IBdiggin said:
Dog gone Mr. R. It just keeps getting better for ya.
Sweet find man. Did you get an overload signal? Are we talking VDI in the 90's or what?
That is the funny thing.
I have been over this area before many times with a few different machines and coils and missed it every time.
It is right near the edge of a lake in a great park and either I just never came across this signal and missed it using mostly the smaller coils or there might be another reason.
This thing came in high, really high like a 90-92 on the F2 and the 10" coil, a larger coil I recently started using and attempting to cover some of the larger less trashy areas at some of my old sites looking for things I missed using the snipers.
This reading is usually going to be a shallow large flat can, kind of high for even that kind of target, really but I have come across a few of these before.
I have only come across 5 targets that were good in the 90's using the F2, most of the time it is junk and/or large rusted iron pieces so a good target at this high reading is a rare thing for me.
This past summer I did dig 2 Franklin halves that came in at this exact reading, a Kennedy half I dug about a week ago was the same and this was in the back of my mind when I acquired this signal.
I might have gone over this same target before and figured it was junk and passed it by, or maybe I just never got any coil over it but I will never know, this time with that solid reading in the low 90's I was going to dig it even if for no other reason to get it out of the way to see if it was masking something else.
I used the pinpointer to paint the area and it was big but not as big as a flattened whole can, and when I pulled out the Propointer I came to the same conclusion.
Could be a half or some dollar sized coin, but more likely it was some sort of large thick rusted iron piece or a whole can that was stepped on, collapsed and totally flattened.
It wasn't deep so I opened a small hole and nothing on there or in the plug and stuck the Propointer in and whatever it was was in the side of the hole so I stuck my hand in and felt something thick.
Not a can because it was smooth and very heavy as I pulled it out.
At first I figured it was a cap or something from a large pipe because of the high reading and smooth edge but it was dirty on the back and when I turned it over I saw the porcelain dial and I was surprised it turned out to be a pocket watch.
It did not come up clean out of the ground like most gold will do but there were several areas where gold color was showing so I walked over to the water and tried to clean it off.
Still not coming clean so I grabbed a pine cone laying on the ground and scoured a little area and every time I did the area under it came out clean and shiny with no sign of being plated, nothing flaking off and more and more I was thinking gold.
I took it home and it took quite a bit of cleaning which was strange but this thing was sitting in mostly damp dirt for who knows how many decades so that might be the reason I had to use some elbow grease to clean it.
It came out great as you can see in the pics, with still no signs of plating or flaking.
The dark spots you see are deep scratches I could not get into clean and one really deep one, the mark you see at about the 5:00 area in the pic I stuck a razor blade in there and scrapped the bottom and it is gold down there, too.
There doesn't seem to be any gold over a base metal, but maybe there is something gold plated like brass, I still have no idea and I will find out later today.
Some on the forums say it is plated, others with some watch experience say it is more likely 10 or 14k solid so it is killing me to wait but soon we will know.
It is heavy, way heavier than any other pocket watch I have ever held and comes in at 82 grams...close to 3 oz's.
Once the jeweler takes the back off for me we will know much more.
Three of us have tried to unscrew the back of this thing but no luck but I am sure the jeweler has better tools for this job.
I hope it is solid gold of some kind, I hope that high signal was because this is some sort of huge chunk of high karat solid gold and not because of some base metal or triggered by the internal movement metals but soon we will know.
Looking forward to getting some numbers and tracking down the ages of the case and the movement which could be totally different because people kept these cases for life and just changed the movements when they stopped working.
Fingers crossed that it hits all the high marks but no matter what, solid or plated, still one of the coolest things I have ever dug.
I will update as I find out more later today.
