Compass

Thanks DWD, I'll have to do some bench testing in "Park 2". As long as I can hit gold chains at a few inches that may work for me.

Went for an all-day water hunt recently and tried some different settings. I dug every positive TID for most of the hunt and wound up with over one-hundred bottle caps (threw some in the dumpster at the lake). I really focused on the TID's less than 20 and even skipped a few in the mid-twenties just to try a different approach and learn more about the detector. I dug every "1-4" trying to find another gold chain or bracelet but it was not to be on this hunt. There was a little more trash that is not pictured here so the overall trash to treasure ratio was about 3 to 1. Wound up with 3 gold rings (13 grams total) and 1 silver ring- the rest of the jewelry is cosmetic. I Instead of hunting in "Gold 2" mode like I usually do in fresh water I hunted in "Beach 1". The Beach mode is a lot smoother but not quite as deep as the Gold mode. This was a bit of an experimental hunt but wound up being pretty productive. I'm happy with the gold but I think that I prefer hunting the wet sand at the beach- it's a lot easier on the body! GL&HH!

Congrats on another good hunt! The rings are nice but I like the pendants just as much.

Are you diving open circuit or rebreather? I don't see many bubbles in the video. I tried underwater detecting a few times with open circuit and the bubble noise was pretty bad.

Those are some beauties there. The 2 look undamaged so maybe they just got knocked out of person's mouth? The one on the bottom right looks melted- from a cremation I wonder?

My gold detecting streak is now history but as I was looking over some old silver finds this morning I came across this dental work. As I looked at it I thought it strange that this kind of dental work wasn't gold but then I thought, "wait a minute, I assumed it was silver but could it be white gold?" When I have found gold dental crowns in the past they have been made of yellow gold and I never considered that white gold might be used. Well, the 14K acid held but the 18K acid did not and I think that a lot of dental gold is 16K so it looks like I have 2.7 grams of the good stuff. It looks bad in the picture but I believe that it may have been scorched in a cremation furnace. Some people don't believe that gold crowns can survive cremation but I have found several that have been partially melted and can think of no other possibility. I know that Skullgolddiver just made a couple of recent posts about finding gold among his old finds and it has happened to me numerous times as well. I'll bet that anyone who has detected for a while probably has a surprise or two among their past finds.

That's awesome Mitchel! If it has "GIA" followed by some numbers I believe that there is a GIA website where you can enter the number and get the assessment information (4 c's).

Surprise gold is always welcome- it's like having a good hunt without leaving home- congrats!. In a bit of a coincidence I think I found some surprise gold myself today which I will post after cleaning.

If you have good loupe you should check the edge of the diamond for a laser imprint. Even with a high powered loupe it may still be challenging to see because angles and lighting are factors. A few years ago I found a large diamond ring. I wasn't sure about the quality but I was able to find an old "EGL" laser serial number which was my first real indication that I had a special find. "EGL" stands for European Gemological Laboratories which is now defunct but in this country you might be looking for a "GIA" (Gemological Institute of America) laser engraving. I took my diamond to the GIA labs in Carlsbad, California and had it assessed and had an additional laser engraving done with a GIA mark. I can't emphasize enough how small and how difficult it is to find these laser engravings. My loupe is 40X magnification and the letters and numbers looked like little dark specks when I first spotted them and I really had to focus and concentrate to actually make them out. Good luck!!!

That's a pretty one- congrats!!

Thanks diver and all, Yes! I would have been happy just to find the pendant, really happy just to find the ring and super excited to find only the chain. To find all 3 at the same time was unexpected, to say the least, and made that hunt one of my favorites of all time.

Thank you Sir! Maybe so but it's still nice to hear about gold finds with the AQ by someone not named Joe or Alexandre.

Awesome hunt Seeker!!! May I ask what detector you ended up using?

That's an appropriate chain for an anchor o.g.- congrats!

Wow, that is a beauty Mitchel- congrats!

Thanks a lot GB, I actually have an old hunting buddy who is no longer able to detect. He tells me to keep sending him pictures of my finds because it reminds him of the good times he had metal detecting. Years ago he showed me a hidden safe in his closet floor and you wouldn't believe the amount of jewelry he had taken off the beaches over the decades.

I've been reluctant to post some of my finds this year because it seems that many hunters are saying that they are not finding much due to stay at home mandates, beach closures, sanded in conditions and other reasons. One of my hunting buddies suggested that I wait a bit before posting my finds so that is what I am starting to do. Even though I didn't hunt for 2 months due to the pandemic the other 6 months this year have yielded some of my favorite finds in all the years that I have been detecting. One find in particular stands out. It came near the end of a pretty successful hunt that had already produced a beautiful, heavy, Italian, silver bracelet, costume jewelry and coins. It was a faint but wide signal, the kind of tone that usually winds up being a deep rusty blob of iron. As I repeatedly made attempts to retrieve the target from the wet sand it seemed that it was sinking deeper and deeper but I finally snagged it and up came a sight that I didn't expect. It wasn't a piece of junk. I saw a lengthy, blackish/gold chain but then saw a ring on the chain and a pendant as well! When the ring and pendant were first exposed to the air and sunlight, they were bright orange in color- glowing almost like they were heated up by a torch. I had seen this effect before but never to such an extreme. This must have been buried in the sand a long time. There were a lot of people around so I slipped the find into my pouch feeling pretty confident that it was a good one. When I got home I saw that the ring and "Star" medallion were both stamped "18K". With the chain being so discolored I was thinking it might be 10K but I located a "750" stamp near the claw and verified 18K with an acid test. I carefully scrubbed the chain with jewelry cream and a toothbrush and the beauty of the the chain was revealed. I forgot to mention that the chain was clasped all in one piece when I found it so it must have come off over someone's head unless they had it in their pocket. It may be 2 bucket-listers in one as I had never found a gold ring on a gold chain before and it is the first 18K gold chain that I have ever found with the detector although it was the ring and star that my detector was seeing. In a subsequent test my TDI BH would not detect the chain by itself. The silver bracelet was actually the first target I dug on this hunt. It looked so good and clean when I found it that I was thinking that it could be a fake but it must have been a fresh drop. Thanks for reading. GL&HH!

Wow, what an awesome find- congrats! Those big class rings seem to be harder and harder to find.

Okay, a little off-topic here but I can't resist one of my favorite metal detecting idioms: "The early bird catches the worm... but the second mouse gets the cheese!"

"vice president of the local detecting club"

That would, no doubt, bother me. However, I'm skeptical sometimes and I feel that there are some hunters out there that play games and try to discourage other hunters by pulling stunts like this. Not saying that this was the case here but I have had other detectorists come into "my" space dig a target and make a "show" of stopping and looking at something intently, maybe bouncing it up in down in their hands trying to determine a weight. They almost always move on like your "friend" did. If he had really found a white gold sapphire ring he probably would have stayed in the area?

Nice looking little cut there! Lead weights, green coins, quarters.....I'll bet you weren't far from the gold or silver! Tides get better through the weekend- stay on it Joe!

I know this post is old but I just came across it. I have found a couple of good sized 14k men's rings with the Nox this year (13 gram range) and both rang up in the 18-20 area. I would think that a 14k class ring would have a similar TID number.

Wow Mitchel, that IS a cool story! I mean, you already know and hunt that spot regularly so now there's always that possibility of finding it when you visit. We have a decent negative tide this weekend and if you wade out a bit you might be able to get to the spot where he lost it. We haven't had the biggest surf lately and that chain sounds massive so I wonder if it will move much? Good luck finding it. Knowing it is there will make your future hunts more exciting I'm sure.

I always love the contrast between perfect gold jewelry and other metals that don't hold up in same environment- no testing necessary- congrats Joe!!