A colonial Posey ring inscribed 'I choose thee' was his coolest find
“One of the coolest things I found was, a Posey ring. It's it's called a colonial Posey ring is the name of it. It's a a gold ring that, they would have, a young man would have shared with a young woman, back in colonial times. And when I first found it, I thought it was just simply just I am not sure what it was. And then when I got home and cleaned it up, I realized what it was. And inside of it, it has some old gothic script. I think it says, I choose thee.”
A live Korean War grenade survived being juggled before bomb techs detonated it
“Korean war air grenade is what I found out later. And so, again, set it next to this tree. New, I'd spent, over twenty years in the fire department. I these sort of things happen in this area, again, because of all the military bases. So I knew what needed to be done. So I called called it in. They there's a lot the military base nearby us, sent their their bomb technicians over who examined it and quickly determined that it was a live grenade and that, it was actually the pin had been pulled out of it and thrown. But I guess somehow it hit just right. It never exploded, and I moved it with a shovel.”
Bomb technicians now detonate C4 charges remotely via Bluetooth
“And I asked him where the little wire was that went from the c four to the little, like, explosive thing. Yeah. He goes, no. We do that all by Bluetooth now. And so they blew it up with the phone.”
Half of relic hunting is studying old maps and getting landowner permission
“Yeah. That's that's over half of it is just spending the time to study. It's really dorky, but it's a ton of fun. But just look at old maps in history, and, Library of Congress has maps that you can access online, so you're looking at those. And then figure it out where you can go, but then, getting permission to go to those places. Obviously, you can't go to any national parks or state parks or anything like that. So it's it's finding private property, farmers, people that own land that you ask permission.”
Replica makers secretly bury fakes to fool other relic hunters
“There's a guy here locally, who is, like, been known for decades as one of the best replica makers of civil war buckles and things like that. And if he made one that wasn't quite perfect, he is was known to go in the Cold Harbor area and bury it and hide it. And people would find it and lose their minds.”
Relic hunting etiquette: always cover the holes you dig
“Well, one of the things would be, just if you dig holes, you cover holes. And you'd be just surprised how many people will dig holes in somebody's yard and just leave them, which if they have animals like horses and livestock, they could step in it and get hurt.”
Phillip became a preacher determined not to be disconnected from real life
“I grew up, and my dad, did not go to church very often. And one of his biggest things was he was like, he'd meet preachers, and he would go, that preacher doesn't know anything about real life. He doesn't know anything about me. He doesn't understand anything because they live in his little world. He just reads the Bible all day and sits in his office and sings hymns or whatever. And, and so I was determined from the beginning that I wouldn't be that guy.”
