My beach finds

[Paulmarr]

Never ending silvers flowing from you guys, a lot of hard yards have gone into finding those, so the results are justified! Tempted to sell the Ace and infinium to fund one good coin detector for both beach and parks. I seem to have detectors of two extremes, one that won't go deep enough, and the other that goes deep, but sees every piece of junk on the beach.

So are you going to melt down the crappy condition silvers at the end of the year?

Thanks Goldpick - yes we have both been putting in the hours which I am sure is why the silvers keep coming - I know that I am setting myself up for disappointment as I expect to find some everytime I go out!

I am also going to trade in the Sovereign for a CTX as soon as I can afford to do so - the Sovereign is great for the beach - but with no target id screen or target depth indicator you are flying blind in parks and dirt generally... I don't mind digging to china in the sand but the ground is a different matter and the Sovereign punches deep - I don't have an 18 inch screwdriver I can pop coins with! The CTX "dirty 30" (what they nickname them in the States) is the best all around detector on the market IMHO - even gets gold nuggets with a software download - so I am really wanting a dirty 30! I can't afford one at the moment but I am sure you will see I will have one in another month or two... (now to tell the Mrs)

 

[Goldpick]

Didn't realise there was no digital meter on your Sovereign, did it not come with one? I gathered you would upgrade to a ctx after seeing how good it is, saves a lot of time digging rubbish.

 

[Pilsner]

Good plan Paulmarr

And to answer also Sa-bogan's question above:
The CTX is a great machine. Some 3-4 years old kids asked me in a park last week, what am I doing, so I tried to explain a little bit. They said, it must be clever machine to be able to find the coins. Oh, it is so clever! The problem is usually in a user :8
So I'm still learning (and I'll be for a while), but I'm happy with this upgrade. There are days, when you don't want to experiment too much, so it's great that I can just push the start button and go. But it gives also many opportunities to play with the settings, so I can enjoy the machine for long long time.
I haven't been much successful to find something very exciting, but it more depends on a locality and research than on the machine itself. And I managed to lose car keys somewhere in the sea but it goes to my stupidity. So I'm quite in red numbers now
It'll be better again

Good luck with your hunts and keep your finds posting!

 

[Paulmarr]

Didn't realise there was no digital meter on your Sovereign, did it not come with one? I gathered you would upgrade to a ctx after seeing how good it is, saves a lot of time digging rubbish.

The Sovereign GT does have an accessory which is a target id screen ($200 extra) but all it does is give you the CO/FE numbers - no target depth - and I think the sounds it makes is a good indicator of CO/FE so I don't see the need for buying it - however if it had a depth indicator I would have purchased it. It is certainly different to use a detector that doesn't require you to look at the screen all the time (or at all) - you can keep your eyes on the ground or look around you while detecting which is a nice change. But the downside is when you dig, unless the sound is a loud screamer indicating the target is close to the surface, you have to just keep digging blindly to the depth of the target. And when you are in wet sand that collapses on itself as you dig - I tend to leave several targets a session because you can't retrieve it quickly enough to stop it sinking further. I just say to myself I will get it next time and move on. I worked out that it is better to leave it in the ground and move on rather than burning 10-15 minutes extracting the target which could be a can or something. Bogan does still dig junk targets - like anything in detecting - gold rings do ring up as bottle caps and pulltabs on the CTX too! You just never know so unless it is iron we dig it.

Hi Pilsner - I watched Bogan go through the learning curve and observed it is much like getting any new detector - you start out by finding a bullet case or bottle cap and not much else until you learn out to control the bugger ... a couple of hunts and now he is deadly with it - as you can see by the quality of the targets he is finding. I am looking forward to analysing the GPS coordinates of his target finds to try and work out if there is any deposit pattern to the beaches we frequent.... stay tuned!

Sometimes I wondered if posting each session's finds was something folks are interested in - I know I love looking at everyone's results - good and bad - so thanks for the encouragement! I am heading off to the USA in June for a month and I am bringing a detector with me - my brother's house/property was built in 1850 and is known in the town as "the railway house" so I am dreaming of finding USA silver coins and artifacts which I will surely post up for you all to see... my family live in Western New York but I am hoping to escape to somewhere down south - maybe Virginia - somewhere with beaches to detect! Maybe a CTX will find its way into my bag to take home with me (saving $300)

 

[Sa_bogan]

Good plan Paulmarr

And to answer also Sa-bogan's question above:
The CTX is a great machine. Some 3-4 years old kids asked me in a park last week, what am I doing, so I tried to explain a little bit. They said, it must be clever machine to be able to find the coins. Oh, it is so clever! The problem is usually in a user :8
So I'm still learning (and I'll be for a while), but I'm happy with this upgrade. There are days, when you don't want to experiment too much, so it's great that I can just push the start button and go. But it gives also many opportunities to play with the settings, so I can enjoy the machine for long long time.
I haven't been much successful to find something very exciting, but it more depends on a locality and research than on the machine itself. And I managed to lose car keys somewhere in the sea but it goes to my stupidity. So I'm quite in red numbers now
It'll be better again

Good luck with your hunts and keep your finds posting!

Well im glad to hear that you are having fun with it, i know im enjoying it more now that i know how to use it correctly. One thing i would recommend is trying to read as much information about the settings as possible as that really is the key to good finds (apart from walking over the right area) Things like using the high trash settings were there is a lot of iron - it gives you a fast recovery rate from nulling out on iron but it also makes the target ID reading less accurate and the depth is not 100% either.

Keep at it and it will come in no time

 

[Pilsner]

Thanks for your support guys!
It's definitely not too bad, I scored couple of predecimals including 1914 and 1916 Shillings plus quite some spendables. As I said, it's more about finding a good area, which has some potential.
I was not very successful on beaches, especially in terms of gold but on other side, the beach and shallow water are the places where I appreciate the CTX mostly, it's incredibly stable and powerful - if there is something, the CTX will find it.

All the best Paulmarr for your trip to US, it sounds very exciting (the detecting part )

 

[Sa_bogan]

well thats good to hear you have found something silver

When i can get around to it i think i feel a video on the ctx and a short film of some of the ring finds

 

[dav]

Love all these beach finds, ill have to get down to the Hume Weir for a hunt 8)

 

[Paulmarr]

Saturday night ... Some folks go drinking but Team Bogan went out for a night detect and we had a ball... Here are the finds....

Quite an array of coinage - both moderns and pre-decimals... The best was 3 x Florins - 5 x Three pence - 3 x large penny - 1 x half penny - 6 x 2 cent - 6 x 1 cent - 2 x twenty cent - 2 x ten cent - 2 x five cent plus a mystery coin which could be a six pence and a blob of three coins growing in a rock... A total of 34 coins. Also an ornate button with sea creatures on the front which we will clean up and show later along with a half of a skeleton key.

Any night you get three florins is a good night... Even on a dodge tide!

The cool thing about tonight was the Sovereign detected a signal that ended up having 25+ targets in one hole! Gotta love how the beach sifts them in one easy location!

 

[Goldpick]

Wow, you guys cleaned up! 25 targets in one spot is amazing, and some good silver to show for it too, just need a half or full sovereign now. Did they come from a gutter, or just a random spot?

 

[Heatho]

Great haul fellas, team Bogan is cleaning up big time.

 

[Willo]

1939 is a hard year to get

 

[Paulmarr]

Wow, you guys cleaned up! 25 targets in one spot is amazing, and some good silver to show for it too, just need a half or full sovereign now. Did they come from a gutter, or just a random spot?

Thanks Goldpick, Heatho and Willo - the spot was "random" in that it wasn't a gutter but a low spot on the beach. When I say one hole - it started as a small hole and ended up being a manhole size area but as shovel full by shovel full produced one or two targets each it got quite exciting ... We were under time pressure as the rising tide was making it more difficult to dig and water was lapping on the spoils heap so we didn't want to lose any targets to the tide. About 30 minutes from start to finish to complete that area and it was over like the fish when they go off the bite. I wish we were filming - I was giggling like a school girl as another and another appeared from the spoils heap. Good eyes there Willo - didn't know a 39 three pence was hard to find.

 

[Paulmarr]

Sunday night saw us out again trying to replicate Saturday's haul - no where near as successful but here are the finds....

Not a huge haul - we did manage a three pence as far as silver goes - along with a half penny and some moderns but Bogan and the CTX found this antique brooch which looks very old - the pic doesn't do it justice as it was taken at night but the stone is a beautiful green colour...

Pity the setting is so bashed up - unsure of the metal it is made from ...

I await the better tides later in the week ... do any of you on the East coast have a dodge tide?

 

[Solomon 009]

being a green colour it could be any of these:-

1 Green Diamond
2 Green Jadeite
3 Emerald
4 Alexandrite
5 Green Garnet
6 Green Tourmaline
7 Green Serendibite
8 Green Opal
9 Green Spinel
10 Green Sphene
11 Green Sapphire
12 Chrysoberyl
13 Green Zircon
14 Green Smithsonite
15 Green Andalusite
16 Green Labradorite and Andesine
17 Peridot
18 Green Idocrase
19 Green Pearl
20 Green Bowenite
21 Green Sphalerite
22 Green Kornerupine
23 Green Apatite
24 Chrome Diopside
25 Green Enstatite
26 Green Sunstone
27 Hiddenite
28 Green Moldavite
29 Green Amber
30 Green Zoisite
31 Green Topaz
32 Green Nephrite
33 Maw-sit-sit
34 Green Agate
35 Moss Agate
36 Malachite
37 Green Fluorite
38 Prasiolite
39 Chrysoprase and Chrome Chalcedony
40 Green Aventurine
41 Green Moonstone
42 Bloodstone
43 Green Prehnite
44 Gaspeite
45 Green Jasper
46 Seraphinite
47 Variscite
48 Amazonite
49 Chrysocolla
50 Unakite
51 Fuchsite and Maripolite
and I would say it is probably Silver the metal

Cheers Paul

 

[Paulmarr]

Hooley Dooley that is a lot of possibilities! How would we go about identifying it? Thanks for the list! I wouldn't have known where to start... are any of them valuable (apart from Emerald?) Does anyone have a guess as to it's age?

 

[Heatho]

Can you do a few pics with light behind it and at different angles, maybe Glass or Swarovski Crystal type thing or Jade. Metal is probably Copper with the Blue corrosion.

 

[Sa_bogan]

Here are some photos of the stone with light behind it. Hope they are good enough

 

[Heatho]

Looks like maybe a Jade Cabochon to me, not really bright enough for Peridot or Olivine to me. Probably some sort of stone with the imperfections in it. Anyway could be a tough one to identify, SG test would be great to do but would need to be removed from the copper. Great find.

 

[Paulmarr]

Wow! Looks impressive Bogan - and thanks to Heatho for getting us to have a second look...