Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
I like nativity scenes. John C. sent me the picture above along with the following reminder.
Hey, just wanted to wish you Merry Christmas. All my Great Christmas memories, are with my family, As a child, knowing, you just had a recent loss, I'm sure some of your greatest Christmas memories are also with family, Anyway funny story about your medallion, going through a Tumbler,, Back in the 90s I found this solid little EO, At Corrigan's, And my friend Billy would come over and see it sitting on my coffee table, Next to my couch, and say, hey when are you gonna bust that Eo open,and see what's inside,? Well after he left, I Got curious, and finally decided to grab my little hammer and Started hammering, I knew it was iron so I wasn't that concerned with it being anything of too much value,
Well out popped two perfectly preserved little cannon balls, About the size of tennis balls, From the smaller swivel cannons, So at least I was somewhat educated enough to keep it in a little bowl of water, For a couple of weeks, Lol Before I decided to donate it to my little historical museum here in Sebastian, So long story short, after a couple 3 days go by, I get this frantic phone call, On a Monday morning, from Eileen Westfall, she was in charge of the museum at the time, Telling me that something horrible happened to my artifacts, So I get down there, and To my surprise, my perfectly shiny little cannon balls literally looked like 2 mushrooms, It was the strangest thing, they completely imploded, Lol,
Anyway, I was still pretty green, at the time, but I sure learned a valuable lesson of the importance of proper conservation, Lol
Our Savior is born, our Greatest Christmas gift, 🙏✝️🌲
Iron finds are especially difficult to deal with. They do tend to fall apart if not properly treated, and it takes a long time. I haven't done any posts about conservation lately, but it is extremely important.
Finding an object is one thing, but that is only the beginning. Then comes the conservation and research, both of which can take a lot of time to reach a successful conclusion.
I've said before that sometimes a detectorist might not be ready for a good find. Finds can be unappreciated or ruined if you don't have the experience to know how to handle them properly.
I've made my share of mistakes. Sometimes the learning comes at a steep price.
Here is one older post providing some tips on conserving iron artifacts.
And here is a more comprehensive resource on conservation.
Take a look.
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While talking about nativity scenes during this Christmas season, several things came to mind.
"HEY grandpa, what's for supper?" That was the lead-in for a bit they used to do on every Hee Haw show.
Did you know there is a difference between hay and straw? There are a lot of manger scenes done by people who don't know there is a difference.
Did you ever hear of a drinking hay or hay hat? Neither of those would work. Straw and hay are not the same.
Straw comes from grain stalks, such as wheat, barley and oats.
Hay, on the other hand is a leafy grass, like Timothy or Alfalfa.
So what would you find in a manger? It would most likely be hay - not straw.
Straw is stiff and high in cellulose. Animals can't digest it well. It is typically used for bedding - not food.
Hay is eaten, and would more likely be in a manger, while straw would be on the ground and used for bedding.
Seems fitting for the Bread of Life to be laid in a manger.
I noticed a manger scene just the other day with several bales placed around. Bales are pretty anachronistic for nativity scenes.
I spent several summers throwing around thousands of bale of hay and producing straw while harvesting grain.
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Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net