[Rockhounds] What is the weirdest thing that you found while rock hunting?

[pmodreski at aol.com]

Hi Alan, and the Rockhounds,
Alan, that glass you found--I once found glass from a broken TV picture tube, there was a lot of it, kind of a slightly smoky tint, wonder if that's what you found in UT.  It's unusually heavy, since it's high lead content glass.
I once found, hiking a rarely-trekked direction up a hillside in South Park in Colorado, near the mesa where peridot grains are found, but hiking a mile or two to it, instead of driving up the 4WD road people normally use, and sitting on the ground was a nice crack hammer & large chisel, looked to have been there a year or two perhaps, some rockhound forgot where he left them. They are some of my favorites to use now.
And once, by a pegmatite quarry in the South Platte district (the Little Patsy), which now isn't much accessible because the patented mining property had been sold to someone who (I'm told) built a house on the isolated site, but years back, sitting above the quarry, I came across a tent, kind of collapsed on the ground, with what must have been the rain fly, nearby tangled up where it had blown into some trees. It looked abandoned, to have been there "a while" and was kind of lumpy inside, I lifted the entrance and peeked inside with some trepidation, half sure that there would be a body in it... nope, just some bedroll stuff. A rockhound (or the claim owner, or a deer hunte?r) who'd just left it there for future use? Used by someone hiding out from the law?  Or it got picked up by a whirlwind and dropped there?  I never knew, of course.  When I next came back (a couple years later), it was gone.
Pete Modreski (with Happy Thanksgiving wishes coming to all the Rockhounds group!)


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Silverstein <ajs at silgro.com>
To: rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com
Sent: Tue, Nov 24, 2020 2:31 pm
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] What is the weirdest thing that you found while rock hunting?

> What is the weirdest thing / object you saw while fossil / rock
> hunting?

Probably overall the weirdest ever, just last month, was a tiny little
metal ID tag (see RoadId.com) that somehow broke off a bracelet at both
ends, far down a remote gravel road in Utah (along the Kokopelli
bike/car trail).  Contacted the owner, returned it to them by mail
(under 1 oz), and it had only been on the ground for SIX DAYS!

Other personal candidates:

- Busted-up (shot up?) pane(s) of 1" thick blue glass, also out in the
  sandy Utah desert.  Collected 140 (ONE HUNDRED FORTY) pounds of it to
  grind into "beach glass" in my tire grinder.

- Rusty old sheep bell in Wyoming, hunting petrified wood with landowner
  permission in a vast area where he runs sheep.  Returned it to him, he
  said, "Oh, that must be from my dad" based on the style.  "I'll fix it
  up and put it back on a sheep."  (Really?)

- Rock hammer -- my own!  never leave it sitting on a bumper -- three
  weeks after losing it and buying a replacement; in sight but not
  obvious along a gravel road in rural eastern Colorado.

- A short chunk of railroad rail, heavy (45 lb/ft), miles from the nearest
  track, half a mile from any road, also in rural eastern Colorado.

Cheers,
Alan Silverstein

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