but got disappointed when it was only half a coffee cup, but thirty minutes later I found the other piece. Now it was only a small piece missing from the edge of it, so I picked up any porcelain part I could see for the rest of the day, and later I found one small piece that fitted. Some of the last bits I dug out that day were a very nice Göffel and a brass ashtray with a horse design, a Karbid box, a bakelite pen and two name tags made of some early plastic. When I was about to close the pit I noticed something white and paper like. I carefully pulled it out and it was the instructions on how to use a Wehrmacht radio . Awesome end of the day. I placed all the lenghts of the cutted barbed wire on the bottom of the pit and covered it up so no animals will hurt themselves on it. It is still a lot of work to search the rest of the pit and I wish I had some kind of mega-magnet that could just lift all the wire away in one go :) I might ask the landowner about the possibilities to get the help of a mini-digger next season.
The weather report for the coming week was not promising at all, showing days with temps down to -10 Celcius mixed in with milder days with snow. And Thursday afternoon I heard the Girlfriend shouting excited from her lab something about snow. Sure enough, when I looked outside there were a few flakes falling. A few hours later the cat wanted to go out and I had a big surprise when I opened the door. A few centimeter of snow covering everything! Damn, not good!
Yesterday morning the snow was still there, and it was all frozen with -4 below zero. After coffee I put the winter tyres on the car and got into my digging gear. If the promises comes through this would be the last chance for any digging. It was a bit milder and less snow in the Gebirgsjäger camp so I marched right up to one of the "signal hot-spots" I had found last week. Here I had also forgotten a Field kitchen drawer I wanted to bring home. I began searching between some trees. A small area, ca 1x1 meter. I spent the next hour collecting Kriegsmarine buttons. When it was empty I had ten of them, three of which the larger golden type. Very nice ones. I also had four standard uniform buttons and a small one for a cap.
A little further away, after a handfull of good signals that were just garbage I came across a ditch with a lot of interesting signals. Here I kept on digging until the alarm on my phone went off a few hours later, alerting me about other chores I could not postpone doing. If the season is really over now this is where I will start up again, and in any case I am going back as soon as the weather allows it. The first thing I uncover is a 1liter alco bottle with some very nice markings, and next to it I see a gun!! Wow!! It takes a moment before I realize that the slide and barrel is missing. It is only the lower part of the gun. It is always like this! This is the third time I find the handle of a gun. Never a full one :D I am anyway very happy with such an interesting find and I keep searching and digging until I have to go. I couldn`t find the missing parts now, but I took with me some cream tubes, a small ashtray and a glass part which I think belongs to some antenna system.
I really hope there will be more chances for digging this year but it ll be a miracle if we ll get such a long season as last year, but if it is really over I am satisfied with that too. I have had a great season, lots of amazing finds, dreams that came true, I dug with Baard and Skule, made friends with some other cool diggers and had some nice interactions with some of you who follow me on my trips through the screen as well!!
Now lets hope for bonus season, and a good next season. And in the meantime I will sort and clean finds, share pics of that and create some relic- and miniature art.
Have a great winter time my friends :)
After some work with shovel and bayonet it was time to bring on the bolt cutter..
One really start to feel it after cutting a few meter :D
Wire spool. Happy I found one with wire still on.
Plugs and such.
Shaving gear.
Cable hangers.
Insulators.
Radiotubes.
Bakelite pen.
Field torch.
Ashtray.
Nametag and gaming pieces.
Coffee cup.
Bottles.
Sun cream.
This looked like a primitive battery.
Lid with French label.
Karbid box.
Göffel.
Book.
Finnish coin.
Wehrmacht radio instructions.
Thursday evening the world looked like this.
Mystery parts found near the radio pit.
The forest is full of Finnish coins.
Snow and poop.
First of many buttons.
Nicely marked bottle.
As a few times before, I found half a gun.
If anyone can tell from these pics what it is please let me know :)
Tiny ashtray.
Glass piece marked "Heliogen" and "Germany".
Oven / ash drawer.
I hope to be back with some bonus digging this season, but if not : Have a nice winter everyone :)
A few cleaned finds:
Name tags. "Thiele" and "Peiffer"
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