Near the southwest corner of the swamp—
Ready for a great day at the beach.
“Yeah, we got perfect weather, don’t we?”

Metal detection expert Gary Drayton, along with Rick and Marty’s nephew David Fernetti, arrive at the shoreline of Lot 32.
“A good place to start, mate. Anything we find in this area is gonna be interesting if it connects to a wharf.”
“Great. Well, I’ll let you do your thing.”
“Okay mate, look at that.”
“What do you got?”
“It looks like a piece of finished wood.”

Two weeks ago, the team unearthed a possible piece of wooden railing from a large sailing vessel and encountered a massive obstruction while excavating near the southern border of the swamp.

However, because the weather has now made it too difficult to dig anymore this year within the muddy bog, it is Rick, Marty, and Craig’s hope that Gary can locate more valuable clues along the man-made beach that could help solve the Oak Island mystery.

[Music]
“Very quiet, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I mean I don’t want to go too far away from this area, so the next line up. Let’s take this line.”
“We’ll bypass these two rows of seaweed and we’ll take these rocks along here.”
“Sounds good. Signal here, David.”
“Just said Mike. Yeah, you got it out.”
“Nice one, David. Is that it?”
“Let’s see what we’ve got here. Oh my gosh. And it is brilliant!”
“Can you see what this is, mate?”
“That is a trigger guard off either an old musket or a pistol. And that would date from probably 1650 to 1750.”
“I mean, this is fantastic, and this is only our like second line across here.”
“I’m going to put this in my pouch, recheck the hole, and let’s find some more artifacts.”
“Sounds good.”

It’s undeniable now that there was substantial activity here in the late 1600s, early 1700s.
Was that some military expedition that we’re unaware of, or was it the original depositors?

“Another good-sounding signal here, David.”
[Music]
“See my aunt—very interested. Oh wow, look at that, mate. This is really, really special. This is old. This is an old lead cloth bag seal.”
“A lead bag seal was used when an old sack—yeah—was sealed. They tied the sack and they put a seal on it.”
“This is a very important find, mate. We’ve just struck gold with this piece of lead, mate, dating back as much as 800 years.”

Lead bag seals were generally rounded metal clamps used to secure goods inside textile packaging.
What makes this seal a potentially important discovery on Oak Island is that they are uniquely designed to identify qualities such as the manufacturer and also country of origin.

Could this seal be connected to other ancient discoveries made in and near the swamp this year,
such as the pieces of 15th-century keg barrels
or the massive stone road believed to have been part of a ship’s wharf?

“This is an awesome leather effect. This is a really old piece, but just the type of artifact you want to be recovering in an area where you believe is an old wharf.”
“Bingo. We have it—gold on this one.”
“We won’t know until this is cleaned up, but this is very, very important.”
“This is the first lead cloth bag seal that we found on the island.”
“Does that go in the top pocket?”
“You—without doubt, mate. This is a true top pocket find.”
“I think this is so special, we should take it to the research.”
“We’ll come back here. I mean, this is fantastic. Let’s show the guys what we’ve found.”