Porcelain & Trench-Art

Early Monday morning when the forest opened up for business I was there, ready for my shift. I had brought lunch and some coffee as I probably would spend the entire day there. My plan was to finally complete the dumping pit. It did not look like it was much of a job left but it took me until lunchtime to do.

Other than food tins and bottles, the rests of a burnt up Volksempfanger radio, I also dug up a Finnish coin, an intact medical ampoule, a handfull of wrenches and a porcelain coffee mug.

It was no markings on the mug, but it was intact and it might become my new go-to coffee cup. After checking for more signals, probing a bit for glass, bakelite or porcelain it was clear that the pit was empty. I checked all the edges and the area around. I only picked up a few buttons and stripper clips. I made sure the place looked ok, and took a coffee break, hoping there would be some squirrel action.

The day was still relatively young so I began checking the forest for signals. I soon had a few meter long zig-zag ditch, it could almost look like a trench line, in front of me. It had some signals so I began digging. 40-50 cm down it became clear it was a ditch used to throw things in at some point.

A bunch of rifle ammo in their stripper clips came out of the ditch first. Clip after clip till it became a little pile. Then a fishing lure and a pair of coins. Finnish ones again. A coin purse followed, together with a field torch. I have found many of those torches the last weeks.

Then when I was digging away some soil with my hand I felt something rubbery and carefully dug free something that reminds of a gas mask but it is not.

It is made of leather, with rubber inside connected to the hose with the air valve, like one is supposed to be able to inflate it somehow. If I saw it online with no context I would say "fetish-mask" but I do not think the Wehrmacht back then was that open minded.. So if anyone knows what the mask is please let me know :)

Scraping away at the soil some porcelain appeared. I scraped carefully and the porcelain grew bigger, and bigger. I realized it had to be a large serving bowl. But would it be intact, and have markings?

This was very exciting so I took it easy. But when I removed some sand from above the bowl a metal thing fell down. I managed to ninja-grab it before it hit the porcelain. And then I looked at the thing. It was a trench-art box!! Wow! I placed it in the relic pile and went back to the porcelain.

I dug it free and saw when I reached the foot of it that it was in two pieces. That sucked a bit, but on the other hand it looked to be a nice clean break so it would be an easy fix.

The best thing was the markings. The eagle and under it " O.T" - Organization Todt. An amazing find!

Having the porcelain safely put aside I continued the ditch ca a meter more with only minor finds. Now a rusted barrell "blocked" the ditch and I realized it had become late and decided to deal with the barrell after a good nights rest.

I did not waste the morning dew today. I wanted porcelain hunting. Did the morning routine in record time and was in the forest before the squirrels. The barrell got dug free and removed and I continued to mole my way through the ditch.

Bottles, bottles, and even more bottles. So many that I began to hope for broken ones just to mix it up a little.

Very little metal at all. Meter after meter till the ditch was done. A champagne bottle still had its labels intact so that was a keeper. Parts of a helmet liner, toothbrushes, a bakelite bottle, a pair of sunglasses and a set of keys was basically it.

Oh, and a thimble. A nice one, with a red band and Greek letters around the edge. Interesting to find two Greek items (the coin from last dig) here North.

It was still a couple of hours until dinner time so I walked around picking signals and trying to find another dumping place. Under the signal of a small Finnish coin was the rests of a burn pit. Lots of ashes, melted and broken glass but on the edge of it was two wooden bowls. One was broken into several pieces but the smaller one was in very good condition.

Back at home the porcelain bowl has been cleaned and glued together. It looks really great. I am very happy with that find. Im going back to that place soon after a little bit of rest and Im hoping there will be some more nice bits there :)

Finnish coin.

The small coin purse.

The fetish-mask.

Trench-art!!

Porcelain..

..markings showing..

The large serving bowl had the markings of Organisation Todt.

Blue signal flare.

Yummy berries.

Champagne!

Plastic sunglasses. High fashion in 1944.

The thimble with greek letters.

My shovel next to ze Germans`.

Bowl made from pressed wood.

Makers logo.

Parsa Zahnpasta.