New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

[bTHE FAR SIDE.[/b]
Diary of a madman.

NZ GOLD fossicking Forums, love everything about it. Been on here for six months now and im glad i joined. Been to places i wouldnt normally frequent and met a few like minded people. We all have our own individual characteristics portrayed mainly with our own page/pages. I have become very pc with my posts and thats the standard i like to keep, clean,tidy and informative.. There are things we want to say but dont in fear of jepardising the health of our posts. The odd rant is expressed briefly but it doesnt go further than that.
Me, well my biggy is posting after im well into my 5th or 6th beer. Hence the need to edit my posts the next day cause ive said something stupid or put up a pik of my cat.. hmmm. So ive kicked this post over so's i can say the things i need to say from time to time. Cant remember exactly what i was goin to say so ill just stick with the beer thing for now.
GOLD is good, so is silver and so are all the folks on this site including the ones that think im a nutter. Nice finds to you all.

Shane

Edited by user Tuesday, 22 May 2012 8:19:44 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Well Shane you can be a nut as much as you like as long as you dont have a wife, girlfriend, concubine or lover who comes complete with nut crackers! Happy hunting Shane and may many treasures come your way.

the far side? should be
the DARK SIDE of the
FAR NORTH,
if you think reading his
posts afer 5-6 beers is
far side you should
try having 5-6 with
him and get it first hand.

Spoke to a guy yesterday who seen a ''meteorite'' crash thru the trees many a year ago. He now wants to go searching for it and wants me to get him a detector to help find it.. I wanna go look too and i hope he takes me as its all a bit secretive now that he knows its worth money.
Just had a chat with Rgmsbrid for some help with a detector, cheers man. He recomended a F75 with a 15 inch coil.
This person has actually seen two meteorites land in his lifetime.

Edited by user Sunday, 29 January 2012 10:12:05 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

It wont be long before someone cracks a pre 1800 coin (or treasure), or a GOLD soveriegn. Hot on the trail. Have a few night missions planned for just the occasion. See how this week goes. If i can hit an 1834 silver then there must be more to find. Goin for GOLD.

Shane - A bit late with the gold sovereign when you say that one day someone will find one - I have never found a gold coin in my life with a metal detector but I know of several instances of gold sovereigns being found - in two cases the people who found them actually found two of them!

I am sure that up your way there will be a lot of really ace stuff around old whaling stations and early pub sites - I dont know how easy it would be to pillage and plunder along the foreshore at Russell but I bet theres some stuff around there - everything ranging from cannon balls to gold coins and even historic axe heads!

Although not by detectorists around 30 sovereigns and half sovereigns were found by the old tip on the beach at Timaru where the Caledonian Ground is - that was in the 1970s when the sand all got scoured out by unusual ocean currents.

Edited by user Friday, 2 March 2012 9:46:16 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Oh bugger I meant to say 'the old tip' - OK so I wrote it in hieroglyphics! I did it to make people guess and you go and spoilt it - party pooper! What me make a mistake?

haha I have corrected it so now theres no proof I made a mistake any more!...My fingers type faster than my gray cells process it all...they get side tracked...Thanks for pointing it out though.

Edited by user Friday, 2 March 2012 9:48:38 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The sovereigns are out there, my find last year is a 1958 coin so fairly modern but the older ones will be laying around as well. For the 19th century coins I think the secret will be looking in the right places which isn't where the normal copper and silver coins are found.

The sovereign represented BIG money in those days when compared to incomes. More then our modern $100 bill is worth nowadays. Because of this I reckon people would rarely dig out their sovereigns to go the park, pub or local grocers, but they would dig them out to buy a major asset. For example reading up on the history of "The Rock" where I live, there are references to property being brought with monthly payments in sovereigns.

The higher the "class" of the person the more likely they would carry sovereigns to flaunt. Thus race tracks? Or areas / places where the wealthy gathered? Areas around high class hotels (as opposed to pubs) etc. When not carried around they would have been hidden and saved, so hunting out caches would also be a good idea.

Good luck!

Hi Shilo,
In general I would agree with your ideas, however!...I am one of the two that Lammerlaw mentioned as having found two sovereigns. The circumstances were as follows - a few months ago the wind and waves had been washing the local beach away, lowering the sand level and also washing the sand dunes gradually away as well. I had been working the beach at the base of the dune to about 10 metres out, backwards and forwards, overlapping swings to be thorough. At the base of the dune, got a signal so shovelled out a decent amount and out of the corner of my eye I saw a glint. As soon as I looked properly,I just knew what it was. Nothing gleams like that! I was absolutely stoked but also dumbfounded - who loses a sovereign at the beach? Who would take one to the beach?

It was in exceptionally good condition (not that I'm a numismatist!) so surmised it may have sat unmoving in the dry sand of the dunes until it started sliding down to the beach, therefore I carefully gave the immediate uphill area a scan, but to know avail. After a while I gave up but before leaving I measured the spot from a known point so I could return the following day.

The next evening I went down again returning to the same spot hoping against hope there might be another! (I never figured I'd ever find a sovereign, let alone at the beach, but hey, it had happened once! However having scanned the area and surrounds and not getting much I went back to the exact spot and bugga me days if I did not detect the second sovereign. And I literally did not detect it! I'd happened to cast my eye on a clump of marram grass (or whatever it is) and there caught up in a few strands was the second sovereign! Now, I'd been past that clump three or four times at least and not seen it. It also was in superb condition. I was absolutely blown away! To find one was amazing, two was just bloody unbelievable! I started thinking there might be a cache of more, but I at least haven't found any more, and boy did I search! (1908 and 1912 by the way.)

For what it's worth, my pet theory is that in the old days a wealthy gentleman of leisure has taken a local wench up into the dunes and in the process of their tete-a-tete has lost the coins until they washed down to the current beach level. Well, that's my theory and I like it! lol.

If I could get my untechonogical head around photos, I'd post a pic, but anyway just imagine two virtually perfect sovereigns and that's what they look like.

I sincerely hope you blokes can find at least one in your searches, as it's a fantastic buzz!

Cheers,
Rick.