I did a 30 minute lunch hunt on the army post today, found 4 pennies in the same hole, at least they are copper and not zincolns, LOL. After work I scouted around my usual areas to see if they are thawed. One field was mostly thawed so I detected it for about 30 minutes. Dug an ox shoe, a fired/splattered bullet and this interesting gold plated piece. Thought it was a brooch at first but may have been some kind of furniture décor or harness mount piece. There are holes at the top and bottom. It is 1 11/16ths"/43mm high. Much of the gold plating is intact. The obverse.
(http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb7/BavariaMike/JanMay09/4Mar09BroochO.jpg)
Reverse of the relic shows a small piece of the mount that looks broken off. The middle appears to be thin lead. Another day or two and my area will be thawed, I have a field I really want to detect and another but they will be muddy. A farmer friend talked to my wife a few days ago at the grocery store and said make sure you tell Mike I plowed extra deep this year just for him. That's where I found the gold coin, it was an old farmhouse/hotel supposedly from 1000-1650 but I really think it was the original town site. I had mentioned to the farmer last fall that I thought I had dug most of the metal from the field and there wasn't much left and jokingly asked him to plow a bit deeper, and he did. I did help his son look for an engagement ring about 3 years ago, unsuccessfully a no find. HH, Mike
(http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb7/BavariaMike/JanMay09/4Mar09BroochR.jpg)