One of My Best Relic Hunting Finds in USA
Common Militia Waist Belt Plate, circa 1832-1845
This remarkable relic was recovered with the Minelab Explorer metal detector at the site of the colonial cellar hole during my relic hunting in the Western Rensselaer County, Upstate New york, USA.
Littered with iron junk, the entire area around the cellar hole of a large size was covered with fallen trees and dense vegetation, thus, making metal detecting a serious challenge. It took me a few visits to the site to recover as many relics and coins as possible. A few military uniform buttons from the were dug up as well.
I discovered the Common Militia Belt Plate on my last visit, actually when I was leaving the site, in the middle of the dirt road. I was very exhausted at end of the day but decided not to turn my Minelab Explorer metal detector off until I would make some distance between myself and the cellar hole. When I received a shallow signal, I did not expect to find anything old but was pleasantly surprised to recover an artifact that would be admired by any relic collector.
Specifications:
- Dimensions: 55 x 72 mm
- Construction: Guild die-struck rolled brass plate with applied brass tongue and belt loop bar. Iron keepers.
- Remarks: A predecessor of the panel plates, arrows pointing down generally dates the die sinking design to 1832-1836. This pattern enjoyed widespread use. Circa 1840 prints by Huddy and Duval show similar stock pattern plates worn by independent companies from Philadelphia and New York.
More images of post Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War relics can be seen in Relics section.
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ANNOUNCEMENT:
In January of 2020, I started a one-time fund-raising campaign in attempt to accumulate enough money to buy a simple but reliable 4x4 vehicle. My old 4x4 car (made in 1995) had faithfully served me for 10 years before it eventually went beyond repair last October. Without a 4WD, I will not be able to get to my hunt sites and test-plots hidden in the remote wooded areas inaccessible by a regular car.
Unlucky for me, those sites are the only locations available and suitable for my field-work which results in informative articles you can find on this website. For the past 10 years, my usual field-work has consisted of field-testing the latest metal detectors and accessories, experimenting with some of them, and devising new effective search methods that meet the requirements of the new metal detecting reality.
Before my car died, I managed to finish a couple of interesting detector-testing projects which will be covered in my upcoming articles. But other equally important projects that I was working on were not completed and had to be postponed until the Spring 2020. I hope that this fund-raising campaign will help me get a decent 4x4 by then so that I will be able to resume my work and to write more new articles, tutorials and guides based on data gathered through testing and experimentation.
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