collectorsframe.com About Us

My interest in Civil War history began with 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. Later in life he 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.

Fired .58 Federal bullet from the Fredericksburg Battlefield. We found

it behind Jackson’s lines where Meade’s Pennsylvania Brigade broke

through. Most of the rock was in the ground when we spotted it.

My father built our own metal detector in 1961 fashioned after the

army’s 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

the 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 Federal Sixth Corp Insignia excavated

of these under the leaves that we couldn’t get the detector tuned. near the Widow Tapp Farm, Wilderness

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 couldn’t 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 60’s

and there was little interest in the Civil War nor were there any reference books on these artifacts.

I remember some of the other hunters meeting back at the cars and comparing

finds. One fellow was looking at some brass numbers he had found and said,

“These are the numbers they put on telephone poles.” and threw them in the ditch.

Being a kid, I gathered them up and kept them. They turned out to be Regimental

numbers used as hat insignia. There was a section behind some Federal trenches

on the Wilderness Battlefield where we found a number of fancy 7’s and 2’s,

some still connected. After some research it turned out that this section of the line

was being held by Baxter’s Zouaves, the 72^nd Pennsylvania Infantry.

72nd Pennsylvania Infantry

We found this Federal 3 inch Schenkl artillery shell near the

“Lee to the Rear” monument on the Wilderness Battlefield. It

was down inside a rotted tree stump and was at one time further

up in the tree. It was probably fired from the 6^th Maine Artillery

Battalion who were positioned back up the Orange Plank Road

at the intersection with Brock Road. They helped stop the attack

on May 6 by the Texas Brigade under Gen Longstreet.

Federal 3 inch Schenkl Shell - Wilderness

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.