Again with the house I grew up in ... one bed room, and only one bed room,
had the lath nailed to the studs with copper lath nails.  They looked
exactly like regular iron lath nails, except in copper (or alloy).  I
figured the room to have been finished off in c. 1860-1865.  Of course
copper roof nails are familiar to those of us familiar with lead coated
copper roofing systems.  I don't recall ever finding a copper nail in an
archaeological context, though.

         Dan W.


At 12:20 PM 12/15/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>The Ballast Point Whaling Station (CA-SDI-12,953) yielded substantial
>quantities of copper alloy nails, many of which were bent over or clenched. We
>assumed these simply fell away from rotted ship timber. There was a wide
>range of
>sizes, some with square and some with rounded heads. Anyone know a good source
>for interpretting the functions of those copper alloy nails?
>
>Ron May
>Legacy 106, Inc.