NotekFest

A little after lunchtime on Sunday I went up to Jimmys place to see if he was ready for some digging. To my big surprise he was already awake and almost ready to go.

A cup of coffee later we were in the forest digging signals given by the metaldetectors.

Jimmy had located a dumping pit but it only held food tins, a couple of uniform buttons, two shaving mirrors and three or four toothpaste tubes. We found another pit, but in that one it was only modern food tins from army exercises.

Half hour later we had only found a live M39 egg-grenade, an axehead used for target practise and a boyscout belt buckle, so we decided to drive to another Gebirgsjäger camp and continue the search there.

The new site was blanketed with all sorts of signals. Within moments Jimmy had found a very interesting hammer neither of us had ever seen before. Probably thrown out from the camps small blacksmiths hut that had stood a few meters away on the site.

The next few signals I dug were scrap metal, but then I removed moss and roots from something I always wanted to find; an anti-aircraft sight for MG 34/42! The outer ring of it had been torn and bent, but I was very happy with that find.

Meanwhile Jimmy had dug up a front Notek lamp. It lacked the bottom and internal bits but looked like it could clean up nicely. He also found a large tow hitch from a vehicle. And then I found a Notek lamp. Also only the shell of it, but they are fun to clean and one can of course never have enough Noteks.

I opened up a small fireplace and dug out some uniform buttons, food tins, toothpaste tubes and a pioneer axe in decent condition.

While Jimmy went for a roam around the camp I continued trying to find medals and vehicle parts. I found lots of the latter but no medals. Two license plates came out of the ground and a "winker", an early form of blinkers. The large license plate had been folded, and the small rear plate looked like it had been painted over with "dunkelgelb" paint. Prehaps to camoflage the vehicle better, as a white plate might make a nice target?

Jimmy came back with another Notek shell while I dug up the bottom/internal parts for one of those lamps. So at least one lamp would be completed, if only we could find a glass for it..

We had begun moving towards the cars as it was the end of the day and Jimmy had to check one last signal.

A fourth Notek! Also a pretty good looking one. All three times he dug one up he had believed them to be helmets.

Back home I tried to bend the anti-aircraft sight back into shape and although its far from perfect it will now fit as a backdrop in one of my little displays.

The new week has begun, the weather is quite terrible, but I hope there will be some digging again soon. In the meantime I will clean some relics :)

​Have a nice day!

Boyscout buckle.

Can anyone ID this hammer?

Small license plate, overpainted with dunkelgelb.

Jimmy with the last Notek of the day.

The haul.

Leg for something?

Overpainted license plate.

One of the upsides of autumn, the Aurora Borealis.