Neat finds while roaming the hills

[DEERSLAM]

azhuntnut,

That reminds me. I found a mining claim in Alaska about 3 years ago. It was in a small jar that had its lid nailed to a tree then the jar with the claim in it was screwed in to the lid. If I remember it was from the 1930's and in a little worst shape than yours. A friend I was hunting with really wanted it so I let him have it so I can't remeber exact dates or the name. It was pretty cool though

[BowhuntCoues]

bowhunt, if you dont want it i do! i will pick it up frm you if you love in tucson!

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1stcoues,

Shoot me a PM if you want it and I'll meet you in Tucson next week.

[billrquimby]

I don't want to find a dead body, that's for sure.  I did however, always want to find some spanish conquistador armor.  Bill, you know anyone that ever found any?  Seems like that stuff should be around somewhere.

 

Amanda

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Hi Amanda.

 

Sorry it took so long to respond, but I've been in Mexico the past few days. I personally know of only a few Spanish artifacts being found in Southern Arizona. One was an arrasta (don't know if that is spelled correctly) my friends and I used to see where we hunted deer in the Cerro Colorado Mountains back in the 1950s. It was a huge rock about six feet in diameter and about two feet thick with a large hole in the middle. It was used to crush gold and silver ore when a burro or ox pulled and rotated it around a stake. I don't know how they did it, but someone hauled that huge, heavy thing out of there. It was in rough country and a long way from a road

 

Another "find" may have solved the mystery of the Lost Treasure of Tumacacori. Supposedly the priests at Tumacacori Mission when they knew they would be attacked by Apaches took their sacred items, some of them made of gold and silver, and buried them somewhere nearby. In the 1970s, before the Forest Service stopped him, a guy took a Bobcat and dug up half of the hillside just across the road from the old mission. The treasure, if there ever was one, may have wound up a lot farther away because in about 1965, a family I knew claimed they found a cave on the border at California Gulch where they found silver and gold items, coins and some Spanish armor. I never saw any of it though.

 

While I was in Caborca this week I asked a local guy if he knew about the Papago legend of a Spanish galleon rotting in the desert a long way from the Sea of Cortez. The legend is based on some facts. 1. Spain tried to send provisions to Coronado the explorer in ships up the Colorado River and one of the ships was lost. 2. The sea wall near Puerto Lobos broke and the large flat area east of the Sierra Viejo Mountains was flooded (I found sea shells there yesterday.) a long time ago. If (big question) the flooding happened during Coronado's time, and IF the captain had mistaken the flooded area as an estuary, it's possible that a ship could have gone aground miles and miles from the present gulf. At any rate, my Caborca friend knew nothing about the legend but he said another rancher had ancient wood parts that could have been the ribs of a ship. He's going to track iit down.

 

Bill

[COUESAZ]

I used to work with a Navajo guy and he showed me a chest plate his gradmother had found when she was a girl. She died a few years back and the chest plate is in the grave with her.

[chillcouesmaniac]

Last Sunday while out shooting some quail we beleive we found a pre-historic javalina skull. It measures 20" and some change.

 

 

Thats one weird looking skull.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

domestic wild hod farrell I believe CM

[billrquimby]

"Bill,You really advize me to soak this bayonet in stuff you mentioned to get the blade out of the sheath?"

 

Josh:

 

It was someone other than me who suggested that you soak your knife in some type of solution.

 

However, I read recently that plain ol' muriatic acid, such as we use in our swimming pools, will eat up rust. I'd try some sort of test before soaking your bayonet in anything, though.

 

Incidentally, army surplus stores were all over the place like dollar stores today after World War II and the Korean War. You could buy bayonets from a dozen countries, and every other kind of military gear you can imagine at dirt cheap prices. I suspect yours is from that era.

 

Bill

[vinihunt]

small pistol that i found while deer hunting few years ago in unit 23, near very old mine shaft

 

 

i think it is .22??

 

very awesome finding for me! that is only one i took home, have few old stuff but didn't take with me! don't want haunt me if i took! also found some old stuff up in Vidal Valle while elk hunting! very old plate, spoon, fork, 1 pan and jars! saying 1886

 

vinihunt

[DEERSLAM]

vinnihunt,

That's a cool find

Looks like you are still able to pull the hammer back. Can you make out any make or model on the gun?

[vinihunt]

vinnihunt,

That's a cool find

Looks like you are still able to pull the hammer back. Can you make out any make or model on the gun?

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no, couldnt see what model or make! its all rust real bad! the hammer is real loose, can pull back and in loose! tried to take 1 bullet out of the wheel but can't..very interesting finding...real curious who had that gun! will never know who.....

 

vinihunt

[Lance]

I have found lots of indian stuff, the coolest being beads made out of white stone. they were verry small, 1/4"- and carved with desing. Verry detailed, verry cool. That was in the Kaibab.

In Sycamore Canyon while my wife was hunting Coues, we found two picks, two shovels and a bent up digging bar. The handels on one of the picks and one of the shovels were desolved into the ground! The other two handles wern't much diferent. Figured they were from an old miner.

Near Flagstaff I found a verry old Santafe Railroad lantern burried under pine neadles. Verry cool!

A friend of mine found an old "hammer, caplock plate" off of an old muzzelloader on Anderson Mesa in 5BN. It was blown apart in a way that there was likely some old Mountian Man parts lying arround.

Another friend found a REALY old bayonet in the mtn's above Alamagordo NM. He kicked it out of the ground while having lunch on a steep hillside. You could barely make out what looked like a British crown type symble on it. You know, the big poofy hat type crown. I think someone told him it wasn't from the Red Coats but from around the Spanish American war age. ? Cool stuff, Cool thread!

[Dodger2]

After a really hard rain one time, I found an 1866 penny in a small wash. I found it in the Chiricahuas. No telling were it came from or who's pocket it fell out of. I also picked up old ox shoes along some old timber roads up there. I've also found fossils of trilobites and other types of shellfish (clams, etc.) in the limestone down in 30A and just north of Pine/Strawberry.

[az4life]

Last week, I was on a hike back to camp and found something neat. This one took several people to decypher but here is the tale.

 

I was near a couple 1800 grave sites that are neat in their own right, and noticed a long red narrow ribbon lying along the trail. At one end of the ribbon was a popped ballon and at the other end was a white paper rolled up like a scroll. I unrolled the note and found this. (I scanned the note)

Well I discussed it with a few people who said it was a neat find and I should have it translated as it was written in spanish.

Special Thanks to Ernesto for the translation below!

 

Dear Santa Claus:

This Christmas I want you to bring me a

-motorcycle

-a star wars sword

-Pants (swet pants)

-Elmo the pupet,the one that eat cokies

-The Polar Express movie

-Max Steel (the doll or pupet)

-a game of Sponge Bob,Patrick

-a green helicopter

 

-I promess to behave and be good with my parents and with my classmates.

 

Atte:

Oscar Hernandez

Really wish there was an address to see how far the ballon came and be able to

make a wish come true, however we can only wonder and hope for little Oscar!

 

More discussion with Ernesto and I found out that it is somewhat of a hispanic cultural tradition to send letters to Santa this way, and hang a copy of the note on the Christmas tree.

 

Hope you all enjoy this find as much as we have.

[GRONG]

Lance that was some pretty cool stuff you mentioned there!

 

Vinihunt, that is freakin awesome to find an old pistol like that!

 

I forgot a major one that I found, it was the metal part of an old rifle. You know, the part that houses the bullets and trigger. For the life of me I can't remember what that is called! I was working in Sedona at the Red Rock State Park back in the early 90's and found it while looking for pottery and arrowheads around the old fields that the Homesteaders used to farm. I gave it to the park but I bet it's just in some drawer somewhere.

Back in the 80's my Dad was lion hunting on Mingus Mountain horseback in the snow up behind Potato Patch. I'm thinking he was on the Woodchute Trail. Anyway, his horse stepped on the tip of a scabbard under the snow and it popped up and the guy riding behind him saw it. There was a real nice hunting rifle in it that someone during the recent deer hunts had lost off of their horse.

 

I just found this picture and had to share it with all of you. Ol Redbeard and I were hunting in 22 several years ago and found these GIANT agave plants. We'd seen them from up on the rim about 1000 vertical feet up and weren't really sure what the crap they were. Anyway, a launched and missed arrow at a whitetail buck soon turned into a shed antler hunt. We ended up walking by these beasts and Redbeard took a couple pics of me standing by them. I'm 6' tall so that will give you some perspective. I've NEVER seen anything like that in northern AZ, maybe Texas but not here. Has anyone else seen ones like this anywhere? Oh and by the way I think we found 7 sheds between the 2 of us.

[GRONG]

Here's another of it.

[diablo]

In the early 80's I found an old practice bomb. It still had flour (rock hard) caked in it. It was made if sheet metal. This was in 37b. I have a picture of it somewhere around here.

Also found a lot of indian artifacts and even a couple of old wood ammo boxes sticking out of a wash.