I hiked into a new area I had been researching and came across the tell-tale signs of gold mining activity; tailing piles and stacked rock walls so I knew I was in the right spot. After detecting around for a few hours and digging the usual period 1850s-1860s gold camp relics (a stamped brass buckle tongue fragment, 1 Pennyweight scale weight, powder flask spout, spoon bowl, etc) I wandered a bit away from the camp and got a MASSIVE overload signal on my CTX. I knew there was something big down there so I pinpointed out the shape and started digging. After a foot or so I finally came across what was making all that racket! First I came across an intact sluice rake that was sitting on top of what I thought was a shovel. Keep digging and it turns out to be an intact upside-down gold pan! I get that out of the hole and underneath it is ANOTHER intact gold pan! Immediately to the left of that are in fact two complete shovels, two picks, a sledgehammer, an axe, and what I thought was another gold pan, but it turns out to be a long-handled skillet! Buried on its side next to the skillet is an intact JW Hunnewell & Co. condiment bottle! Immediately underneath the skillet are two knives and two forks all with the wood still on the handles! Still underneath all of that was a small cooking pot with lid and a coffee percolator! Seriously a Gold Miner’s Starter Kit in one hole the pictures speak for themselves!! Seriously one of the most thrilling discoveries of my 6+ years of detecting!!!
