Here is a picture some of my old pins. The standing ones are from those two very old UP Michigan crossarms I referred to on Icon digest.

The side pin was found nailed to a large dead trunk section of an old living hard wood tree here in lower Michigan on another old track line wrecked out about 5 years ago. This one has no thread reminents and has a taper which leads me to believe it might have had a threadless on it. The tree is definetly very old The railway maps I have researched for this line show a RR right of way as early as 1870 but as for prominence, I haven't found any other evidence as yet......the search continues.