Leather Day

I guess some of you read the title and eagerly clicked the link, but no, it is not the `Blue Öyster Bar` kind of leather this will be about, I am reffering to some old leather from military equipment I found yesterday.

Me and the Girlfriend went out to the woods to forage some plants and to hunt for relics. These days we are collecting Fireweed. We will make syrup from the flowers, and later we ll harvest leaves from the plant to make tea. Tasty and pure goodies from the nature.

While Girlfriend filled two bags with flowers I went up and down the slope with my metal detector and dug up a bunch of rubbish and rifle casings. The only good find I had was the lid from a Wehrmacht soup container.

A couple of hours passed and Girlfriend left to trek up a mountain to check on one of her insect traps so I moved along and into an area where it stood a few remains of barracks. Here I found a German messkit which looks like the owner engraved his initials on, a bed pan, sadly it was rusted through and a lid for a tea pot.

Then I dug up a small enamelled soup ladle, the type that fits into the lid of the soup containers. A very nice little find!

I walked into a small open patch in the birch forest and there was a lonely signal waiting to be found. When I saw the square piece of metal that was one half of a Stalag tag (POW ID tag) I was really happy! Like I mentioned in my last report, I haven`t found any stamped tags for years but this week it is raining apparently.

I placed the tag safely in my pocket and went over the moss with the pinpointer. 5 cm away it goes "BeepBeep". There was the other half of the tag!! The day couldn`t be any better. Or so I thought.

I found a dumping pit and spent an hour digging it but it was all broken glass and metal bits that once was something, and then I walked around for an hour not finding much again. I began my journey back to the car and strolled into a bit of a marshy area. Here the detector picked up an interesting signal. I was dry, but I couldn`t pass on this one.

With the pinpointer in hand I submerged my arm into the cold dark amber colored liquid. Elbow deep. I could feel the pinpointer touch something so I placed it on dry land and stuck my arm back into the water and felt around.

I grabbed hold and pulled out two leather frogs for the K98 bayonet! The next handful were two k98 ammo pouches! This went on for the next half hour- forty minutes.

I had a whole pile of the stuff next to me.

I had pulled out a piece of cloth too which was the rests of a jacket, but the only salvageable from it was some buttons. It was a pretty exciting session.

I did another sweep with the detector and got an iron signal, and I was hoping for a bayonet or even a gun, but insted a small piece of thin metal that once was a German helmet came up from the marsh. But together with it was the chinstrap in good looking condition. This place will be visited again soon, coz who knows what more might be around there. Maybe nothing, but maybe something; this thrill of not knowing is a big part of the joy this hobby gives me :D

Today it is raining a lot so I emptied the bag with the leather and did a count, 23 intact frogs, 9 that has fallen apart and 5 incomplete ammo pouches. A pretty good haul that!

M24 parts.

Lid for soup container.

Bed pan.

Mess kit.

Ladle for the soupcontainer.

Lid for a tea pot.

M24 crate lid.

Half a Stalag tag.

The other half followed.

What an awesome find!