A Kilo of Buttons

Work and terrible weather cancelled my plans about searching and digging each and every day this week, and it became wednesday before I had a chance to go to the forest again. I had the day off from work and drove to spend a good part of it together with the trees and the creatures living out there in the old gebirgsjäger camp.

I placed my backpack on the foundation of a barrack and turned on- and ground balanced the detector. Immediately it picked up a good little signal which was a small cream tube, and together with it was a blue ceramic lighter.

The next good item was a mess kit, but missing its lid. I noticed there was something engraved on it. It was the owners name in big letters, "Schuhmann". Above the name was another word engraved, smaller and with beautiful letters, "Friede", which is both a girls name and german for "Peace". I could almost see him sitting here by the river a few meters away carving it on the metal when they were informed that the war had ended in May 1945.

Next to another barrack I had a good signal again and began digging. Lots of charcoal and burnt metal showed that this dump had been set fire to and likely most of the stuff in it would have been destroyed. But, I had nothing better to do so I wanted to see if a thing or two could have survived.

Everything in the middle of the dump was destroyed, but around the edges good things had escaped the heat. In a corner I found a ton of gaming pieces. They were really difficult to spot since most of them was quite sooty, but working carefully I ended up with nearly a hundred of them, including 8 dices. A few larger wooden chess pieces had also survived.

In the other corner I dug out many losantine boxes and a large round bakelite box that I ever only found broken bits from. This one seemed to be intact, just some minor damages from the fire by the looks of it. Good enough for a display.

The pit began to look empty, so I checked around with the pinpointer and dragged out two pioneer axes from the sides and then a very fun and surprising find, a musical triangle.

The pit got filled back and I just needed one more sweep with the detector before I had to head back home, and there it was, another good signal. This one was just below the moss so I didn`t even have to dig. It was another mess kit, also with no lid. But it too had been engraved. The soldiers name: "Mesum" and on the other side what I presume was his unit, "12/166".

Lighter and cream tube.

Mess kit with "Schuhmann" engraved.

Triangle.

A large bakelite box.

Thursday and Friday were wasted at work before the glorious Saturday arrived and I was out in the woods from early morning. The first good find came already before the morning coffee had worn off, a nice Mp38/40 magazine, very well preserved.

I dug some nails and bolts, and a small pickaxe. Then the detector sweeped across something that made a great signal. I cut away some roots and when I stuck the bayonet into the sand it hit glass.

I could just scoop the sand away from the green milk jar which was kinda upside-down in the ground. And it had metal inside. It was filled with uniform buttons ! I had a small plastic bag in my pocket so I spread it out on the ground and poured the buttons out. I was hoping for a badge or medal in between the buttons and was so excited that I forgot to take pics.

Between all the buttons, which were all in exellent condition, were a few plastic and cardboard buttons, a few belt support hooks and s-rings, a few of those metal clasps for trousers and a single coin. I weighed the buttons later when back home and it was nearly a kilo of them! Such a crazy find.

​After eating and resting a little I began digging another good signal. Ten- fifteen centimeters below surface I struck some tubular metal. I thought it was the frame of a backpack but then I realized it was snowshoes! And what a pile of them I ended up with! It took me close to an hour to get them all out. 10 pairs!

But the hole was far from empty.

The weather had gone from good to much worse. Warm summer rain started to fall in big drops. And soon both the ground and the sky were trembling under rolling thunders. Luckily I was on a largely open field under a big tree sitting in a pile of metal so I felt safe and ignored the crappy weather and continued my mole like activities.

Now I dug out lots of karbide- and kerosene lamps, all very rusted and with missing or broken parts, and from under them all came a bakelite Einheitslanterne with the aluminum hook to hang it up with. On the side of the lanterns a full gasmask container and a single gasmask had been dumped. When I had cleared one side of the dump I turned around and began scraping away soil again. Now rifle casings began streaming out of the ground. First a whole lot of empty casings, which I saved, but also lots of live ones, which I placed in the deeper end of the ditch.

But it had become late, and I was starving so it was about time to go home. On my way to the backpack I opened up one more signal and won a brass candle holder and a bakelite karbid container. With all the metal collected it was a pretty hard trip back to the car though.

Mp40 magazine.

Fully loaded.

Someone lived here.

Today I had to go back and complete the dumping pit and was of course up early. I remember the times when Sunday usually meant hangovers and sleeping till 16.

The GirlfriendWife decided to join me, which is always cozy, and gives me a better chance of course if a hungry bear shows up.

The rest of the ditch held as I suspected more rifle ammo. Some Mannlicher rounds, some for the K98 and also a handful of 9mm and Soviet PPSh rounds. Between it all was a small ore of clips which I believe would be for the Mannlicher rounds. These clips were in great condition so I piled them up for saving

On the very bottom of the ditch was four more finds. A k98 cleaning kit and three scabbards for k98 bayonet. So now the hunt for the three missing bayonets begin. All the ammo was thrown back in the deep end of the ditch and I filled the junk, rocks and soil on top of it.

​ We strolled around enjoying life and the nature for a little while before we escaped the mosquitoes who had discovered us.

Thanks for reading. Keep Smiling :)

Three bayonet scabbards.