Buried Treasure

[Big Man]

What is this?

While planting some flowers yesterday, I dug up this piece of glass beside the house. It was at the corner of the house, about two feet from the house near the porch and under the dining room window. At first, I thought it was the lens to a magnifying glass, but there is a small lip or recess on the flat side. I'm beginning to think it is part of a small picture frame (for lack of a better word) that magnifies a small picture. It could also have been part of a broach that a picture was once in.

The house was built in 1907, and my family has been living there since 1917. This glass object was buried about one foot in the dirt. My grandmother had a flower bed in the location where I found it back in the 1940's. I can't recall anything being in that location (anything that would be digging in the ground) during my lifetime, and most assuredly nothing there for the past 15 or 20 years.

Do any of you fine folks have an idea? Have any of you ever seen anything like this before?

 

[Foofoogal]

http://www.rubylane.com/item/476573-862/Finest-English-VICTORIAN-Miniature-Lovers

I have no idea what yours is but am going to imagine it is part of one of my favorite items in all antiques world.
What was called Lovers Eye.
Here is an example above and below. I have seen them with round glass.
http://www.rubyplaza.com/item/649824-2422/Georgian-Lovers-Eye-Double-Snake

 

[jamespowers]

While planting some flowers yesterday, I dug up this piece of glass beside the house. It was at the corner of the house, about two feet from the house near the porch and under the dining room window. At first, I thought it was the lens to a magnifying glass, but there is a small lip or recess on the flat side. I'm beginning to think it is part of a small picture frame (for lack of a better word) that magnifies a small picture. It could also have been part of a broach that a picture was once in.

The house was built in 1907, and my family has been living there since 1917. This glass object was buried about one foot in the dirt. My grandmother had a flower bed in the location where I found it back in the 1940's. I can't recall anything being in that location (anything that would be digging in the ground) during my lifetime, and most assuredly nothing there for the past 15 or 20 years.

Do any of you fine folks have an idea? Have any of you ever seen anything like this before?

I see them every day in my lantern collection. These are fairly sought after as they magnify the light given off by a lantern. These were usually used on dash lanterns used on wagons.
Here is another one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380282955447&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

You can see it in use here:


It makes sense as most people didn't have electricity or automobile transportation back then. The ubiquitous lantern was our friend. Check to see if you have the lantern still hanging around.

 

[shortbow]

Back in the early seventies, soon after moving to B.C., my brother and I took a six week road and hiking trip all through northern B.C. and the southern Yukon, up the Alaska Hiway before it was paved. Kicking around one day we came upon an old trapper's cabin in which we found lots of old frying pans, tools and such. In there also was the remains of an old relic 1890 Winchester. Coolest treasure I've found. I still fantasize about coming upon an old place all still intact with well preserved everything. Found some great stuff too in my years in archaeology, but that old Winnie is my favorite.

Also, just remembered, that back in about '66 or ''67 we were hunting arryheads in some country north of Alamogordo, N.M. when I found a long iron pin with a forged ring around the top of it stuck in the ground on the edge of an escarpment overlooking Dog Canyon, an old Apache stronghold. I later found in a book that what I had found was an issue US Cavalry picket pin. Still have it. I was smiling that day, I can tell you.

 

[Foofoogal]

I am not kidding but astonishingly I found one in a jar of buttons today. I do not understand though how this would be used in a lantern. It is small as Big Mans also.
Mine has a pattern on it.

 

[Big Man]

I'm not totally convinced on the lantern thing. The thing I have has a "lip" on the bottom (flat side) that I don't see would serve any purpose in the lantern application. I'm leaning toward the picture/broach thing - but who knows?

 

[jamespowers]

I am not kidding but astonishingly I found one in a jar of buttons today. I do not understand though how this would be used in a lantern. It is small as Big Mans also.
Mine has a pattern on it.

A Pattern? I have never seen one with a pattern on it.
The magnifier is held in place by a loop of metal that attaches to the flange around the edge of the magnifier. That ia all slipped into a notch either in front of the glass or behind it as in my picture I posted. They really help make the light brighter.

 

[jamespowers]

I'm not totally convinced on the lantern thing. The thing I have has a "lip" on the bottom (flat side) that I don't see would serve any purpose in the lantern application. I'm leaning toward the picture/broach thing - but who knows?

The lip fits in the holder.

 

[Big Man]

The lip fits in the holder.

I can see that about the lip around the edge. Maybe I should have said that the bottom (flat side) is "recessed", not that it has a "lip."

My grandmother had a milking lantern that I still have. It hung in the basement for years and years. While that doesn't mean that there were other lanterns there (they didn't get electricity till 1930), I never heard her or my aunts and Dad speak of anything like that. But, I guess it sure is possible.

What time period do these things date?

 

[jamespowers]

I can see that about the lip around the edge. Maybe I should have said that the bottom (flat side) is "recessed", not that it has a "lip."

My grandmother had a milking lantern that I still have. It hung in the basement for years and years. While that doesn't mean that there were other lanterns there (they didn't get electricity till 1930), I never heard her or my aunts and Dad speak of anything like that. But, I guess it sure is possible.

What time period do these things date?

They were used from the turn of the century until well into the 30s.
That reminds me-----I have to finish my switch lantern.

 

[Shangas]

I propose to Big Man that his round glass magnifier might have been used as the domed top of a pocket compass. Something that was small and around, but which required you to be able to read it very precisely, hence the magnifying feature. You'd need to be able to read the compass rose and the needle vary carefully. The fact that it's outdoors might have something to do with it. The lip might have been used to keep the lense firmly in the compass case.

 

[Brian Schrader]

Hello all. I apologize to you all for posting this here, but I am not really a member. My name is Brian and I have found someone elses buried treasure. I have found an old grey metal box containing items from WWII and this box belongs to one Julius Xavier. The items discovered match pictures he posted on this website, and I am desparately trying to return them to him. If anyone knows how I can contact him or if anyone can give him my contact info that would be greatly appreciated. My email is schrader.darth@gmail.com. Thank you all for your time.

 

[tonyb]

I resided for almost 20 years in a house in Seattle's Central District. The structure (which has since been demolished, a new house built on its site) was built during the early 1940s. Most of the neighboring houses were built three or four decades earlier (this is an old neighborhood by Seattle standards) and the land on which my old house stood had been a vacant lot prior to its construction. As such, it was used as a trash dump. The first few years I lived there I couldn't sink a shovel without turning up at minimum some rusty remains of old cans and such. I dug up quite a few bottles during my adventures in gardening, most of which I gave away long ago, and pieces of miscellaneous this and that, some of which was readily identifiable, and some of which wasn't. Among the few items I've kept over the years (I moved out of that house in 1999) are this old bottle ...

... and this toy car ...

I've pondered how the car got there. I envisioned some dad coming home from a hard day's work, jumping off the streetcar on Yesler Way, trudging the couple of blocks home, walking in his front door and stepping on the toy his brat left on the floor. Dad then picks up toy car, utters some unrepeatable words, and chucks it into the vacant lot.

It probably didn't happen quite that way, but it's not the unlikeliest scenario, either.

 

[jamespowers]

I resided for almost 20 years in a house in Seattle's Central District. The structure (which has since been demolished, a new house built on its site) was built during the early 1940s. Most of the neighboring houses were built three or four decades earlier (this is an old neighborhood by Seattle standards) and the land on which my old house stood had been a vacant lot prior to its construction. As such, it was used as a trash dump. The first few years I lived there I couldn't sink a shovel without turning up at minimum some rusty remains of old cans and such. I dug up quite a few bottles during my adventures in gardening, most of which I gave away long ago, and pieces of miscellaneous this and that, some of which was readily identifiable, and some of which wasn't. Among the few items I've kept over the years (I moved out of that house in 1999) are this old bottle ...

... and this toy car ...

I've pondered how the car got there. I envisioned some dad coming home from a hard day's work, jumping off the streetcar on Yesler Way, trudging the couple of blocks home, walking in his front door and stepping on the toy his brat left on the floor. Dad then picks up toy car, utters some unrepeatable words, and chucks it into the vacant lot.

It probably didn't happen quite that way, but it's not the unlikeliest scenario, either.

Is that bottle a capers bottle? It looks like a shorter one than I am used to seeing.
The car is great! I would love to have found that. I would probably have ruined it by soaking it in phosphoric acid to see if I could get it clean and repaintable.[huh]:eusa_doh:

 

[tonyb]

I don't know what the bottle contained. I was kinda hoping someone here might offer an educated guess. I can say that the lettering cast into the glass says SEATTLE & PUGET SOUND PACKING Co. SEATTLE, WASH. And there's an air bubble in the glass and well as some other flaws.

The car body is a two-piece casting, to which the axles attach. The two halves of the body are partially separated; that's how I found it, and that's what led me to speculate that it was stepped on at some point way back when and then thrown away.

I'm quite fond of the car. It's among my favorite possessions. It has very, very little monetary value, but it's a tangible reminder of a home that quite literally does not exist anymore.

 

[Warbaby]

Another possibility for your lens, Big Man - it could be the lens from one of the early flashlights that had 'bullseye' lenses. Here are a couple of examples, one a bit smaller and one a bit larger:

 

[Big Man]

Another possibility for your lens, Big Man - it could be the lens from one of the early flashlights that had 'bullseye' lenses ...

That could be a good possibility. To what time does the flashlight you pictured date?

I should have scratched around more after I made the find. Now, I guess I need to dig up the flowers I planted and look a little bit better for any other surviving parts. On second thought, maybe I should wait till Spring ...

 

[Foofoogal]

Best I could do for my lens or whatever it is. It is size of a penny about. Found in a jar of buttons.
It has threading around side bottom like Big Mans.

 

[Foofoogal]

sorry.

 

[Foofoogal]

sorry