Talked to a retired surveyor and now I question every reference point

Last Thursday I was grabbing coffee near the courthouse and this older guy saw my drafting case. Turns out he spent 32 years doing land surveys before computers. He told me his crew still checks their equipment against a brass disk in the sidewalk downtown, one that's been there since 1947. Said the digital data can drift but that disk never moves. I've been drafting using the same city GIS layers for two years without ever checking the field validation. Made me wonder how many of my drawings are built on shaky starting points. Do any of you cross-check your reference geometry against physical markers, or is that just a relic of the old days?

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emerycarr22d ago

Always figured digital was gospel until that brass disk story, now I'm doubting everything.