Castine Beachcombing

  So, on Sunday I had this great idea to drive up to Castine and walk the beach at low tide in search of doll parts. Yes, doll parts. For those of you who haven't heard of this before, it seems a ship, or ships, went down in Penobscot Bay freighted with porcelain dolls in the 1800's. If one looks carefully enough, little body parts can be found among the as glass, and worn down by the ocean like sea glass. Some of them can be really beautiful and the whole experience of picking up these tiny feet and hands off the beach is just so weird and hilarious and paranormal. 

  I had found some nice pieces on the Castine beach a few years ago, it was a rainy Sunday and I didn't have any work, and low tide was conveniently toward the end of the day, so I hopped in my truck and headed up north. The rain was coming down in intermittent showers and the temps were hovering right around 32, with wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Needless to say, conditions were not ideal, but I had a rain suit behind my seat and I figured I could tough it out. However, it really started to pour as I pulled into my parking spot beside the beach. On top of that, I started to cough. What was this? Why was I coughing? I sneezed repeatedly and my sinuses clammed up like I had just snorted a line of concrete dust. Is this a joke, I thought. Am I suddenly sick? Indeed, though I had felt perfectly fine all morning, I had somehow come down with the flu the moment I parked my truck. I looked at the rain through my windshield and groaned. There was no way I was going to turn around and drive all the way back home. I had driven over two hours and I was going to hunt that beach if it killed me. And hunt it I did, for about three hours. On top of my deteriorating health, I discovered to my dismay that I did not have my rain suit after all, and so I got brutally and rapidly soaked to the skin. 

  The beachcombing was good--the Castine beach can be a treasure trove of old pottery, sea glass, pipe stems, and of course, doll parts-- but I got the distinct impression that it seemed more hunted out than in past visits. There just seemed to be less stuff. That being said, I did find some nice pieces of pottery and china, a few doll parts (notably the ear), a chunk of old brick engraved with the letter 'D', and another pocket watch interior, or skeleton, as I like to call them. I have found a few of these round pocket watch pieces and plan on doing something interesting with them someday.

  By five o'clock the tide was at its lowest, but it was raining so hard and I was shivering so badly that I had to retreat with my pocketful of rubbish. I was a little disappointed on the way back to Camden, but once I got back and spread everything out, I realized it wasn't too bad of a trip. At least I found an ear. Like a scene out of "Blue Velvet", I held it up before me and shivered...

  

Clay Pipe Stems

  Clay pipe stems. I find them on beaches, near old foundations, and sometimes in the holes of things I am digging while metal detecting. I love finding them and I am always amazed at the quantity of the things lying around. Well, I don't know if it's true, but my friends Ginny and Dave told me that as the pipe stem wore out or clogged with time, the user would just snap off the bad piece and toss it. I guess that explains a few things, ie., the large amount and small size of most pieces. These pics are of Ginny and Dave's collection, which they were kind enough to let me examine and photograph. Note the detail on some and the imprinting, which most often reads "Scotland".

  Also, the stems can be dated by placing drill bits into the holes in order to establish the interior diameter. The size of the interior hole determines the date of fabrication. I am including one of many websites that give the breakdown of hole sizes versus creation dates: http://www.bravodigs.org/artifact.html

Beneath the Slab

As some of you may know, I am a stonemason by trade and co-own a small business by the name of Penobscot Stone, which also has a blog, accessible from my home page. So, last week I had the task of cutting an 8" wide by 8" deep by 15 foot trench in the concrete slab of a basement in a 19th century home. It turned out that the slab was just a "rat slab", which means it was only a few inches thick, and was quite easy to cut through with my 12" diamond saw blade, exposing the original clay subsoil beneath. Naturally, I could not resist sticking my Garrett Pro Pointer down there as I dug out the dirt. I didn't find much, just the incredibly worn and thinned out remains of an old copper coin, probably a large cent. I have never seen a coin so thin. Maybe it isn't even a coin, but it is definitely copper and just the right size. My only guess is that it was probably pressed right up against the concrete slab and just rubbing against it for the last 100 years.
The other object was not metallic at all, but a really beautiful oyster shell button that I just happened to notice as I sifted through the soil. I think it probably came from the button factory in Waldoboro, which was extremely active in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and whose product can found widely distributed throughout the midcoast.
Lastly, I am including a photo of an interesting bottle top, with an early rubber stopper inside, that I found on a recent detecting trip to a local beach.

Definitions of Treasure

I received a really wonderful message from someone recently who told me how much he enjoyed my blogs, particularly the treasure-hunting blog. He talked about how he had done some metal detecting and really enjoyed it and how he was now a mushroom hunter, which he considered a form of treasure hunting, and I totally agree.
Merriam-Webster defines "treasure" as "1 a (1) : wealth (as money, jewels, or precious metals) stored up or hoarded (2) : wealth of any kind or in any form : riches
b : a store of money in reserve
2 : something of great worth or value; also : a person esteemed as rare or precious
3 : a collection of precious things"
I think every "treasure hunter" has a list of things that they are searching for. If you are anything like me, your dream is to find enough of at least one thing on that list, or a rare enough specimen, to allow you the financial luxury of being able to devote more of your time to treasure hunting. It isn't that the money or wealth is the most important factor, but a kind of added benefit. I don't think I would stop coinshooting if they became totally worthless tomorrow.
Anyway, my list of "treasure" grows all the time. It starts with Laura, my fiance, who I never knew I was looking for to begin with, but found anyway, and am just trying desperately to keep, because you know, treasure tends to slip through your fingers if you aren't careful. After that is:
Sea Glass
Sea Doll Parts
Sea Marbles
Arrowheads (or any ancient artifacts)
Gems (which I am learning)
Fossils
Gold (which I have never found in it's natural state)
Coins
Relics
Caches (of anything)
Jewelry
Ambergris (the floating-gold whale-vomit I recently learned about)
Meteorites
Antiques (at yard sales, auctions, etc...)
Rare Books
Items Found in Books (money, photos, letters, etc...)

With a list this long and growing, I have not an ounce of doubt in my mind that one could support themselves treasure-hunting. On that note, I started this post with the intention of posting a few pics of a couple of items I found the other day flipping through some old books in a thrift store. Without further ado or jabbering, a pressed flower and a great old bookmark:

Mushrooms

Sea Dolls

   I ran into my friend Carole Lambert, our local sea glass expert extraordinaire, the other day and it got me thinking about my sea doll parts, so I thought I would post a photo. Carole turned me on to these wonderful little treasures a few years ago with her beautiful book "The Sea Glass Chronicles".  Apparently, in the 1800's, these ships would sink off the coast freighted with porcelain dolls and pieces still wash up on certain beaches, not to mention the broken dolls that just got deep-sixed with the daily rubbish. Carole has a few great books on the subject of sea glass and has just started up a new website.  http://www.shipwreckink.com/?page_id=8.
  Anyway, I immediately became fixated--as I am wont to do--on the idea of finding doll parts on beaches. Our good friend (and talented musician-http://www.julianegardner.net/) Juliane Gardener told me she finds dolls parts on the beach in Castine and even brought me a doll foot, so I high-tailed it up there with Laura and found a wonderful porcelain sea-ear within minutes of searching. I was hooked.  I have found a few others since and here they are. Except for the foot, which is the one Julie gave me.

Blood, Mother! Blood!

 
  I was going through last year's sea-glass finds and putting together a jar of the best pieces for Laura, when I came across this great little fragment. I suspect it's from a bottle of blood, which was a huge seller in the 1800's.