I know from my own research that this practice was used as far north as Russian Alaska, notably with plaques buried at Sitka in 1799. Whether the Russian Empire had the means to enforce such claims was another matter; as the costs of their colonial ventures mounted, Russian trading companies eventually abandoned much of their territory in modern day California and British Columbia.

Frontier explorers would sometimes leave similar messages by landmarks to mark milestones along their journey, although these were usually carved into stone rather than forged in metal. Alexander Mackenzie famously left a marker near the Pacific coast when his expedition became the first north of the Rio Grande to cross the continental divide (beating Lewis & Clark by over a decade).