[2] The hair clip and the spear blade were passed to the Helms-Museum; however, the brooch was left with a teacher at the Tangendorf elementary school.

[2] In the summer of 1938 the teacher asked Helms-Museum's director Willi Wegewitz to pick up a neolithic stone axe.

The mound's original diameter of 16 metres (52 ft) was still clearly visible on the ploughed field and further remnants of a hair clip were discovered.

[7] The farmer revealed that he had found the brooch on the edge of the grave mound in the amount of increased soil in sand; he had not noticed that Erdverfärbungen (earth discolorations), might indicate a cremation burial.

The reverse of the front plate was filled with a now whitish green mix of tin, lead and traces of copper in order to support the sensitive friction work and to prevent the pressing of the driven ornaments.

The protruding edge of the rear silver disc and the remains of organic material beneath the copper disk suggests that the front plates of the fibula was surrounded by an ornate ring of ivory of about 10 millimetres (0.39 in) width.

[7] A similar, 55 millimetres (2.2 in) diameter, disc brooch is known from a burial at Häven in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, but depicts a forward-facing animal.

[7] Parallels of the illustrated animal are known from archaeological finds on a silver goblet from Nordrup[8] (near Skaftelev in Slagelse Municipality, Zealand (Denmark),[2] a belt decoration plate from Skedemosse (Sweden),[9] a drawing on a Quadi vessel shard of the 2nd century from Prikas, Olomouc, Moravia (Czech Republic),[2] and on the gold bracteate of Ponsdorf Mistelbach District, Lower Austria.

[7] After a detailed analysis of the construction, Hans Drescher manufactured two reconstructions of the Tangendorf disc brooch, one copy for the Helms-Museum and the second for the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover.