Jewelery Cache Found !! UPDATE

I've been working on researching new places to hunt. This is a daunting task, as time and time again I've spent time at the library, online, etc., researching an interesting old site, only to get there and find that it had effectively been cleaned out. When I bring these places up to the old timers at our club meetings afterward, they jovially state "That place, oh yeah, we cleaned that out 20 years ago, it was great!". Virgin territory around here, aside from a park scrape or lot demo, is a rarity indeed.

This round of research led to abundant new (to me) information, as well as an old map showing some very interesting areas to detect. With map in hand, and permission to hunt these new sites, I called my friend Mark (aka BeachBumm) to hunt and off we went for the day to investigate them. The first spot we hit was almost void of targets, a few gratis clad coins and the usual trash, but it had obviously been hunted before. The second spot we hit was horribly grown over, it was difficult just to move around, let alone swing your coil, but it did yield a few wheatbacks, so we figured it had potential and might be worth another visit after we run out of areas to hunt at this location. The third spot started off odd. We were told to look for an old picnic area next to a salix tree. We found the tree, but it was very small , and the geography of the area didn't lend itself to being a picnic ground. We decided to detect it for a while anyhow, but after a bit concluded that it couldn't be the spot we were looking for. While we were discussing it, I spied a small flat area up a steep hill, and we decided to check it out. When we got to the top, it looked like we may have found the spot. Mark veered to the left and I to the right swinging away.

A few minutes later I get a nice big silver signal. Having no idea what was about to begin, I dug down and out pops a rather odd, hippie looking piece of jewelery. It's a BIG silver cut out pin that reads "I AM". I flipped it over and could make out that it was marked "sterling" , but couldn't really read the rest of the mark. Not really my cup of tea, but a big piece of silver is always welcome in my pouch. A few feet away from there I get a nickel'ish signal and a few inches down out pops a gold'ish flowerette looking object. Thinking it's junk, I stick it in my junk pocket and move on. A few feet from there is an old tree stump, so I decide to quickly scan around the base. Immediately I get a solid penny signal, and dig down a few inches and out pops a beautiful Art Deco silver/gold bracelet with amethyst stones! Wow, now I'm excited, but it hasn't quite sunk in what I've encountered. After I do the happy dance with the bracelet, I rescan the hole and only inches away I get a high silver'ish tone, inches away from where the bracelet was recovered I pull a pair of what appear to be silver cuff links out. Wow, what's going on here? I quickly scan around the tree trunk base a bit with my detector and it's lighting up targets like the 4th of July. I can't believe it, did I find my first cache? By this time, Mark comes down to see what's going on. I show him my finds and lay claim to the tree trunk perimeter

For the next two hours I dug signal after signal, for a total target count of 30 targets. Two targets were wheat pennies (1936 and 1942), two were keys, both stamped with the number "165", and two buttons in poor shape (not shown), but the rest was jewelery. The targets were spread out around this tree trunk within a ten foot radius, some targets were only a few inches under the tree droppings, yet others were as deep as 8". Typically I'd expect a coin or jewelery cache to be concentrated (buried in a container or sack that has degenerated) , unless it was in a plowed field where it could be spread around, but that's not the case here. What story do the two matching keys have to tell? Are they safe deposit box keys, strong box keys, Greyhound locker keys, or what? It's an interesting find with big mystic surrounding it. How did it end up here? When was it buried here? Why was it buried here? And why was it spread around and not in one hole? I'll probably never know the answers to this enigma.

OK, let's see some pictures occasion14

The piece that started it all (found that this piece was made by Leonore Doskow who's been a silversmith on the East Coast since the 1920's and her pins, necklaces and bracelets are collector’s items):

Sterling Leonore Doskow pin.jpg

Art Deco sterling silver, 12K gold and amethyst bracelet (found this snippet about them on the web - Symmetalic is a registered trademark of W. E. Richards Company, founded in the 1902 in North Attleboro, MA. The trademark Symmetalic was first used in 1936. Symmetalic jewelry is usually made of Sterling Silver with a 14KT gold overlay and the designs were primarily those of the Edwardian and Art Deco influence. They produced a line of jewelry in sterling vermeil implementing cultured pearls and top quality stones. In general, all of their jewelry exhibited quality designs and materials and incredibly fine workmanship. Symmetalic jewelry is relatively rare and HIGH COLLECTIBLE, look for Art Deco and Nouveau motifs and designs.):

Deco Bracelet1.jpg

Getting started:

Getting Started.jpg

Sterling silver hand-made bracelets (Their not marked, but obviously are silver. Anyone have any ideas on age, maker, etc?):

Silver Bracelets.jpg

Sterling bird pin and Sterling silver BSA ring (looks like an oldie?):

Gold ladies pocket watch. Unfortunately I haven't been able to open the watch. Typically depressing the stem will release the spring mechanism to open the watch, but the stem is frozen (won't move in any direction), even after trying to loosen it with some WD40. What a shame, as it's not unusual for the inside of the case to be engraved with the owners name, a date and other interesting information.

It's a bit dark in the forest where this cache was found, and when I initially found the earring with the stone (first photo), it looked green, of course I was hoping it was a big green emerald happy2

After getting it home and cleaned up, the gold is only plate, and the stone is actually blue, not green. The stone might be, at best a blue topaz (which are very inexpensive stones). The second photo shows the misc ensemble of "gold" objects, but only the bent up bezel is actually real gold. What's interesting is that the gold pocket watch has an "M" engraved on the front of the case, and here we have two gold plated "M"'s, so the owner may have been Mary, or Maria, Monica, or ? The third photo shows the pair of Mother of Pearl cuff-links (looks like the metal was gold or silver plated originally):

No idea what the half rings in the first photo were? Two wheatbacks were found among the cache, one dated 1936 the other 1942. And the keys. How do the keys fit into the find, are they safe deposit box keys, strong box keys, Greyhound locker keys, or ?

The cache after it was dug:

Cache Ensemble2.jpg

The cache nice and clean:

Cache Ensemble1.jpg

The infamous jewelery cache tree stump after all the jewelery was dug. You can see how spread out around the stump the finds were, and a few were also located outside the field of the photo. Very odd indeed.

THE Stump.jpg

Even though it didn't turn out to be a cache of Tiffany and Cartier, it was an exciting ride, and a thrill to find icon_biggrin

The cache invokes all kinds of possibilities as to it's existence. Was it from a robbery? Did the owner bury it, intending to return some day to recover it? Perhaps kids swiped it from their parents, had an extravagant tea party, ditching the evidence afterward. How do the matching keys factor into the equation? Perhaps you have an idea as to it's existence?

Thanks for looking and sharing in my excitement thumbsup

Brian

PS - I did get video clips of several of the finds as I dug them on my camera, I'll work on getting a video together of the cache find. director2

UPDATE:

I went back for a few hours this afternoon to make sure I didn't miss anything, and to fan out and detect more outside of the jewelery cache zone to see what else might be found. I started off next to the cache stump in disc mode with the sensitivity cranked high and right away got a hit. It turned out to be a junker earring that fell apart when I cleaned it (not shown). Then a few feet away I got a bouncer, but something was definitely there. I dug down about 7" and saw a few inches of a gold chain dangling out the hole. Excited at first, I relaxed a bit as most of the gold targets dug the day before turned out to be gold plated (except the pocket watch, bracelet and an oddball bent up gold bezel). I loosened the dirt as to dig around the chain trying not break it. I finally got her out of the hole and thought it was a fancy necklace, but it had come apart in a few areas (not by me), so I wasn't positive what it was. I put it in my pouch and continued detecting. I got another signal and pulled out what I thought was a silver earring, but when I got it home and cleaned it up, it turned out to be just a scrap of junk that I suspect had nothing to do with the cache. After this target, I didn't receive any further signals, so I decided to try all metal mode with high sensitivity and a positive threshold. It worked, I found a pair of, well I'm not exactly sure what they are, some kind of small earrings I suspect. Their both marked Monet Sterling. I looked up the mark and apparently the Monet mark was used between 1937-1954, with a copyright mark being added after 1954. Also found another gold plated letter, this time the letter "I".

The chain turned out to be gold plate, but it's still a neat piece and cleaned up pretty well. Here's the second round loot from the cache stump:

Chain Bracelet.jpg

I'm fairly certain that the cache stump has dried up, but I plan to go back and hunt around the rest of the forest where this was found and I'm sure the temptation to detect around the stump again will overcome me, and who knows, perhaps there's still a small trinket waiting to be unearthed next to the stump dontknow

Thanks again for taking a look.
Brian

Jewelery Cache Found !! UPDATE - THERE WAS MORE !!