Wiley's coin and relic by-products from 40 years of gold prospecting.

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coles
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Coles medallion. Federation of the World. Issued by Coles Book Arcade. Melbourne. Orginally gilt plated. It still has some gilt on the bottom of the top photo. wiley
 
G'day silver. Yes, have found heaps. I've got jars etc, every where. Mostly found in the G.T. while prospecting. The oldest is a 1757 Hamburg schilling, I found at Havelock. I'll post photos of the interesting ones as they turn up. wiley.
 
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Here's a button/ medallion I found near Bendigo. So I'll use a bit of poetic licence, and a lot of imagination here. Here's my take on it. The Chinese name for Bendigo was, Dai Gum San, which means, Big Gold Mountain. Also, Bendigo's huge Chinese dragon is named, Dai Gum Loong, which means, Big Gold Dragon. Does anyone know the story/history on this item. It's 40mm across and looks very old. wiley.
 
Eldorado. The medallion was all mangled and had no back on it. I had to carefully reshape it back to roughly its original shape with some gentle panel beating with a small hammer, as it's very fragile with a few cracks in it. Then I put fibre glass in the back to strengthen it. wiley.
 
And lost pretty quickly in due course I'd recon.... notice there is no real chain wear to the top of the hole, but maybe a slight bend as a short left handed theif made a quick snatch for it... only to have it fling away into the long grass in the dark, lost forever to them both.
So, maybe there is the open end loop from a fob chain not too far from where you found that one wiley. :D
 
Hi Silver. Maybe the dopey thief snatched it thinking it was a real gold half guinea, then threw it away when he found it wasn't. Didn't some idiot do that at the Melbourne museum with a copy of a huge nugget they had on display in a window. I think it may have been the Hand of Faith. Smashed the window, took off with the copy, then dropped it not far away when, maybe, he thought it was a bit lighter than a gold nugget should be. DOH! wiley.
 
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