DaBilda
Paul
3 weeks ago I got a phone call from a bloke that lost his house in the Sampson Flat bushfires in the Adelaide Hills in January. He wanted to know if I could get the Metal Detecting Club to go out to his property, search through the remains and see what we could find. Of particular interest for his wife was a ring worth many thousands of dollars. I put this to the club at the last meeting making sure they all understood I would not ask the owner for any form of payment and anything found was to stay with the owners. I got a good level of interest so arranged a day for me to meet them at the property so I could have a look around, check the area was safe and stable enough to work in and get a few photos to send members so they knew what we would be up against.
I went and met him out there on Friday (10 days ago) and emailed photos to everyone that night. I told him metal detectors would be virtually useless in there because of all the molten metals, nails etc. so the only real option would be rakes, shovels and sieves. Wednesday last week 6 of us went out there for the day to see what we could find. Very little jewellery was found, including the ring they were very much hoping for. We did however find quite a few coins from their coin collection, many of them in protective boxes were in uncirculated condition prior to the fire.
This used to be a 2 story house, as the photos show, anything that could burn, did. Absolutely everything they owned was turned to approximately 30cm of ash amongst the roof tiles.
Some photos of what we did manage to recover and what we had to sift through to get them.
And what we did manage to find. These photos are from my phone, I forgot my camera on the day.
If any of our members got any better photos of the finds I'll put them below as I go through them.
I went and met him out there on Friday (10 days ago) and emailed photos to everyone that night. I told him metal detectors would be virtually useless in there because of all the molten metals, nails etc. so the only real option would be rakes, shovels and sieves. Wednesday last week 6 of us went out there for the day to see what we could find. Very little jewellery was found, including the ring they were very much hoping for. We did however find quite a few coins from their coin collection, many of them in protective boxes were in uncirculated condition prior to the fire.
This used to be a 2 story house, as the photos show, anything that could burn, did. Absolutely everything they owned was turned to approximately 30cm of ash amongst the roof tiles.
Some photos of what we did manage to recover and what we had to sift through to get them.
And what we did manage to find. These photos are from my phone, I forgot my camera on the day.
If any of our members got any better photos of the finds I'll put them below as I go through them.
