Today I stopped by for a short visit to see Ken and Sherry. When I left, I drove to an old home foundation nearby for some quick metal detecting. It was only 38 degrees out, but the sun was shining and I wanted to be outdoors.
Old foundation 
Foundation cellar door
This foundation is probably early 1900s. It’s a poured concrete foundation with some stones on top. There is nothing left of the structure, but as expected, the area around the foundation is littered with old nails.
After 45 minutes I had only found nails, an old spark plug, and other junk. I moved closer to the foundation’s cellar door and got a strong signal from the detector. I knew it wasn’t a coin, since the signal was over a larger area of the ground. About 8 inches down I found some old chain. The pin pointer continued to beep, so I dug further. I then pulled up an interesting piece of rusty iron.
Old file, chain, spark plug, and a buggy whip socket
That hunk of rusty iron turned out to be a buggy whip socket. These would have been mounted on a carriage to hold a buggy whip. A page from an old catalog is below for reference, showing a buggy whip handle in it.
Buggy whip socket 
Buggy whip socket 
1876 catalog page 
Carriage with whip socket at right side of dash board 
After electrolysis and preservation
with Renaissance Wax
I will de-rust this and keep it with the horse shoes. I’ll have to make a display box for the horse-related items I’ve found. I didn’t find any old coins today, but this was interesting enough. I’ll hit that foundation site another time, more thoroughly.
