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Australian Pre-decimal Coin Patch Along Geoffrey Bay On Magnetic Island


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Australian pre-decimal coin patch along Geoffrey Bay on Magnetic Island

So far I’ve been very lucky at finding ‘old’ pre-decimal Australian coins along the island’s bays (although I’m yet to find a gold sovereign).. most of them have been very corroded King George or Queen Elizabeth pennies (with a big kangaroo on the other side), half-pence, 6-pence or 3-pence and I’ve found one silver ‘ram’s head’ shilling.. This morning I found an awesome patch at Geoffrey Bay, a bay I rarely detect along because it always seemed an unlikely place to find anything worthwhile.. More fool me..

It’s a longish bay with a row of houses along it, and I drive past it on my way to detect at other bays where tourists and locals hang out.. But looking for somewhere different, this morning I decided to have a go near an old stone/concrete boat ramp.. Here I found a little patch with 2 silver florins (a King George and a Queen Elizabeth), 2 silver ‘ram’s head’ shillings (both King George), 4 half-pence (all King George), 5 pennies (including a 1919 King George penny without the kangaroo), some 3 and 6 pence and best of all a Queen Victoria gold half-sovereign.. It’s still soaking in vinegar but I can just make out the date: 1887.. The patch was remarkably clean (no bottle tops, ring pulls or other crap, including decimal coins) and nearly every time I dug a hole I recovered a coin.. A more modern find was a copper dog tag belonging to a dog called Nelson (it’s also got Nelson’s phone number on it)..    

If you’re wondering what I’m going on about with all this King George or Queen Elizabeth stuff, in my head I’m dating them according to when the queen was coronated in 1953, so in the real world probably not that old.. Decimal coins were first introduced in 1966..  From 1852 to 1931 all Australian gold coins were struck from solid 22ct gold.. Gold half-sovereigns were minted from 1871 to 1918, whilst sovereigns were minted until 1931.. Silver coins minted between 1910 and 1945 contain 92.5% sterling silver. From 1945 until 1966 silver coins contain 50% silver (both florins are after 1945 but one of the ram heads is before). I’m so used to seeing the queen on decimal coins that it always blows me away to also see her on all these Australian sovereigns, florins, shillings and pennies..      

Both the silver florins, one of the ram’s heads, one of the half-pence and the 1919 penny are in good shape considering they’ve been on the beach for so long, especially the penny which is the shiniest of the lot.. these coins were buried about 40 to 50cm deep a few metres above the high-tide mark, all the other coins were very corroded (as is usually the case at the other bays). Sadly the Queen Victoria gold half-sovereign is a bit worse for wear.. it also didn’t help that I hit it with my steel shovel so the old girl’s got a great big gash to her head.. But in this little patch, Queen Victoria is the top dog in the family hierarchy.. so this coin makes the list of favourite finds.. if only because it’s always good to get that ‘first discovery’ sort of feeling when digging up this sort of coin, especially in a spot I drive past a hundred times a day..       

After a long soak in vinegar and a hard scrub I can make out it’s a ‘Jubilee Head’ half-sovereign as opposed to a ‘Young Head’ half-sovereign.. these coins sell for a small fortune in top condition, but I won’t be selling this one any day soon..

Just a quick technical question: I’m using an Equinox 600 on Beach mode 1, and the gold half-sovereign read a solid 26 on the target ID.. Why is it not reading 1,2 or 3 as you’d expect for gold? Is this because of purity? Where 24ct would get very low reading? Thanks to anyone who can help me out on this question, it’s been bugging me..  

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Gold Half-Sovereign - Queen Victoria.jpg

Gold Half-Sovereign - 1887.jpg

Silver Florin.jpg

Silver Shilling.jpg

Silver Shilling - King George.jpg

Penny - 1919 King George.jpg

Penny.jpg

Half-Penny.jpg

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The gold half-sovereign got less and less gold looking the longer it soaked in the vinegar.. got a bad feeling i stuffed up, i should have left it as i found it.. this is what it could've looked like..

 

download.jpeg

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I swore from the pictures, you were on one of my Oregon beaches!   Good One!!  GaryC/Oregon Coast

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22ct Gold will not be effected with vinegar, I cleaned one up in Spirits of Salt "Diggers Hydrochloric Acid (HCL)". If it is real 22ct then it might be the coating that has been effected by the vinegar and not the coin.

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7 minutes ago, geof_junk said:

it might be the coating that has been effected by the vinegar and not the coin

phew! that's a relief.. 

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14 hours ago, geof_junk said:

Erik that beach is mine,

Sorry Geof, didn't mean to stand on anyone's toes.. your photo is very close to the patch.. very funny to see.. when was this photo taken? Did you have a detector with you? 

 

15 hours ago, phrunt said:

fingers crossed its a real one

you were right again Phrunt, it's not a half-sovereign.. it's a silver shilling..  

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Pretty good spot for some great silvers Erik, though I reckon your "half sovereign" is more likely a Jubilee head 1887 shilling going off the design, size and oxidation (shilling = 36mm, half sov = approx 19mm).  Still a very nice coin to find, especially when unexpected for the location.

shilling.jpg

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14 hours ago, Erik Oostra said:

Just a quick technical question: I’m using an Equinox 600 on Beach mode 1, and the gold half-sovereign read a solid 26 on the target ID.. Why is it not reading 1,2 or 3 as you’d expect for gold? Is this because of purity? Where 24ct would get very low reading?

Gold digital TID's on the Eqx of 1,2,3 are for tiny alloyed items -- natural pickers and the very small piercing studs, etc.  Our historic USA gold coins (90% gold, 10% copper) typically show up in the teens, depending upon size/denomination.

Pure gold is actually an extremely good conductor (see plot I posted last year).  19 mm is a bit smaller diameter than our $5 gold piece and the gold concentration (fineness) sounds similar.  I'm wondering if the other 9% content of your 1/2 sovereign is silver.  You can see from the linked plot that gold-silver alloys have higher conductivity than gold-copper alloys.  Still, a digital TID of 26 is way up there.  I wouldn't have guessed that for this size of coin.

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