He has also learned from researching companies he has found stamped on found items. This includes learning history through houses and their foundations, designs and shape of the windows. He has also learned about different eras in history. Stottlemyer added what is neat about metal detecting and digging is it has led to much more. It’s a pretty rare company to find bottles from to begin with.” I think that’s my most unique find because that’s the only one known to exist right now. “I got that looked at by a bunch of experts. “I found a bottle called Baby & Hanrahan, from Windsor Ontario,” he said, adding it is a liquor bottle from the 1890s. Then, he started collecting antique bottles and World War II items. With all the coins he found, he started coin collecting. The stuff I don’t want, I usually give to people to get them interested into the hobby.” “If it’s stuff that’s unique I put in my collection. If I dig a ton of it, I will sell it,” he said. “Some of the stuff I sell if it’s really common. Most of the items he finds he will display. “I would go seven days a week because I was so addicted.” Then, I went out every weekend,” he said, adding he would go out every week before he started working in the summer. “My interest really peaked because I just learned about the CCC in school,” he shared.Īfter sending out a few emails, he found out the ring was rare and there wasn’t a lot out there especially since different companies made rings for the CCC. One of his finds during the first time out was a ring from the Civilian Conservation Corps from the 1930s. “We were just going around in my backyard and I started to find all kinds of old coins and stuff like that,” Stottlemyer said. He began when he was around 11-years-old when his uncle lent him a metal detector one day. If I got it appraised it probably would be around $500. “I had one day where I found a ton of antique bottles and coins and artifacts. “It’s the luck of the draw,” Stottlemyer said. He added some days he will find a lot of items and some days he won’t find anything. I can tell if it’s going to be a rusty nail or a coin.” I can tell if it’s copper, brass, nickel or whatever before I dig it up. “I dig anything that could potentially be good because my metal detector dings the metal. “I pretty much go back and forth in lines to the point I have gone over every single spot in the whole yard,” he explained. When he is at the location, he searches in a grid pattern with his metal detector. He has found some locations through friends, family and also getting permission from posting Facebook requests for spots. Stottlemyer begins his process by looking at old maps and figuring out where houses used to be in the 1800s. He added he is getting to the point he can dig something up and tell what it is made out of and what era it’s from. They will help me identify some of the stuff that I have if I can’t figure it out. I do a lot of internet research and I have a lot of friends who have been in this hobby from 40-50 years. The fun part of this hobby is researching the stuff you find. “He willed everything he had to his maid and not his son. He had a heart attack in the middle of the road,” Stottlemyer said. Stottlemyer and other people researched the name and found out Briggs was a well known lawyer in the late 1800s. The third time was for a pin he found with the name N.H. Another featured find included buttons he found, ranging from the 1700s from London, and 1800s from the Civil War. He was featured for a rattlesnake buckle from the 1800’s which was from a miner’s belt. It was a school for misbehaved young people. This button was made sometime from the mid to late 1800’s, with an eagle and the schools initials on it.

James Stottlemyer holds a button from the Lansing Reform school. Stottlemyer explained finds must be within the last few months he has at least 25 which deserve to be in there but they exceed the time limit. You have people digging in other spots they are find stuff from the Revolutionary War.” You have a lot of people digging in the south who find Civil War relics.

You really have to have something special because you are competing against people from around the country. He was featured in American Diggers magazine three times this year. “To hold something that’s 200-plus years old is amazing, and to be the first one to see it in 250-plus years,” he shared. Stottlemyer, a 2016 Clarkston High School graduate, has turned his hobby of metal detecting and digging up relics into a passion, especially after he digs up item from the 1700s or the 1800s. Buried in the dirt, treasure and pieces of history can be found, and James Stottlemyer has found many while digging.

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