Historical Treasures & Oddities found in the Thames. Help me to ID them!Mudlarking with Nicola White

I'm starting to speak now. now i've caught sight of something over there and i'm wondering if it's a duck in distress aha look at that it's an angel duck oh it's full of water what are you doing down here well look at that now that is the last thing i was expecting to see this morning quack quack well you're definitely coming home with me i've got lots of other ducks who are going to be very happy to meet an angel duck all hail angel duck i'm just about to pull something out of the mud here i spotted a little rounded edge i've no idea what it is it might be absolutely nothing but let's see it's just here and i'm just taking it out oh oh what is that that looks interesting doesn't it let's give this a rinse off in this lovely clean water what is it oh look it's a holy grail oh wow look at that oh my gosh oh i love it look it's decorated at the bottom there oh wow oh wow look at that i love it wow i've no idea how old it is or even what it is looks like some kind of candlestick or something oh look it's decorated up here as well isn't that pretty i mean it was fairly wedged in there so i'm thinking it's not it's not modern i mean it's not like a modern offering or anything that was fairly wedged in there it's got to be at least 19th century that's special look at that everyone i'm just looking at this mud here because things tend to get caught on this exposed mud when the tide is going down and i've already picked up a tiny little button with nothing on it i just saw this and do you know what it looks like it might not be it looks like a really really flimsy ring i wonder if it is or i wonder if it's just a piece of metal i'm going to bend it outwards in a minute and see if it's a ring or if it's just a boring piece of metal i'm not sure if that's a decoration on there or whether i'm just being very very hopeful what do you think and will i break it if i try and open it up we will find out shortly now this here looks like a an interesting little piece of metal a nice hook let's go and give it a wash i'm sure i'll be able to use this in something oh yeah i really like that and and it's got the broad arrow on there as well look can you see it i've just spotted a really beautiful button over there i'm going to go over the area really slowly see if you can see it it's somewhere in the middle can you see it there it is isn't that lovely just sitting there like that now i think that that is a royal marines button and i believe is that the queen's crown i think it's victorian isn't that beautiful what a great find oh what's this i wonder another curious piece of metal no idea what that is nothing much i shouldn't think i might take it though i might be able to put it in a collage or an assemblage pop it in my pop it in my pouch now down here i can see some glass poking out and it's just here i can see london on it now is it broken is it a whole bottle will we be able to find out what it says on there oh it is a whole bottle oh wow it is a whole bottle and it looks really nice i can't believe my camera's nearly running out oh my gosh it is a whole bottle look at this oh my god what a treat i'll try and rinse it off before my camera runs out of battery that's a lovely bottle lipton london lipton limited london it's really really nice and it's completely intact it's got a lovely chunky feel to it as well now i'm having a look at this area here and there's lots and lots of little pieces of metal i just spotted this here which definitely looks like some form of old lead token there so pretty old no 1700s maybe maybe earlier oh that's a nice button look at that what does that say what's that say ah woolwich somebody in woolwich perfect i'll be looking that up later just look at that beautiful button this is a really delightful to like this spot here you just never know what these stones amongst the amongst the pins hello now there's quite a lot of erosion here i can tell and there's all sorts of interesting things here and first of all let's go for the things that i usually go for look look at that there's a pipe poking out there just waiting to be plucked out it's a little bit broken but let's pull it out oh look at that lovely extraction now if it wasn't for that little bit there it would be completely intact let's just give it a little rinse in this puddle now that's lovely sort of a mid to later 19th century pipe i really i really like that okay put that in my bag now there's also the tip of a stem here it could just be ah yeah it is it's just a stem hey oh you cannot win them all you just can't but there's lots of nice nails and things here as well i've been picking up beautiful copper nails there's a lovely nail here oh look and it's got the the broad arrow on it look can you see that we just there it is look that crow's foot there just on the side the broad arrow indicating that it is a government property and there's another one here look let's see if this one's got the broad arrow on it as well it probably will it looks very similar bit of wash i can't see it actually but look at it isn't it isn't it lovely it's just something really beautiful about that nail a lot more beautiful than my nails wouldn't you agree okay i'm going to show you this piece of wood look it's a really rather nice fashioned piece of wood there i wonder what it comes from well i mean obviously it's going to be something from a ship isn't it but it's really it's really rather nice i wonder what part of the ship it comes from oh look and look down here there's a 303 just stuck here in the mud so look here's my piece of wood you can see the defined shape of it a lot better now i am going to lug this home and um yeah i'd like to find out what it comes from i mean i know it's probably a ship but which part oh look at that it's an elephant looks like some kind of maybe a hunting seam i always say do turn over pottery when you see it like that just plain because you just don't know whether there might be something really interesting on the other side like this i mean oftentimes there's nothing at all but sometimes you get a real treat i've not seen this design before i'd love to know what the whole design is now just down here i've seen the edge of something round i've also just seen a little bit of pipe stem there but anyway uh yeah a little bit of round metal just there see it now it could be some kind of washer it could be i don't know the back of a watch this is the moment when you can kind of get all hopeful and think oh what is this what is this is it something exciting and it could be absolutely nothing at all it could be a little tag it could be um like a sail eyelet which is now what i'm veering towards because i can see there's a hole oh oh what is it what is it i don't think it's anything very much but let's wash it and then i'll come back and see if there's a pipe bowl on the end of that stem okay let's wash it off such a tease what is it i had high hopes you know i had high hopes for this oh it looks like some some kind of something to do with furniture or something okay well here we are it's nothing particularly exciting but i'm going to take it i'll use it in a piece of artwork how's that oh for a moment i thought it could be the back of a let's go back and investigate the pipe stem that was so promising wasn't it right let's have a look what have we got here oh it is just a pipe stem okay well you win some you lose some there's a nice bit of exposed mud here and look what i've seen just down there this here now i wonder what it is i wonder if there's anything on the other side oh it's interesting so it's an earring i thought it might be a little badge but look it's a clip-on earring there you go very swish that will go with my single earring collection of which i have many i wonder if there's anything else here that's eroding out of this mud let's have a look oh i can see the coin it's one for the thames charity box oh and another one another one is this a modern coin oh no that's not modern actually that is a ha'penny it is a victoria ha'penny oh isn't that lovely isn't that really nice um and the date on there is looks like i think it's 1866 here comes the here comes the river yeah i think it's 18 1866 it's a nice little find let's continue our search along here oh look is that a coin no that's not a coin what's this looks like a little mouse it's like a little mouse christmas decoration anyone recognize him hi everyone thank you very much for watching and for accompanying me on that mudlarking outing along the river thames and thank you for all the comments and the feedback that you gave me on my last few videos last week if you haven't seen it i put out a video about my visit to the restaurant in new york keen's steakhouse which is chock full of clay pipes actually there's about 90 000 apparently and so it was a really fun video to make and it was just a great place to visit as well so much history so where can i start there's always so much to um talk to you about so firstly i wanted to tell you that i decided to take down the thames charity box which is now empty ready to be filled up again down to the coin change machine to see how much i've collected over the last few months so you may have seen the youtube short that i put out where i asked if you wanted to guess how much was in there i'll play it for you again if you didn't see it hi everyone i'm here in my studio and i'm having a big sort out and as some of you may know over the last few months i have been collecting up all the modern coinage that i can find on the thames foreshore whilst mudlarking and today is the day that i'm going to go down to the coin change machine to see exactly how much i have collected and so take a look and why not have a guess in the comments as to how much i have collected see how close you can get to the exact figure in pounds or dollars if it's dollars we will do a conversion so here it is in this bowl here lots and lots of small change all collected up on the thames foreshore over the last few months what's your guess how much do you think put it in the comments below and i'll be back later to give you the answer so how much do you reckon is in there well at the end of this video i will tell you and also towards the end of this video we're going to find out who has won malcolm's book mudlarked and so stick around for that if you entered that about uh three weeks ago i think or two weeks ago um you will now find out very shortly who is going to be winning this beautiful book all about amazing mudlarking finds from the river thames so now um oh one other thing okay you may wonder what this weird little thing is here i have got myself a microphone now i know that the sound in my studio has left a lot to be desired and i'm hoping that this might go some way to remedying that it's um one that i got the other day and i'd like to give a big shout out to sahabi at curry's in woolwich who helped me to decide which microphone to get so thank you very much sahabi your help was very much appreciated and let's see if this is going to work um i rather like it like i said it's quite retro i'll have to try and stop myself from breaking out into song don't worry i won't break out into song so where can i start so many odd things as usual on the river thames let's start with um this here which is rather lovely there's been some debate whether it's modern or whether it's old i like to think that it's old because it was quite firmly wedged in there by the rocks in the mud some people have suggested it could be a modern indian type offering i'm not too sure about that i'm not too sure i can't find any identifying marks on it there's no maker's mark and when i cleaned the mud out i did find at the bottom the remainders of some wax there so it's obviously been used for for candles i like to imagine it on an old galleon back in the 19th century with a captain writing his log book and this is on his desk whilst he's there with his quill writing his log book but then again i have got quite a good imagination as you probably know or is it something more modern i deliberately haven't cleaned it off another reason why i think it's been there quite a long time is because it's actually very very discolored now on the theme still of ships let's have a look at that big piece of wood which i have here next to me it's quite heavy now the book's gonna fall on the floor one moment let me put the book in a safe place right here we are look this is this piece of wood here and i must admit i haven't done a great deal of research i probably could have made a little bit more of an effort but i do know that some of you out there are pretty good on maritime artifacts and i'm thinking that this must certainly come from a ship does anybody know what part please enlighten me please enlighten us all as to where this piece of wood came so you can see there's a nail there there's a well actually i think that's a knot that that little hole there there's another nail here so um yes what do you reckon where did it come from again um it was a an outing for odd things i picked this up i do collect a lot of metal you probably think why does she just pick up everything that she sees i have big boxes of random metal bits because i like to make um assemblages out of them there's something really inspiring about all these different pieces of metal including this little piece of copper tubing but what makes it interesting are the little holes in it so i don't know if it ever really had a function there's somebody out there might know so if you do know please let me know and then for the last of the mystery items what are these these things which often pretend to be some kind of huge gold sovereign poking out of the mud and then they turn out to be these things and i've actually got quite a lot of them in varying sizes they look like the um fittings that you find on a chest of drawers but what are they all doing in the mud look i've got loads they must cover from ships as well i've got quite a lot in different types of design and they always present themselves in a most promising way and then it's kind of disappointing when i pull them out as lovely as they are what are they what are they so moving on to this little button here which is marked with hs samuels of 21 hair street in woolwich so i started to research hs samuels 21 hair street woolwich and i couldn't find hs samuels but what i did find was several other tailors who have been based at 21 hair street so there was armfield the new hosier and outfitter woolwich gazette 1910 for smart ties vests hosiery and caps and then in june 1881 so even earlier rb dale sole agent of the best make of silk faced fast pile velveteens and specializing also in 1879 in black silks they were clearly the the times to be walking around in woolwich with all these black silks and marvelous velveteens and hosiery and caps and all these stylish things but as for hs samuels i couldn't find him so maybe he came afterwards or maybe he was there previously this lovely little bottle with lipton's london on it i haven't actually seen a bottle like this before it's very quaint i'm not quite sure what would have been in it but of course lipton's was and is well known for its tea and it was founded by sir thomas lipton in the the mid 19th century so maybe it had some kind of essence or something like that in here maybe somebody out there knows what this bottle may have held i've got to confess that i'm not a massive fan of lipton's tea i like my tea quite strong i actually prefer earl grey tea to be honest but lipton's tea i do find that it's a little bit too weak and when you put the bag in the hot water it has to stay there for absolutely ages before you get anything out of it so that's my my honest feeling about lipton's tea no offense to sir thomas lipton um what else oh the little tiny ring which is here just a real little wisp of a ring which i did manage to unbend and as you can see here it is it has the faintest little pattern on there so maybe some kind of a a prize from a fairground but certainly a very very cheap little ring but who knows what its history is maybe somebody gave it to their girlfriend um after winning it at the fair it's very very small just about goes halfway up my little finger right here is malcolm ross's book mudlarked a few weeks ago i did a video and i invited people to put a comment with mudlarked or hashtag mudlarked in the comments and i said that i would draw the winner in a few weeks so today is that day and we are about to find out i'm going to do it right now right so here we are on the comment picker site so the first thing i need to do is put in the link to the video which is here copy and paste that right so we now have the link to malcolm's video we're going to filter duplicate users and then we are going to filter comments based on a specific text which was hashtag mudlocked with an apostrophe so let's put that in there hashtag mudlocked and there we have it exclude blacklist users do i have any blacklist users well i don't know but if i do i don't want to win oh no okay i don't know who they are if i've got any so we'll let them join in too right get the youtube comments oh i have to put that in my daughter just passed a level maths she definitely didn't get it from me but i can do that kind of sum just little sums so how many comments have we got 588 wow that is pretty good right so up we go here now no we don't no we don't go up there we go down here start raffle and pick random number okay so are you watching we're about to see who's won malcolm's book so start here we go oh well there you go it's a1 scrap metal jones and you may regret saying this another great video thank you i will put on my kiss proof lippy and give you a big kiss if i win malcolm well um well you've just got lots of witnesses that that's what you're going to do so i'm going to expect absolute proof so well done again to a1 scrap metal jones who i'm sure at this very moment is scrabbling around trying to locate his kiss proof lipstick and malcolm's also a winner he's going to receive a kiss proof kiss from a1 scrap metal jones so well done to everybody and sorry if you didn't win you can of course find malcolm's amazing book online and in lots of good bookshops and it's well worth a read so do do check it out if you haven't already so now i'm going to tell you the answer to how much money was in the thames charity box here the coins that i have collected up along the river thames over the last few months and so i'm now going to play you a little video with the answer so here we are guys with the pot of money which i have collected along the thames foreshore over the last few months whilst mudlarking and we are about to find out how much this is going to convert into in it's going up and how much have we got and there we have it a grand total of 33 pounds and 73 pence so 33 pounds 73 p there it is 33 pounds 73 p and so well done if you got that right or if you came anywhere near it we'll have to look at what the equivalent in dollars is because i know that a lot of you are in the usa so where is the money going to go well i think that because the original mudlarks were very very poor often children and sometimes adults too though and they were scrabbling around in the mud looking for anything they could find to sell to feed their family ie they were very very poor they were society's outcasts really so i think it's only appropriate that this money should go to people on the margins of society and what i've decided to do is there's quite a lot of homeless people in london in various places and i'm going to divide the money up into five pounds bits of five pounds and i'm going to give that money to some of the homeless people to do with what they want to do with it there is of course the totally thames festival coming up for the whole month of september and there's absolutely loads of thames related events going on all sorts of things and some of them are online so you can join from wherever you are but if you are here there are every weekend some exhibitions which are going to be absolutely amazing in different venues each weekend of mudlarks showing their incredible mud larking finds from the river thames and so take a look on the thames festival website to find out where they are but from memory there's the roman amphitheatre there's st paul's cathedral there's the maritime museum and waterman's hall as well so i mean just the venues are are worth a visit and i will be at waterman's hall on the 3rd and 4th of september showing some of my finds i've been having a great time choosing some things to take and then i will also be at the maritime museum on sunday the 11th of september all day i'm actually doing a talk on the saturday the 10th which is sold out but i will be there a couple of hours before in the actual lecture theatre where i'm doing the talk with my finds so if you are there on the saturday you could always pop in and take a look at some of the things that i'm bringing along there that's on the 10th so i really hope that you can make it to some of these exhibitions and the other thing is yes on the 24th and 25th of september i'm going down to cornwall which is where i grew up which i absolutely love um and haven't been down there for a while but i'm going down there with simon bourne of sci finds and steve johnson of the hovercraft history hunters and we're going to be doing some metal detecting and it's a venue well say venue fields which haven't been detected before and it is i think something like 50 pounds for the weekend which includes camping or if you come for just one day it's 20 and if you're not detecting it's free it's cornwall so if you happen to be in a position to be able to shoot down to cornwall that weekend it would be great to see you and you can contact simon about that it's scifinds at outlook.com or you can shoot me a thank you so much for watching and thank you for all your help there's quite a nice selection of challenges here to try and identify it's always a lot of fun trying to get to the bottom of these mysteries and i really appreciate your help thank you too to everybody who has donated to my ko-fi account your donations are truly appreciated and thank you most of all for watching my videos joining in with these adventures and just being you and i wish you all an absolutely super week ahead so from me angel duck let's get angel duck down to say goodbye angel duck and strange little shiny mouse i wish you a good week ahead we wish you a good week ahead and we'll see you again very soon for more adventures more mudlarking adventures along the river thames take care bye