Randy's Unknown Detected Item - California

[C-17A]

Greetings Gold Dredger detectorists,

Here is a curiosity item I metal detected up on the South Yuba River, 3 miles up stream from Washington, California, on 26 Sep 10. Found it in a bedrock crevice, along with loads & loads of heavy iron nails, screws, and pieces of rusting cast iron, most likely from the Miner 49er days.

This item is very heavy for its size...3 inches long, 1 inch across at the small end, and funnel shaped. The hole inside is slightly off set and the inside is very rough & uneven. Weighs a whopping 9.0 ounces.

The weight, relative softness and shiny silver inside when I file the oxidation off a spot suggests it's made of lead. Will accept a dent if I hit it with my file. WAY too heavy for aluminum or pewter. No pot metal in them old days?

What the heck is it? Something for mining? Gold recovery? Lead spout off a ???







Would love to know what this is... Thanks in advance!!

Randy "C-17A" www.goldadventures.biz

[russau]

could it be a part of a old lead anchor to secure brackets to a masonary wall/floor? kinda like the AJs we use now???

[CalGoldDredger]

Yeah, the North Yuba is just full of all sorts of old rusty crap.

Boy when I dredged there back in the late 80" early 90's and I had to fight to keep the sluice clean of it so the riffles would stay open to recover the gold.
- square nails, pull tabs, buckles,tools, bullets, horse tack, lead seals, hardware, coins.... you name it. I think I still have some of the more interesting items somewhere here.
When you were in the hard pack and weren't finding that stuff, then you knew it was going to be a real good clean up that evening.

Kinda along the lines of what Russ said, course I am no expert.....I am guessing that it is an anchor for an old bridge, there where a lot of wooden foot bridges in the day. I have found some huge square nails and hardware from them.

[Hoser John]

I've seen lead spikot(sp?) that screw into mercury flasks to pour safely that look quite similiar but in much better shape. Bearings usages are many with lead,surface conveyors,wheels are a prime examples as ball and needle bearings style of bearings weren't really in play yet in dayz a old. Cool find anyhow!!tons a au 2 u 2 -John

[Bonaro]

I would put my money on that being a sleeve bearing for a driven shaft. In the early days they would use babbit material to serve as a bearing. There would be a collar around a shaft and the void would be poured full with a molten metal alloy. This allow could be any mixture of tin, antimony, copper, aluminum etc but were mostly lead. When cooled it was greased and worked as a bearing. When it wore out it was removed and new one poured in place.
You found a piece of one that was wore out and chucked. The slight green color indicates a bit of copper, drop it in nitric and you should see white from the lead.

[russau]

the more i think about it, i think Dan is right on his ID on this!

[Bonaro]

Sweet....what did I win???

[russau]

you get to carry my dredge to the stream in the Medicine Bow mountains at Douglas Creek Wyoming this coming July first!

[Bonaro]

uh....I'm not a very good mule

[russau]

thats ok! us old retired guys dont get in a hurry anymore! we will wait for you! haha