6/24/22 Report - Search For Easy Method of Dating Spikes and Ships Fastenings. Hair Care Bottle.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Ship's Fastenings From Sewn Boat to Steamship
by Michael McCarthy.

Detectorists are always trying to determine if that item they just dug up is old or not.   A lot of the time it isn't easy.  Many of those items are NOT dated, marked or have a form that can be easily dated.

Nails and spikes are common finds, and people want to be able to tell if they are old.  We have some simple guides, which may or may not be accurate.  We generally expect old nails or spikes to have square shanks, for  example.  But there are many exceptions to that generalization.

I just started reading the book shown above.  It is one of those ridiculously expensive academic books by an archaeologist.  But I hoped to learn whatever I can that might help date nails and spikes.  I recently received an email from someone looking for a resource that would help them date a spike, and I thought this book might offer some help.  

Here is one illustration I found.

Illustration From Page 41 of McCarthy Book.

Can  you tell if these spikes are old?  Here is how they are described.  "...iron nails with 'flat, rounded heads and shafts of rectangular cross section,' varying in length between 6.5 and 21.5 cm."

Do they look old?  How old?

They came from a 4th century BC Celtic boat.  So I guess if you thought they looked old, you were right even if you were centuries off.

Illustration From Page 42 of the Same Book.

Here is another illustration.  The two items on the right look odd, and are described as rivets.  But how about that nail on the left.  Looks like a round shank.  Something you could pick up at Home Depot.  I can't tell for sure about the head or the shank as shown in the illustration, but this one is also from a 4th century boat.

Those are just two quick examples, but so far one thing I've learned is that nautical fastenings haven't evolved rapidly, and you will see similar forms from items that are centuries apart.

When I began this book I was hoping to find something like the following chart for nails, which you can access by using the link immediately below.

https://uccshes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/nail-chronology-the-use-of-technologically-derived-features.pdf

From what I've seen so far though, nautical fastenings of a given shape span extremely long time periods, and I am not going to find an evolution of form that provides a reliable indicator of a narrow age period.  It appears that metallurgical analysis might provide a better indicator of age, but that is a more difficult analysis.  It would be much easier is there was a regular evolution in the shape of spikes and connectors that could be easily correlated with definite time periods.  Instead there are other complexities, such as geographical variations.  

McCarthy states that "many of the fastenings being used in modern times differs little from those of the ancients," and "first century Roman nails are hardly distinguishable from those made right into the early part of the 20th century."  That is a long time span for an object to remain so little changed in form, and a fact that means a simplistic chart of datable forms could be deceptive, or at least, of little use.

Nonetheless, I'll continue to read the book carefully looking for any easily identifiable form/date correlations that might be useful to the amateur detectorist.  There are many references in the McCarthy book that might also be helpful.  Sorry that I can't provide the easy chart of nautical connectors that I was hoping to find.

Also, I have found that some types of fastenings that are illustrated in the book as being very common on old ships, but are rarely found or identified by detectorists as being finds from old ships.  Clinched and double clinched fastenings were used a lot on old ships, but I've seen very few from detectorists.  Also round spikes and bolts are very common, though typically not often presented as old shipwreck finds by detectorists.  My suspicion is that many detectorists look for and identify square spikes as being old but often mistakenly dismiss similarly old round spikes or bolts as not being old.  I'll expand on that some other time.

I remember a time when I always dismissed screws as not being very old but later found out that screws were used much longer than I thought.  I once did a post on how to identify old screws.  Here is the link.

The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 3/25/20 Report - Ancient Florida Coin Finds. Screws and How To Tell How Old They Might Be.

Among other features, old screws have a blunt point.

Here is an illustration from that post.

Illustration of 18th Century Screw.

I'll have more about nautical fastenings in future posts, but that is it for now.

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I posted this Hays Hair Care bottle that I found in the past because I just found some new information about it.

Hays Hair Care Bottle Found On Treasure Coast.

Here is what I just found.

Hay’s Hair Health was a hair product sold from the late 1880’s through the early 1940’s. Advertisements during this period indicated that it was manufactured in the late 1800’s by the London Supply Company of New York and later by the Philo Hay Specialty Company of Newark, New Jersey. The London Supply Company apparently started business in either 1888 or 1889.

There are additional pictures of the bottle in tgbottlebarn.blogspot.com.
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No significant changes in the predictions.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net