Bakelite, Buttons & Tent Pegs
Throughout the week weather kept up with its digger friendly temperatures and lack of winter. The last days the cold needles in the winds have returned though, and so has the snow on the mountain tops. The predictions seems to be that King Winter will be stepping up with all his might in the coming week. But we`ll see. In the north anything can happen. Some years ago digging season lasted till the beginning of December after just a short week of winter in October.
First day of detecting this week happened in the area where I found the Lappland Shield hoard. I worked in a spiral pattern out from the site, focusing on aluminum and zink signals. The shields were harder to find this time. I ended up with none, but instead I dug up two small dumping pits.
The first one was full of small bakelite cartouche boxes for mountain guns, the Gebirgs Geschutz 36, with one or two marked Geb.G.15. A couple of them had been engraved with initials, and was perhaps used for small personal effects or toothpowder.
There was also the remains of a Luftwaffe Panzerhandlampe, a rusted canteen, three pressed wood tent pegs, a Finnish Pukko with a leather scabbard and some hygiene articles.
The best of the finds were three Luftwaffe forks. All denazified, but done in an interesting way as you can see from the pics further down on the page.
A Finnish pukko. It is not often I have found these with a scabbard. Bakelite boxes and lids.
The other dump was much smaller. On the top was a bundle of pioneer wire, but on the bottom were six tent pegs. Three steel and three aluminum.
I didn`t find much more of interest that day, I only picked up a couple of tools and a gebirgsjäger primus. I also began collecting some parts from the triangular barrack stoves which a friend of me wants to restore and have for his museum. Difficult though as they were made from thin sheet metal that rusts away relatively quickly, but I am building a depot and will carry it out when I have enough for a complete one.
Gebirgsjäger primus. Tent pegs.
On my next trip I did a recce to a site which looked very promising on paper, but after a couple of hours the hopes of finding any Wehrmacht relics died. Signals littered the place, but all of it from old Nato exercises so I can scratch that one off the list.
Early Friday morning I went to my main gebirgsjäger hunting ground to spend some hours before work later in the afternoon.
Just a few steps from where I parked, the metal detector discovered a small garbage dump. It had picked up a strong brass signal, and on the bottom of the shallow pit, under a bunch of rusted food cans, was a K98 ammo pouch, full of rounds. Around the edges between broken bits of porcelain and bottles I found some intact medical supply. Several ampoules with unknown content, which I left behind, and a very nice thermometer, marked Hauptveterinärpark.
A thermometer. The mercury had leaked out from the broken tip. Hauptveterinärpark. Full ampoules.
I searched an area between where two barracks had stood. It was all silent, except one single signal. A large brass key. Heavily worn. Maybe from one of the barrack doors.
In a slope towards the river my Fisher F5 nearly had a drip. It was strong signals everywhere, so I opened up a section of the forest floor. It was a mess of trash, but with a few goodies tucked in between. An Esbit burner with lots of the original finish intact was first to see daylight, a large pole climbing shoe and a couple of Einheitslanterne parts, a group of belt support hooks and the catch from a belt also found their way into my backpack.
Esbit burner. Belt catch and support hooks. Pole climbing shoe.
In the corner of the hole in the ground two or three uniform buttons peeked out when I scraped around with my bayonet. Suddenly it was like a hornets nest. Buttons just flowed out from the soil. Handful after handful. I had to grab a plastic bag and start filling it. In the end the bag was half full, and when I cleaned it all up later in the evening and weighed it, the scale read 1.1 kilo! Now I can sew german buttons to all my clothes if I wish.
The last find I made before I had to call it quits was a nice fuel burner made by Barthel. It was in such good condition that I will get it working again.
Buttons pouring out of the ground. Einheitslanterne spare part holder. Fuel burner.
I really hope that winter will postpone its arrival with a few weeks, because I would like to do some more scraping of that slope, and do another round looking for Lappland Shields. But, should the terribleness begin, with snow and frost, there will be no suffering or days of laziness. Because I have lots of relics to clean and sort, miniature diorama projects to complete and a new rifle to test and shoot in, maps to study and maybe finally make a start on one of my book ideas, and it could be time to open a relic webshop again, perhaps.
Thanks again for tagging along on my expeditions and sharing the joy of nature and history. I wish you a great week and a warm snow free winter!
Luftwaffe forks. Artistic way of denazification on them. Tent pegs. Bakelite. A pile of buttons. One pair of buttons had a "1" embossed. Wooden tent peg. Reindeer antlers. Pots for cooking. Horseshoes. Panzerhandlampe. Rusted canteen. Treasures sticking out from the soil. A bakelite box peeking out. Gaming pieces. Items for personal grooming. More tent pegs. Cutlery. A good find these forks. Mystery brass parts. Tool. Zusatzladung for nebelwerfer. A dug out full of nato rubbish. Broken porcelain. Full ampoules. Pioneer wire. The Key.
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