Seeking Info: Dug Relics, Trade Gun

[Majorjoel]

A friend who spends much of his free time combing the area with a metal detector, recently brought to me a couple of interesting items to inspect. Both items which were dug from the edge of a building excavation site just outside of the small northern Michigan village of Northport. A Lake Michigan coastal town that is located at the tip of the Leelanau penninsula, and is rich in native American history as well as early French and English trade settlements. I took a few pictures of the relics (a brass serpent sideplate missing it's tail and a mysterious rusted paper thin iron part??) and told him I would put them up here for expert and knowledgeable opinions. I knew the sideplate was from a trade gun but that was about all I could give. Of coarse, one of the many questions he wanted to know about related to value. I will leave that up to anyone who would contact me off site. As for my interest, I hope to go to the spot next summer and look for more parts. I also wonder if he may have come across an old unmarked grave site?  Should be interesting! The iron plate is approx. 1.5 inches by 4.5 inches with two welded? iron loops. It is also very fragile with flakes of metal wanting to fall off with every handling. I do not know how to stabilize. Thank you for any help on this.........Joel               [imghttp://i445.photobucket.com/albums/qq171/joelhall452/P1000794.jpg][/img]

[Majorjoel]

[Dphariss]

The steel part looks modern machine made. Looks like the loops are held on by mechanical means such as tabs through holes in the plate.

But what do I know?

Dan

[bigbat]

Theres a NW Trade gun in the Manistee Public Museum that Bob Adams found along Lake Michigan.  Bob Adams might be asble to identify the bottom piece.  In the "encyclopedia of the American Revolution" the author has given step by step directions on preservations.  If you dont have that book email me and I can scan the pages and email them to you. Adams in in the phone book under Manistee.
Leelanau Peninsula, I remember it a bit.  Michigan became a memory when I left for Alaska, Alaska a memory when I moved to Wyoming.

[LynnC]

To me - the iron object appears to be of modern times - the "loops" appear to have identical "key hole" type punchings.  Machine made.

Cool side plate with great detail!...................Lynn

[BJH]

I have to agree, the Iron-steel object does not look like any thing but old scrap. 19th century at the earliest. Cool side plate though.  BJH

[Majorjoel]

Thanks for all replys! I found a lot of interesting information about stabilizing and preserving iron parts in a couple of good books I have. "Indian Trade Guns" with a host of authors including Hamilton and Hanson was very informative. The finder and owner of the side plate is not really into history like I am. He is a true treasure hunter......digging for gold. He seems to think he has found the Holy Grail here! Finding like specimens in a few books has just added to his delusions of grandure! I was hoping to maybe talk him out of it for a few bucks, but that is not going to happen in my life time.

[t.caster]

Joel, by itself I doubt if the serpent sideplate has much value as a broken/discarded gun part. But the history is intrigueing. I always start by asking...WHO....WHAT...WHEN...WHERE and WHY?
We know what it was and where it was found, but the rest....?
We know trade guns were very common in the upper Great Lakes back when.
Was it ever actually on a trade gun or in a box of spare parts? Where is the rest of the gun? Keep digging! It wouldn't have been removed just cause the tail was missing would it? Maybe it's a part off a junked, lost & found gun, that was carried around as a trinket or ornament. Neat trade trinket, huh!
It's is so well preserved, I wonder if it isn't from one of Curly Gostomskis old (20th century) kits. May not be old at all.
Many builders threw junk & trash around a foundation of a building before backfilling. Maybe that is what happened here.
I once found a full box of Prohibition era whiskey bottles (empty, dangit) and other bottles jars, broken dishes and a copper Model T hubcap around the footings of a garage I was excavating.
Fun to wonder about!

[Levy]

A gentleman just visited our Conservation Lab  today who had found a NW trade gun lockplate while fossil hunting in Montana.  It had the seated fox inside a tombstone with the initials IA underneath.  The bridle on the powderpan was broken and all of the parts had been stripped from it.

James Levy   

[tom patton]

The partial sideplate is cast and was taken from a Northwest trade gun. A similar example was recovered from the Rock Island site, burial no. 4 as part of a gun by Wilson {London}and dated [17] 62. Hamilton {1980} PP. 66-67 put a late 18th and early 19th  century date as the  date for this cast dragon plate but his book{ "Colonial Frontier Guns"}was written before the publication of "Rock Island" {Northern Lake Michigan} in 1986 where  a [17] 62 lockplate and sideplate of the same type and casting as the subject relic plate  was found.The monetary value of such an item is fairly small but from an historical standpoint it has educational value.
Tom Patton