#0018 Buried treasure

The collector: Dave Caplan, Canterbury, UK.

The collection: Hidden history.  In other words, buried metal objects that have lain beneath the ground as far back as the Bronze Age (3000BC) to the present.  I also find fossils from the Cretaceous Period, roughly 120 million years to 70 million years ago.

The story behind the collection: 

As a boy I was drawn to museums and castles where there was so much to fire the imagination.  Suits of armour, torture chambers, armouries crammed with every conceivable barbaric weapon and battlements with row upon row of large cannon and neatly stacked piles of cannonballs.  In later years I became fascinated with the Roman period and progressed from there.  I soon realised history was not just about war; the sociological aspect was just as compelling.  Every object has its own unique story, but sometimes it can take years of research to unfold.

Lead tokens

Thimbles

I've been collecting one thing or another ever since I could walk.  My buried treasure collection at present totals several thousand pieces.  Unfortunately I live in a small flat and my collections take up more space than my wife and daughters!  On top of that I am totally disorganised.  Everything is in tins and stuffed in any available space.

Medieval bits and pieces.Military buttons, a lead seal and musket ball and a tiny roman coin.

My latest find is always my favourite.  I have always wanted to find a flint arrowhead but my eyesight is not what it was, so not much chance.

I collect other things too.  I split my collections into two categories, current and dormant.  Apart from buried treasure my other current ones are reference books, French and British postage stamps, military weapons and equipment, pub ash trays, old banknotes, Victorian posters advertising the London Underground and posters from both world wars.  I can't remember all my dormant collections, but they include sugar packets (about 10,000), phone cards, Victorian bottles and jars, cutlery, old razors, keys and about two hundredweight of old lead printers type in trays and cabinets.

Medieval buckles and artefacts18th century buckles and artefacts

I'd describe myself as a cross between a collector and a hoarder.  Collectors are particular about what they collect, and are usually eager to display and talk about their treasures to anybody who shows an interest.  Hoarders on the other hand started life as bona fide collectors, before going completely off the rails!  It is common practice for hoarders never to have seen their purchases other than at the time of buying them: they are taken home and stuffed in cupboards or under the bed, still wrapped.  I have many hundreds of things like this, bought over a fifty year period!  I am not so much obsessed as addicted.

Details and descriptions of the objects featured can be found on Dave's Flickr page.

Images © Dave Caplan and used with his kind permission.