Another Iron Signal Paying Off

The late summer is beginning to look a lot like autumn in the valleys here north now. We have had some beautiful sunny and warm days in the start of the week, which without much warning turned into rainy, cold, windy ones. Lots of leaves are transforming from green into red and yellow, and berries and the gardens are ripe. This, plus work, resulted in only one trip out with the metal detector this week.

I got up extra early, because the weather report promised huge amounts of rain a little later on the afternoon, and I wanted to get some digging done before the terribleness arrived. I had left a few good signals last time I was searching in the gebirgsjäger camp, so that felt like a good place to spend as much of the day as possible.

After digging up a few rifle casings, stripper clips and modern garbage I found something more interesting. I thought it was a lid from a paint can, but it was an ashtray. It had a small image embossed in the middle, a horse in a norse looking style.

Pretty cool, and one can never have too many ashtrays. But it was not all. After checking with the pinpointer I tore away more of the moss, and charcoal and blobs of melted glass appeared. A small fireplace.

It must have looked awesome back in the late summer months of 1945 when hundreds of small fires were burning in the camps down through the valley, as soldiers got rid of stuff they didn`t feel like carrying back to Germany. In this particular fireplace it looked like some stuff were burnt, but that other rubbish had been thrown in it after the flames had died out.

That rubbish got fresh air again now as small treasures, or for most, probably still junk.

Some of this were early plastic items such as toothbrushes, a butterdish, a fountain pen and a ping pong ball! Also a very interesting instructional sheet regarding gun powder charges-temperature-range-angle instructions for artillery guns.

Another item that was lovely to find was a coffee mug, although the markings on the bottom of it were a bit weak. Before I had to refill the fireplace I also found two metal dishes from the field kitchen kit and some bakelite stuff. A lid for a jar, a small powder charge box and a large powder charge box.

As I was closing the hole I noticed a small piece of wood in the scrap.

It was square and had the size of a typical luggage tag and it had a hole with a small piece of rope. I turned it over and it had writing on it! It was a luggage tag! Initials, roll number, unit and feldpostnummer!

An amazing find! Worth saving from the burnt metal in the little rubbish pit were only a handfull of cooked off 7.92 rounds, exploded and turned into nice metal flowers.

I didn`t find any more burn- or dumping pits, but I strolled around and got a good excersise getting up and down checking signals. Some treasures slowly trickled into the finds bag as well. A german coin, pair of ski goggles, cream tins and Doramad toothpaste and an entrenching tool. I picked up some food tins and a couple of bottles as well.

Walking back to the parking place to head home I found a wallet with a few Finnish coins in and around it.

But I ended the day with a mega find!

The signal was iron so my guess was horseshoe, but no. It was a revovler!! Wohoo! Unbelivable! I don`t know yet what type it is, but it wouldn`t surprise me if it is a Russian Nagant. It ll be fun figuring out.

I made it to the car before the rain really came pouring down. Nearly so that I would be better off with a boat. I made it safe home and a little bit later when I checked the news I was happy I hadn`t gone to some other camps I had thought to visit. In that direction a large mudslide had closed the roads for many hours and I would have had to overnight in a cold van.

Weather for the upcoming week looks allright so unless there will be a ton of work I ll try do get back in the woods asap :)

Thanks for reading. Enjoy your week, and keep smiling :)