New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Spent most of my time coin shooting when I was into this lark a couple of decades ago, but I stumbled on an old homestead (ie not much more than rotten pilings and now an ant condo! Hate ants.) Anyway, a few nice trinkets came out of the dust under what used to be the floor...

One was a nice Key:


And a 1928 Penny in surprising nick from another one. This was sandwiched between two weatherboards, so I assume little Johnny jammed it in there and couldn't get it back...


Others found in my travels, an entire engine block just under the surface, but this was the first thing that greeted me when I scraped the pine needles back with my foot. So I filed the head of the rivet off and pocketed it. According to the Interweb, it might be off a late 30's Morris 12


One from the mudflats just south of Waipu (can't remember the estuary, might have been Mangawhai) 1904 NZ Penny - my oldest NZ coin.


To think I pulled hundreds of roman coins out of the banks in the lanes back in the UK as I went to school only to throw them at the ducks on the pond...I know what you're thinking, but that pond is now under an industrial estate <sigh>. Lessee, 3 years at that school, easily one coin per day, that's at least 900 coins I biffed at those flaming ducks! I suppose that's karma for you.

But my pride and joy (to date) a 21k bit o' shine - I suspect it might have been related to the used condom and suspicious depression and scuff marks in the sand dunes ... :)




Any ideas as to whether the 1904 penny is cleanable, or is it too leached out?

Mudwiggle

Edited by user Thursday, 20 February 2014 6:46:31 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Really nice and interesting finds! Good on ya ;)

Q: When is a junk stainless necklace not a junk stainless necklace?

A: When it's a 14k white gold necklace.
I was so chuffed, I packed up there and then.

some nice finds there...gold is allways good

You should be able to hire handhelds, but you would probably need to hold a radiation licence, and probably have done a users course before they'd let you have one.

A basic air-cooled benchtop machine probably only goes for around $50K... Need a fair bit of gold to justify that though!

But, yes, a handheld will pickup specks of gold, obviously the larger the better but we routinely do analyses on no more than a few sand grains of mineral.
Our machine isn't setup to analyse metals, but we can do a full spectrum and ID the peaks of elements present from that. For instance, the crucifix was primarily silver with a much lower peak of gold representing the plating.

Great toys :)

If you're serious, have a yarn with National Radiation Lab in Chch.

Was dying to spend some more quality learning time with the F4 again, so stopped off at a small bay on the way home from work today. Working on the MD rule of "a few people over a long time".
I chose this less than glamorous spot as I knew there would likely be no tabs whatsoever. The shingle "bay" was tight as it was high tide and no more than 15m long. A scramble down from the road through ratbag weeds to get to, but 100 years ago, who knows?

Very happy with the finds in the half hour it took me to clear it:


All came up from around the 4" depth except the penny which was on the surface in the loose gravel and shell at the storm line.

The obsidian caught my eye as I heaved a shovelful over. I'm fairly sure this has been knapped as the edges and fractures are sharp and it's well removed from the local obsidian source up the valley (ie. it couldn't have got here by any other means than human)

With no pull tabs or bottle caps at all, I'm going back with the PI when the tides are a bit lower to see what else lies at depth... With 1950's as the youngest find, it looks promising. :)

MW

Well, made my biggest blunder for a long time.

Snuck out the door at around 2am so I could get a decent run and back in time to start cooking breakfast so no-one would be wiser.

Drove for about 30 - 40min to my latest hideaway and got into it.

First 10minutes was spent in an old, old stormline of shells and seaweed when this popped up just under the surface.



In the thin LED light at the time, I called it as junk and chucked it into the bag. Cleaned up later to a nice old 9ct - damned shame the sizeable stone was missing, but finding it in the shell would be impossible.

Not much else apart from the usual rusting small moderns when the batteries went flat. FLAT! Aargh... I KNEW there was something I meant to do after the last trip! Hmm - chances of finding spare batteries at 3am...Not good. Buggerit! Ransacked the car - nothing.

Packed up in disgust and got back home in time to climb into bed and make a show of waking up for the wife.

(Almost the perfect crime)

Chances of getting away with it again tomorrow are less than slim, but what they don't know.... and I have two spare sets of batteries in the car now!

Do you have any with the stone/whatever in place? Would be interested in knowing what was once there.

No idea of age really, but was well coloured and caked.

Here's a pic of the one I found about a year ago. It was about four inches down in park turf. I reckon these were a 1970's thing, as a mate's father got one as a gift from new, when he was in his early 20's in 1976.

BAM !



Took advantage of the (welcome) showers of rain to keep the numpties away and made my first foray to a new Spot X and came home with a 925 puzzle ring and Seiko 150m divers watch - Which was a) VERY unexpected given the location, and b) started going as I checked it out!
Date is set at Sunday 16th which given the condition and depth suggests was lost in June this year. Other recent Sunday 16ths are Sept and Dec last year, but June is my best guess. It's keeping good time so far... My only other divers watch find (another Seiko) had turned into a spirit level, but that had seen a helluva lot more water than this one.

Will be checking with the Thin Blue Line on Monday - They're starting to recognise me there now :) to see if the time period(s) and location matches with any lost property - if not, I can throw away my cheap 'n nasty plastic Casio :)

...And about a handful of bloody tear-tabs. Tell me. Is there someone who roams the country melting cans and throwing those damned blobs of aluminium around?? Everywhere I go, I get melted Ali....!

MW