I found this at a park construction project. When first dug I thought it looked like some similarly shaped Civil War items due to the shield shape, perhaps it was a badge? I quickly dismissed both those as possibilities, with the bent corners and very sharp edges decided it was probably copper scrap.

I forgot all about it until I dumped my junk bucket at the end of the week. I gave it a little scrub and was excited to see some writing on it. More cleaning and it appears to be a plaque that was attached to an award presented in 1909.

My research doesn't find any information on the Gitit Tennis Club which could be in Kentucky or Columbus or even somewhere else, but I found out a little about John S. McFarland.

John Sargent McFarland was born December 31, 1883 in Owensboro, Kentucky, son of William Ewing and Sallie May (Ewing) McFarland. McFarland and his brother Ridley Ewing McFarland came to Columbus about 1908-1910. John was the purchasing agent and assistant superintendent of the Ohio Carriage Company. He married Margaret Louise Krebs in Franklin County, Ohio on October 15, 1913. Margaret was born April 2, 1890 in Dubois, Pennsylvania, daughter of Philip and Annie M. Krebs. In 1914 they lived at 172 S. Ohio Avenue in Columbus. In January 1915, McFarland took a job with an automobile dealer, the Cole Sales Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1918 the company become The Lathrop-McFarland Company. He seems to have been quite successful, owning a fine home in Indianapolis. John died there February 26, 1927. Margaret eventually returned to Columbus, living at 3389 East Broad Street in 1947. She died at the Cleveland Clinic on October 3, 1947. 

I'm curious how this piece ended up where it finally landed, what it might have been attached to (probably a tennis racket, is my guess) and more about the Gitit Tennis Club. This predates the area of the park by quite a bit. The mysteries of the objects we find...

Many detectorists keep score by counting the number of silver coins they find in a year. Primarily being a coinshooter (a detectorist who looks for coins), silver coins are what I tend to seek most of the time. Not too easy, but also not impossible to find at the sites I search most frequently, they provide an attainable challenge. The trouble (for me) with keeping count of my silver finds is the the feeling of being "stuck" when I'm one away from a milestone number.

I still remember all too clearly being out on a cold, wet, snowy late December day in 2009, desperately searching for silver coin 300 for the year. It wasn't meant to be, so that spectacular year ended with 299 silver coins. But I still feel like I fell short of the mark. 

The past two weeks I've been stuck at 49 silver coins. Factoring in the limited amount of time I've spent detecting this year, that's a quite good number. Last weekend's detecting trips were frustrating as I watched my friend Dave dig four modern silver coins, and then the next day a shield nickel and an 1875 Seated dime while I couldn't seem to get my detector over an old coin of any kind.
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While running errands two days this week, I stopped by two well searched old spots for brief hunts. These sites have produced for me in the past, and as good as I think I am, it's never hunted out. Yesterday I dug a wheat cent and a dateless buffalo nickel, not bad for a quick stop, but the curse of 49 held. Today I had another short window in the afternoon and stopped at a park that has been very good to me over the years. I hadn't been there detecting in at least two years. 

A very slow start with a zinc Lincoln cent, a bottle cap, a key, another bottle cap, another key... and then a nice shallow high tone signal on the E-Trac. I saw a circular silver edge and immediately thought I had another bottle cap, but just as quickly realized a bottle cap would not have given me a high tone signal. I look again, flip it over and Charles Barber's head of Liberty confirmsI've found a silver half! Camera comes out for the necessary picture in the dirt before I pick it up. No longer stuck, the curse lifted for now, silver coin #50 for 2015 is a really decent 1903-S Barber half dollar.

Over the summer and now again in the past week, I've been revisiting areas that were part of Camp Chase, a Civil War era site in Columbus, Ohio. The majority of the 160 acre camp was turned into residential lots starting after 1905. 

I first wrote about some finds from Camp Chase about this time of year in 2013, that post has more information about the camp. At that time I had been lucky enough to discover an 1857 Flying Eagle cent along with some bullets.

It's always a thrill to find something here that dates to the Civil War era when the camp was in use. This year I've been able to find some more round lead musket balls and the "three ringer" Minié balls.

A new find for me this year was a .69 caliber Minié, the diameter of a dime. This projectile was a large, heavy and no doubt very lethal chunk of lead in the right circumstances. (above, bottom row, far right)

Another novel find was a pulled or "wormed" Minié. This bullet had probably become jammed in the barrel of the rifle and was extracted using a puller and shows a "worm hole." (above, bottom row, middle)