artefacts page 2

GaryD's Mucky Fingers

Welcome to the artefact page 2.
Please take a look at our Metal Detecting finds.

Typically such clasps or hasp as this, were riveted to leather straps that would wrap around a book, keeping its pages flat when not in use. This one retains remnants of rivet holes with which it was attached and is decorated with a design of stamped (or engraved) circles. Variants of this design were used all over Europe through the fifteenth century.
They became smaller in the sixteenth century before disappearing in favour of ribbon ties or no fastenings.
This is an especially interesting object considering how very few literate people there were during these times.
Of the few books that were created most were written in Latin.

French Frog

After nearly two years, I think we may have found out what this little frog was used for. It turns out that it's a French Frog (no joke please)

Its part of a child's toy named CLICKER

its correct name has been long forgotten "Maybe someone out there can ask their grandparents maybe they will remember

It's a lead replica of a small frog and would have been fitted with a spring and a back plate which when compressed by the finger and thumb would make a loud clicking sound. It was made around the 1880 -90 The CR is the makers identity mark. The CR firm was incorporated in 1868 by Louis Rossignol and his wife and Located in Paris, they mostly produced penny toys: trains, soldiers and pistols, etc. I have tried to do a little bit of research into this company but as of yet not a lot has turned up. Doesn't help that I can't speak French. Oh yes one last thing do you remember the film the Longest day well the American Paratroopers used these as a means of identification, Although they had Clickers made of brass and named CRICKET There was a backup plan in case you lost your cricket, for that: if out of the night someone uttered “flash!” you responded with “thunder,” and if he came back with “lightning!”all was well. If not you shot him.....

Simon's cricket

We must have dug up twenty of these Victorian brass curtain rings.

It got me thinking, what if the heaver bronze rings

we find could these be curtain rings from four-poster beds?

Just a thought, Beds were very expensive and only a gentleman

would have a bedstead. Brass rings held curtains around the bed to protect the sleeper against drafts.

I think this lead Dakota aircraft was probably made in the 1940s or 1950s
It was recovered at a depth of 2in. It announced itself with a very loud signal.

I would like to thank Pete, for his id of this Douglas C47A Dakota (DC 3)

Perhaps one of the most historically significant British Dakota is th preserved Dakota C47B-20-DK (DC3) with the markings "Larry Blackman", was originally presented to General Bernard Montgomery by the American Supreme Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower in the war. Bu27110 is perched on display outside the Air Niugini Head Office at Jackson's airport,

Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). It was mounted there as a monument to all the airmen who have given their lives flying in Papua New Guinea. P2-ANQ was built in 1943 as a 26 seat VIP transport for the United States Army Air corps and sent to the United Kingdom

As a lend-lease aircraft. General Eisenhower presented the plane to General Montgomery “Monty”, and subsequently Monty used the aircraft extensively throughout the European campaign during the last years of the Second World War. After the war the aircraft was put into service as a personal VIP carrier for Greek shipping magnate, Stavos Niachos. TAA - Trans Australian Airlines (now merged with QANTAS) bought the aircraft in 1965 and registered it as VH-SBW for service in Papua New Guinea.

Derringers were invented, or at least popularised, by a man named "Deringer" (Note the single "r") in the 1800s. The original Deringer was a small, handy, Single barrel muzzle loading single shot pistol that could be easily concealed.
When other manufacturers wanted to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of these small pistols, they called their generic pistols "derringers," and that is where the extra "r" came from. John Wilkes Booth used one of these to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Booth shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln. On 14 April 1865. During a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., Booth snuck into the presidential box and shot Lincoln behind the left ear. Booth leapt down to the stage (breaking the fibula bone in his left leg as he landed) and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" (In Latin, "Thus ever to tyrants.") He escaped with an accomplice and eluded pursuers for 12 days before being cornered in a tobacco shed in Virginia. The shed was set on fire, and in the ensuing confusion Booth was shot by a Union soldier, Sgt Boston Corbett, Booth was dragged from the shed alive, but died a few hours later. Booth was a well-known actor and had appeared on the Ford's Theatre stage many times; Lincoln had actually seen him there in an 1863 performance of The Marble Heart... Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, Sr., was an even more famous actor... Booth shot Lincoln five days after the Civil War ended, when confederate General Robert E. Lee Surrendered to the Union's Ulysses Grant at Appomattox on 9 April 1865.

Lead Soldier

Seeking a more structured way to play with toy soldiers, H.G. Wells wrote Little Wars - recognised today as the first recreational war-game. He is regarded by gamers and hobbyists as "the Father of Miniature Wargaming. One of the oldest lead toy makers is Britains Ltd.It was founded around 1845, the year William Britain Sr. moved from Birmingham to Hornsey Rise, North London;he made ingenious mechanical toys, but their complexity and high cost limited sales. So to boost business, William Britain Jr. came up with the idea of hollow-casting lead toy soldiers, a process whose origins have been attributed to Germany.A hollow-cast figure was cheaper to make and ship to customers because it needed less lead and was lighter than a solid soldier. The first Britains model -- a mounted Life Guard -- was produced in 1893 and the process was patented.Hollow-casting revolutionized the family business and the toy soldier industry at a time when German-made flat, semi-round and solid toy soldiers dominated the market in Great Britain. Britain's' attractive and more affordable 3-D toy soldiers helped the firm supplant foreign competition. In addition, Britain's enhanced the collectable allure of its glossy troops by continuously offering new lines in its standardised 54-mm scale. Domestic and overseas sales mushroomed. The British company became recognised as the global leader in metal soldiers. Plastics were added to its sales arsenal in the 1950s.

More lead toys