Interesting (heavy Gold Plated?) Ornate Locket Of Foreign Design?

[Calmark]

Yesterday at a park where I've found half a dozen small silver rings and a tiny child's 14k gold ring in the past, I hit upon my 2nd piece of gold from this location.  I was using my Deus 2 in a modified P4 Fast program to quickly find non ferrous items and dig them out.  The idea was to dig a lot of zinc pennies and aluminum ranged signals in the hopes of finding gold.  And I at least partially reach that goal when I found the face of an ornate locket.  It rang up as a #76 on the VDI and strangely enough, a pulltab was just under it loose in the same hole.  The pull tab read #75 and the locket air-tested at #76.  Talk about peas in a pod!  

I don't know the meaning of the symbols on the front of the locket, but it looks middle eastern to me?  There are some tiny chips of asymmetrically faceted stones inset on the front.  I don't imagine they are diamonds or precious, but who knows?  This item isn't attracted to a magnet, but on the backside I do see some green where there is a small scratch on the rim and on the underside of the rim.  Some scratching around the hole on the backside by the hole is dark-colored.  Not a good sign for being solid gold.   It weights 4.31 grams and diameter is a bit smaller than a half dollar.  There are no makers markings, but perhaps those would have been on the matching rear piece of the locket?  

Nice to find something interesting, even if not likely to be terribly valuable.  I still think this spot holds more gold, so I'll keep searching there.  

[Skate]

That's a nice piece and it does look middle eastern with the crescent. Interesting on the 75 ID for the pull tab. Almost all of mine come in at 65 which has caused me to basically stop digging them. There's got to be a sweet spot for gold on the D2, I just need to find enough to justify what it is. In my turf it locks on to nickels but I've yet to see any gold at 60-62. It'll be interesting to hear others thoughts on gold and the D2.

 

[PimentoUK]

Do a density test on it. That will give a decent indication of whether it's plated brass, 9/10 carat, 14 or higher.
The method ( copied from elsewhere ):

A ) Place a small container of water ( 20 - 50 cm3 ) on your scales, and 'Tare' the readout to zero.
B ) If you're wanting the weight of the item, place it alongside the water container, and take the reading as indicated.
C ) Using monofilament fishing line / polyester sewing thread / very fine wire, lower the item into the water, so that it is just submerged, and not touching the bottom or sides of the container. Make sure there's no air bubbles attached. Take the indicated weight reading.

Reading C is the weight of the displaced water, which, because water has a density of 1.00 g/cm3 , it's also the volume of the water in cm3 .
To calculate the density, divide the weight in reading B, by the weight in reading C.

So for example, an unmarked silver finger ring: weight = 9.50 grams. The volume = 0.92 cm3.
The density calculated as 9.50 / 0.92 = 10.33 g / cm3 which is typical for Sterling Silver ( tech data usually gives a figure of 10.36 )

Reference densities:

Copper 9.0
9ct 10.9 to 12.7
14ct 12.9 to 14.6
18ct Yellow 15.2 to 15.9
18ct White 14.7 to 16.9
22ct 17.7 to 17.8
Sterling Silver 10.2 to 10.3

[F350Platinum]

Nice find!

There are 3 countries whose flag has a moon and single star, Turkey, Malaysia, and Pakistan.

The crescent and star is a symbol of Islam.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_and_crescent

Malaysia has the multipoint star. 

[CPT_GhostLight]

Congrats on the locket piece! It's very unusual and may be older. Did you try the acid test?

[Calmark]

On 11/18/2022 at 5:10 AM, F350Platinum said:

Nice find!

There are 3 countries whose flag has a moon and single star, Turkey, Malaysia, and Pakistan.

The crescent and star is a symbol of Islam.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_and_crescent

Malaysia has the multipoint star. 

Thanks for some confirmation about my suspicions the symbol on this locket represents a foreign country or Islam.  

This find is definitely another example of how you just don't ever know what will come out of the ground when detecting.  That's what keeps it fun and interesting for us detectorists.    

[Calmark]

On 11/18/2022 at 1:00 AM, PimentoUK said:

Do a density test on it. That will give a decent indication of whether it's plated brass, 9/10 carat, 14 or higher.
The method ( copied from elsewhere 😞

A ) Place a small container of water ( 20 - 50 cm3 ) on your scales, and 'Tare' the readout to zero.
B ) If you're wanting the weight of the item, place it alongside the water container, and take the reading as indicated.
C ) Using monofilament fishing line / polyester sewing thread / very fine wire, lower the item into the water, so that it is just submerged, and not touching the bottom or sides of the container. Make sure there's no air bubbles attached. Take the indicated weight reading.

Reading C is the weight of the displaced water, which, because water has a density of 1.00 g/cm3 , it's also the volume of the water in cm3 .
To calculate the density, divide the weight in reading B, by the weight in reading C.

So for example, an unmarked silver finger ring: weight = 9.50 grams. The volume = 0.92 cm3.
The density calculated as 9.50 / 0.92 = 10.33 g / cm3 which is typical for Sterling Silver ( tech data usually gives a figure of 10.36 )

Reference densities:

Copper 9.0
9ct 10.9 to 12.7
14ct 12.9 to 14.6
18ct Yellow 15.2 to 15.9
18ct White 14.7 to 16.9
22ct 17.7 to 17.8
Sterling Silver 10.2 to 10.3

Thanks for the suggestion on the density test.  I don't have a kit to test gold karat, but your test would help determine if this is indeed gold.  I can tell by the look of it, that it is at the very least gold plated.  It looks to be a heavy plate and I see signs of a base metal in a few places.  

This item is a keeper even if it doesn't turn out to be solid gold through and through.  I've found plenty of lightly gold plated items with the plate very deteriorated that I've simply tossed in the garbage.  This locket isn't some cheaply made, mass-produced junk item, so I'll hang onto it.  Very good suggestion with the density test though!