Our best dollar total, for a day, yet!

[TobyH]

Today, we had the good fortune to find some virgin ground at a school not too far from home. It's not a particularly old school, but the playground held more than I thought it would and had obviously never been detected. Our total for about 4 1/2 hours was $68.82 plus an American quarter and a Canadian quarter! For those of you who say "Ah, it's not American money, so it means nothing to me...", with the current exchange rate of about 77 cents per dollar, that adds up to about $53US! Hey, I'd say that's a good day at the school playground in anybody's book.
BTW, what year did the Canadian coins change from silver to nickel? Can't remember.
I was using the Explorer II and my wife was using her Garrett GTI2500. I won this time! (Not that there's any kind of competition or anything )

According to my records, that puts us at just over $1442 since 5Oct05 (13 months). Cool!

Cheers,
Toby
(Retired)

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

n/t

 

[James N.D.]

The last year for the Canadian Coinage for Silver was in 1968. But you have to look at each one of these to make sure that they are Silver. They also made another run of them out of Clad so just drop it on something or see what it reads on your detector. That much change would put a smile on anyone's face. So what if it isn't American Coinage! It's still Money and very spendable. Keep up the great work and Good Luck and HH to you and your wife.

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

n/t

 

[jimb]

n/t

 

[Mac _ Park]

n/t

 

[BEACH HUNTER]

n/t

 

[TobyH]

Nearly all were in the bark chips! The dirty ones were just below the "new level" down in the old stuff, and some were further down in the dirt below the chips. Only 3 or 4 coins came from the lawn surrounding the play area. That was just from walking between there and the car.

Gonna hit another school in that same area today and see how we go. We wanted to do that one yesterday, but they had a cricket match going on and a crowd all around. Didn't need the extra attention. Hopefully, it's quite today. I'll post our finds, if they're worthy.

Cheers,
Toby

 

[Boony]

Hi Toby,

Nice haul, how do you clean the Oz coins? I bank with ANZ and they have a real issue with taking my brown coins, I have tried soaking them in CLR but that seems to leech the copper out of them and make them go coppery red, Let's know what you do.

All the best
Boony

 

[TobyH]

Well, the ones that haven't been there long and still look presentable go into my pocket, after being accounted for in the log. The brown ones have been going into jars, until I can get (or build) a tumbler. That should clean them up nicely. We've tried scrubbing (very work intensive for the reward) and soaking in tomato sauce (messy, and doesn't get them all clean), so I think we'll wait for the tumbler.

Toby

 

[SNOWY]

That's terrific Toby,
our Aussie gold coins are so easy to lose,
and so good to detect eh!
50/100 + 200 cents to the coin soon adds up.
Nice to see you enjoy the hobby with your wife too, so do I mate...

HH

Snowy

 

[Boony]

Did you get the pics of my SE display.....Boony

 

[raptro5618]

I just tried using a battery charger a plastic tub with water and baking soda in it and each coin cleaned up in only a few minutes. Amazing. They said not to do it when the coin is valuable but these were all clad and recent coins.

The soil here stains coins really bad and I tried scrubbing, metal cleaners both paste and powder, as well as vinegar and anything else I could think of. Lots of work and the results were not good.

Doing it this way a few minutes and a quick brush with a brass brush and they look like new or nearly new when they were really bad. I had one coin 1920 that was in awful shape that you could just barely make the date out that came out pretty good so that you could at least make out the date.

I bought some metal clips so the charger clips do not corrode and a stainless steel knife at the dollar store, got two for a buck actually.

 

[SNOWY]

Yes Boony,sure did ~ way out of whack eh!!!

I'm sure they'll fix it for you mate.

Have you got a back-up detector to use???

Snowy

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Just a couple of questions for you Toby or anyone else from Oz.
Where can you buy a tumbler in Australia?
As far as our modern silver coins go. What is the story with them once the silver plating has been stripped off from being in the ground too long? Are they still considered legal tender, or do they become worthless?
Any info would be appreciated.
Mick Evans.

 

[TobyH]

So far, I have yet to find a good, inexpensive tumbler here. There are some nice cheap ones on ebay, but they are set up for American power source (110V), which would mean swapping out the motor. Using a transformer doesn't work too well with motors as the cycles are still off and will eventually damage the motor (plus shipping costs!). So, my plan is to build a simple tumbler to suit my needs. There are plans available on the net.

As for the coins, there is no plating on modern "silver" coins. They contain no silver, they are solid cupro-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel) and simply discolour in the soil. They will shine up nicely with a bit of a tumble. The modern "gold" coins ($1 & $2) are made of an Aluminium/Bronze alloy (92% copper, 6% aluminium, 2% nickel). These should be tumbled separately from the "silver" ones.

The banks are funny. They won't take "damaged" coins (i.e. discoloured, bent, etc) but if they're shined up and look ok, they'll take all you've got. I guess I understand their reasoning. They redistribute those coins to businesses and such, and nobody else wants coins which look like crap, either. I had a "discussion" with a NAB teller about that. My contention is that there is no real intrinsic value in a .10 coin. It merely represents 10 cents of buying power. Just because it's dirty, doesn't it still represent 10 cents? Apparently not. At least not until it's been shined up again.
This issue always makes for a good debate!

Cheers,
Toby

 

[tomtowns]

VERY NICE....I don't know of anybody who would care if it was American or not...The best I've done so far is.....(Sorry I had to count it) $5.67...90% of it came from under one Chin-Up/Swing Bar... There were so many targets I just laid the detector on the ground... & began picking up handfulls of wood chips & waveing them over the coil...I must have sat there for a half hour picking out coins...almost every handfull...it was sweet..the largest a 50cent 1984 kennedy clad...only silver I found that day was a 1935 merc. dime where there used to be a self propelled merry go round when I was a kid....This was with a MXT....Can't wait till I get the Exp.

 

[SNOWY]

Mick, I work at Miners Den Melbourne a couple of days a week, and we have the U.S. built Thumbler brand tumblers.
They are expensive ~ after freighting from the States and then doing the dollar conversion; after that add our Johnnies GST and you'll end up paying around $230.00!!!
I have an old Lortone I bought ~ that a lady brought into the shop to be sold,it was in a box of deceased estate stuff she wanted to get rid of.
You might want to look up a guy by the name of Des Liston, who sells gem supplies down here in Melbourne ph. 03 9570 7344
also Shell-Lap supplies in S.A. ph 08 8352 3166 www.shell-lap.com.au
I was in your big brown state over the last couple of weeks at Conargo,
Things are crackling dry with the drought eh!

HH

Snowy

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Thanks heaps for the help fellas. That is a pretty good haul Toby. That is about the same as my best haul from a school.But that took me all weekend. Half in the bark chips and half in the playground. It was at my son's school. I think I'm going to have to organise myself and get the nod to go in again, as it feels like a coin drought here in Dubbo at the moment. The last 10 hours of hunting have only turned up 4 coins in the local parks and ovals due to a lot of people migrating from Queensland to Victoria for the Summer.
Snowy. I here you on the cost of importing and associated taxes. I bought a pocket UniProbe from Dixie detectors about 6 months ago when the Ozzie dollar was at 75 cents US. This unit retailed at $269 US, but by the time I had brought it in, It cost Aus$420, and that was without the GST or import duty! I've been wondering where you can get those from.
I thought that when the coins were in that condition, the nickel plating had come off. I'm glad to hear that they're just dirty.Just have to save my finds and buy one.Isn't it amazing, the reaction of people to a bit of a shine.After all, it is only "filthy lucre"
Mick Evans.

 

[SNOWY]

Mick, maybe those "money launderers" we read about in the news are just honest folks with soiled cash...

HH

Snowy