An hour on a Tasmanian beach

[Birdseed]

Had an hour or so to spare and the chores were sort of caught up, so packed the wife and the dog into the car and headed to a local beach.
It was a very low tide and I had looked many times at an old platform long used for diving or tanning in the Tasmanian sun. It sometimes came out of the water at low tide. It was today or never.
I walked out through the mud and started to get hits almost immediately. First up a $2.00 coin, then a 50 cent coin. An earring, boy this was going to be a good day.
Things settled down a bit then, a few more coins, a bit of junk, copper nails, a waterlogged plank out of a boat, full of copper nails (to big to recover). Lots of deep signals but with no detector stand or chest mount I had to leave them as I could not put the sovereign down on the ground to dig as it was still covered with salt water and seaweed to about 1/2 an inch deep.
By 6pm I was getting a bit cold and my wife still had to cook dinner at home, an hour away so I resolved to leave after the next find. It came in loud and round, boing, boing, but with the characteristic aluminium tone after, but it was so nice I just had to dig it. There it was, 2 inches down, a pretty little ring. Nine carat gold with a tiny sapphire. A great end to a short hunt. Also the promise of more to find when I chest mount. Roll on the next very low tide.

Pete downunder

 

[Crispy Critter]

What a nice ring. Really enjoyed your story. I felt as though I were there with you.

Maybe you can figure out a way to attach the detector to your waist or maybe hip-mount the control box when digging....next time. HH-CC

 

[JimmyCT]

That is great you were able to get out and enjoy the day. I wish we had $2.00 coins here in the U.S.A. and wish they were lost as much as the lincoln pennies lol it would add up quickly! Glad you decided to dig - if you didn't you would still be wondering.....wonder no more as it is a beauty! Get that thing rigged up chest-mount style and get back there at low tide. It sounds like this story is to be continued.... I shall patiently wait for the 2nd episode. Good luck to you & thanks for sharing! - Jim





It came in loud and round, boing, boing, but with the characteristic aluminium tone after, but it was so nice I just had to dig it. There it was, 2 inches down, a pretty little ring. Nine carat gold with a tiny sapphire. A great end to a short hunt. Also the promise of more to find when I chest mount. Roll on the next very low tide.

 

[Florida Keys Pirate]

Nice one , congrats !

 

[Tony in FL]

Nice find Pete! How is 9K gold marked or did you test it with acid? I have found gold looking items that are unmarked but appear to be solid (as in not plated) but fail the 10K acid test so I have been wanting to purchase some acid that can test for lower than 10K gold but thus far have not located any.

 

[Birdseed]

Tony.

Not being a professional, I am just going by the marking on the ring. I don't know if it is the standard world wide but most gold jewellery in Australia is marked as 9ct or 18 ct or whatever the purity may be. We have several gold items here in my wife's trinket box marked this way. An old watch chain we have is marked 18ct on every link, this has been valued professionally and it would appear that the markings are correct.

I am into detecting for the hobby, excitement and fellowship. I don't expect to get rich. Though if riches come my way I am happy to accept. I do it purely for relaxation and exercise. I have a friend here in Tasmania who bought a detector and several coils after seeing some of my finds. He spent most of his spare time literally running along beaches and finding nothing at all, also the same story on old gold fields. I have followed behind him slowly with the Sovereign and picked up dozens of finds. Now he is upset with the detector and has put it away in the closet, he is convinced that ML fleeced him of $1000 for a crap detector. For him detecting has been a source of great stress, all because his expectations were to high.

See link below for explanation of gold markings as I understand them.

See this link

You can buy an acid touchstone gold testing kit to get a better idea of the fineness of your gold. These use "aqua regia" a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids mixed in varying strengths and marked in carats. You rub rub an inconspicuous part the gold item onto a

 

[Tony in FL]

Hi Pete,

I have done plenty of acid testing with a gold test kit. However the lowest carat acid I have come across is 10K. I was hoping to find some acid for 8K or 9K. And I was wondering how 9K gold was marked where you are from - from what you said and pictured it seem to marked with '9CT'. Here in the US most of our jewelry is stamped with K instead of CT, so we might see '10K', '14K', or '18K'. Thanks a bunch for the info!

Tony

 

[Neil]

Pete thats a great little story and what a sweet ring you found there. One of the advantages of the Sov is being able to chestmount it, one of my reasons for owning one.

I like the first line in your story, packed the wife and dog in the car

Continued success to you at this site.

 

[GunnarMN]

yes great story , I felt like I was transpoted thear with you , Intresting you found copper nails thows are worth saving

 

[Birdseed]

Gunnar

Glad you enjoyed my little story.\
The copper nails are well embedded in a large wooden plank buried deep in the mud, looks like part of an old boat. I have often found copper nails in this area, they end up in my workshop and get used for all sorts of things. I recently built a battery charger and used a couple of copper nails for the contact pins, easy to solder too. Interestingly I found what had been a tin of copper nails buried in the sand. The tin had long since rusted away but the nails were set in a cylinder of cemented sand in the shape of the tin. I took them home and gave the whole thing a hit with a hammer and the lot crumbled leaving me with about a pound of copper nails. They are all about one and a half inches long and square cut. I will put them into my gemstone tumbler for 1/2 an hour next time I am using it and the residual sand will clean off and they will be as good as new..
The price of metals these days make it well worth collecting for its scrap value. It doesn't take many copper or brass finds to to add up to a couple of pounds or a kilo as we measure in down here. I have a couple of 4 gallon drums in the shed and I toss in any copper, brass or lead. Aluminium also has value but a cola can is only redeemable for 1 cent, this mean 100 to the dollar or around 100,000 cans to buy a new Sovereign GT. No wonder our highways are littered with cans. It costs more to stop the car to pick them up than the value of the aluminium. At fairs and race meetings etc we used to have wire crates around the venue to collect the cans for charity, but now the cost of collection is more than the can value. Unfortunately a large amount of aluminium cans go into landfill and are lost forever.

Cheers

Pete downunder