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My interest in Civil War history came through my grandfather. As a boy in the late 1800s, he would get off the train in Gettysburg after selling newspapers and wander the fields "eyeballing" relics. The term "eyeballing" goes back to right after the war when people would walk the battlefields to "see" what the farmers and their plows would turn up. He later traveled to most of the Civil War battlefields as a Pinkerton agent for the railroads. My father would accompany him on some of these "business" trips acquiring his own interest. My father built our own metal detector in 1961 fashioned after the armys mine detector. While it would find large objects such as belt plates and artillery shells, smaller artifacts such as buttons were hard to find. We took it to the Wilderness Battlefield on land owned by West Virginia Pulp and Paper to try it out. During the Civil War, ammunition was issued in tins holding 40 rounds apiece, two in each cartridge box. There were still so many of these under the leaves that we couldnt get the detector tuned. There were other relic hunters with us in the woods using rakes to get the tins out of the way. There were so many relics, you couldnt carry them all out of the woods. The first day we found at least 200 bullets, 3 buckles and handfuls of small brass artifacts. Remember that this was the early 60s and that there was little interest in the Civil War nor were there any reference books on these artifacts. I lost my father in 1995, but still hunt the campsites here in Stafford Co. Virginia. I started this business over 20 years ago in Fairfax Co., Virginia, with the framing and exhibiting of artifacts at Civil War Shows. My wife and I are able to make only a limited number of frames each year. We make the frames by hand, from running the moulding to the finished product. The biggest factor in how many frames we make are the relics themselves. We are still finding bullets and buttons from the war, but not the quantities of past years. FRAMING THE ARTIFACTS All of our frames are made with net one inch kiln dried hardwoods. We use premium grade American Walnut, Cherry, Red Oak and Poplar in making our moulding. Poplar is used with out milk paint frame, the other hardwoods have a light stain and two coats of polyurethane. The frames are one and five/eights inches thick in order to house the artifacts. We press the shape of the bullets into one inch Styrofoam to which we glue black felt. After the glue has dried we slit the felt and place in the bullets. The currency has light batting under black felt. the artifacts and currency are held in by pressure, we do not glue them. The combination is part shadow box and part picture frame. We use regular glass as non-glare distorts the artifacts in a shadow box display. As with any old paper the frames should not be placed in direct sunlight. They are ready to hang with recessed heavy gauge wire. All sizes listed are glass size, frames are approximately 2" larger. BATTLE SCENES & HISTORICAL CONTEXT The battle scenes we use are reproduced from the originals. Most of the scenes were done by Kurz and Allison between 1884-1894 or by Currier and Ives right after the war. You can choose your currency by the state where the battle took place or by state regiments involved. The frames with Antietam or Virginia battle scenes will have relics from that battle site. We have added battle scenes from other states to our line of frames but please let me state that they will have relics excavated from Virginia. |
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