I'm sure that everyone who goes out into the field finds interesting things that end up on their desk or shelf. Over the years, the silver belt buckle found out in the middle of an 800-acre pasture and the badly weathered US currency that lay in the field beside a church were memorable, but these are cooler:
This is a handmade spur I found a few years ago in a remote part of a ranch in SW Central Texas. I'm thinking 1880's or earlier for a date of manufacture. It had been sitting on the ground for so long that the leather had completely weathered to dust (or had been eaten by critters, it could go either way).
This is a broken piece of a fixed-blade steel knife that was reportedly common on the 19th century frontier, a so-called Green River knife. What interests me about it is that it appears to have been adapted by Indians who broke a regular blade into useful pieces. The scallop on the edge side of the knife is just right for a finger hold to use the thing as a utility knife for skinning and the concave cutting edge shows that the short piece had been resharpened quite a few times. I found it in a dry creek miles from anywhere. I'm thinking it's 1860's or 1870's vintage.
Puts my Kung Fu throwing star to shame.
The Green River Knife is very cool indeed.
Don't such items belong to the client?
Nifty thread. I might post some photos once I return to international corporate headquarters if they are worthy and if I don't forget to remember.
International Salvage Rules..
would most assuredly apply to Land Surveyors cherry picking the junk we find...
1910 Brussels Convention with Respect to Salvage at Sea
at least imho...;-)
I'll bet there's interesting history behind those items.
Thanks for sharing.
> Don't such items belong to the client?
Here's a Texas case that discusses the principles applying to lost and abandoned property under Texas law.
The State of Texas v. Large Sum of Money Found in Truck Axle Housing
The money quote from the above opinion:
>Unlike mislaid property, the owner or occupier of the premises on which lost property is found does not acquire title to the property. Id. Instead, the finder of lost property retains possession as against the owner of the premises on which the property is found, but not against the lost property s true owner. Id.
So, if the descendants of the Kickapoo Indian who lost that piece of a Green River knife (that may well have entered their ancestor's possession by questionable means) can prove title, I'll gladly let them have it.
As for the spur, same deal.
Maybe. There appears to be a trend in courts to not follow that old rule.
http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/trove/
And you have to consider client relations, also. What would they think of seeing an interesting artifact in your truck on their land?
Very nice collection.
Not really in line with antiques collections, I have found a number of mechanics tools while surveying the sides of FM roads and highways. Deep well sockets, wrenches, 4way lug wrench in immaculate condition, some are worth keeping, others in some state of disrepair.
> Maybe. There appears to be a trend in courts to not follow that old rule.
Texas distinguishes the law of treasure trove from that of lost or abandoned objects. In the case of the sort of souvenirs that I find, the nature of the things is such that there is no reasonable expectation that the rightful owner or his or her descendants will ever appear. There's a huge difference between a cache of gold coins that were obviously purposely buried and some old bottle or stone projectile point lying on the ground, made by a culture thousands of years ago.
> And you have to consider client relations, also. What would they think of seeing an interesting artifact in your truck on their land?
As a rule, it's a poor policy to collect things that are so large that one's client can see them strapped to the truck. So, old Model T body found in ravine? No, leave it. It wouldn't fit in the office anyway. Six-thousand-year-old projectile point lying on surface of ground? Use your judgment. :>
The case of the silver belt buckle demonstrates the principle to be followed. I was surveying a large tract that a lender had foreclosed upon. They were the owners of the land. The buckle itself was a prize from a rodeo event. After contacting the rodeo association to try to discover who had won the buckle, I called the rancher who had lost the land to the bank. He said it sounded like a buckle that an ARCHITECT was wearing one night at the ranch. The rancher said that the buckle had been won by the architect's daughter and had been lost when architect went to relieve himself in the dark.
The story all hung together. I'd found the buckle more than fifty feet off a jeep trail, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It was from a women's event. I gave the buckle to the rancher with the idea that he'd return it to the architect.
In other words, the thing that I found was something connected to an identifiable living person who could be located. That's a much different situation than that of the sort of thing a surveyor will usually find in rural Texas.
shpo would be the folks interested in
the knife fragment, and the indiginous projectiles, maybe the spur too. as jiminey crickert said- let your conscience be your guide.... [sarcasm]and remember an agency chock full of academics has no agenda and is only looking out for the good of everyone... [/sarcasm]
shpo would be the folks interested in
> the knife fragment, and the indigenous projectiles, maybe the spur too.
I'll bite. What's an shpo? The archeologists in Texas already have more stone Indian artifacts than they can keep track of. As a rule, they aren't interested in artifacts so much as the context. In other words, isolated finds that don't have evidence like charcoal in an occupational layer (as in a burned rock midden or on the living floor of a rock shelter) aren't much interest. They will already have thousands of similar specimens that can be connected to some specific date or occupied site.
My interpretation of the knife fragment is simply my interpretation of what I found. It appears to have simply been mislaid there quite a long time ago and the pattern of adaptation of the piece seems most consistent with the work of Indians. Most archeologists I know wouldn't walk across the street for that sort of a thing.
As for the spur, they are just out of luck. :>
shpo would be the folks interested in
> It appears to have simply been mislaid there quite a long time ago and the pattern of adaptation of the piece seems most consistent with the work of Indians.
shpo would be the folks interested in
dang, Roadhand- something like that could lay waste to a critical path item- [sarcasm]luckily, based on the MCMillan Doctrine, you can just send that to the fill in the next scraper.[/sarcasm] Nice arrow btw.....;-)
I can appreciate the post, they are cool items. In the past I have refrained from taking some similar cool items found in the field simply because they were not mine.
I don't think its worth making a federal case over however..
I think it is the best policy not to take such items and the reason is that I believe one of the most important tools in a surveyors tool box is integrity, so why give anyone a chance to throw stones at your integrity, better to stay away from grey areas and behave in a manner that is way above and beyond reproach.
Again not a federal case though....
shpo would be the folks interested in
In California it stands for "State Historic Preservation Officer" and is commonly pronounced Shippo (like Hippo).
For something to catch their attention it has to be significant, not just old.
5 years ago while out surveying next to an old river bank I found an 1879 French Gras Bayonet a foot deep, found with a schonstedt magnetic locater. In the same area I also found 2 small cannonballs. These cannonballs were weighed and measured to match those used/fired from a small cal. cannon. I told the land owner what I had found and where. He contacted a local historian and brought him to the site where items had been found. After some research, the historian made a claim that this area discovered could have been from an old camp site used by the Dragoons that often patrolled the area. They followed the meander of the river to get from place to place.
Later that week the land owner and I found a few other small items of interest, an old iron buckle was found to be dated during the same time period.
The land owner told me I could keep these items, but after some discussion, the items found were of a piece of local history. Long story short, I donated these items and others that were found to our local museum (Fort Dodge Fort Museum located in Fort Dodge, Iowa) for everyone to view.
All this time I was looking for a 2" pipe that was set along an old undeveloped subdivision per the 1910 plat that I was working from. I never did find that damn 2" pipe.
> I can appreciate the post, they are cool items. In the past I have refrained from taking some similar cool items found in the field simply because they were not mine.
>
> I don't think its worth making a federal case over however..
>
> I think it is the best policy not to take such items and the reason is that I believe one of the most important tools in a surveyors tool box is integrity, so why give anyone a chance to throw stones at your integrity, better to stay away from grey areas and behave in a manner that is way above and beyond reproach.
>
> Again not a federal case though....
I agree.
I find it interesting that people think it is appropriate to secretly take something that they found on their client's property.
I have found things from time to time, but always at corners.
So I leave them there and make a notation on my maps.
Treasure hunt anyone?
