mn90403

I've tested the stones with my diamond tester and I can only get it to go up one 'notch' so they are probably not real.  We have other stones that make the meter go all the way up to the top so I know the meter works.  

I went out to the same spot today and 2 others because of the waves and only found 4 cheap rings and a few quarters.  That left me no time to go to my coin shop to learn more about the ring.

I have a local gold buyer and seller who is the same way with an XRF.  I've bought some coins from them over the years and they are quite happy to give me a bullion offer on anything I show them.  They like to see my finds and I tell other beach hunters the best place to go locally to sell on the spot.

Local jewelers are a different problem.  I had a place where I could walk in and the ladies would 'look and test' without a purchase interest.  I've found that if a jeweler wants to get your item for a deal you'll often times get a low ball, this isn't a worth much 'appraisal.'  It is mostly a waste of time anymore.  Reality doesn't come out of many jewelers mouths, even on the sales side!

Buy low, sell HIGH.

This afternoon I got in a quick hunt and saw some really nice local waves.  It was a great day for them and I remembered my surfing days from Florida and Hawaii.  I pretty much gave it up when I moved to California's cold waters.

While watching out of the corner of my eye I was looking for a patch.  My normal spots were not giving up anything so I moved along until I found a few quarters in between all the pennies.  When the new 'hits' ran out I returned to work everything a the spot.  It was the best chance I had.  There was no time to go to another beach.  As luck would have it I got just enough to keep me going without saying 'enough is enough' and out of a scratchy sound came this ring.

It is 6.6g.  That is for certain.  It feels like gold but I really can't tell because the mark (which includes an 'N') has been written over with an inscription.  It says "B + C Always 1-20-93" which makes me wonder the materials most in use in 1993.  The stone reminds me of glass more than precious but who knows.  The break at the resizing area made it sound real scratchy.  It didn't have the full tone of a normal ring.  It reads 8-9 on my 800/15.  There is a green corrosion at the break area/resize area.

Could this have been a ring someone inherited and then they resized if for a wedding?  That would make the manufacture date and materials somewhat different.

It was a good little hunt none the less and I think I go back tomorrow.

This was a little 'target' I found before the ring.  It really slowed me down a bit as pinpointing it and scooping it up became a problem.  Just as I was about to move on I spotted it and felt it with my fingers.  It sounds good in the lower teens but to my surprise it has a stone in it or ??  It weighs .25g.

I guess you won't be using your right hand often to wave over a coil!  haha

Really good find.

7 hours ago, DSMITH said:

Yep we are all in good company that's for sure

When you reach a point where you can't do anything else ... go and detect.  

Results are not required.  

Just mine.  Only a couple of man made gold pieces but a few other things.  I found the cross in a local park just a couple of hours before the meeting.

Most of this is from the beach and you've seen it in the jewelry section and you saw one of the nuggets in the birthday thread.  Here is the 'loot' displayed for our club meeting.  This represents November and December finds as we don't display finds in December.

I came back from a detect about and got in my car to go to the next spot.  A buddy of mine flagged me down on the turn around and he said, "You backed over your detector!"  I had ... my 7000.  I was lucky that it only broke the bottom sleeve that holds the coil, and I had another coil with me.  Detector was fine and the coil was also ok.  I had forgotten to put the detector in the car ... dumb and lucky in the same event.

Norvic is right of course.  You can find gold in wet, damp and dry ground!  Go back and see if you can find it in different conditions.

Given a choice in most of my areas (Rye Patch excluded) if the ground is damp and it was not previously a dry lakebed with many salts, I would prefer damp ground over dry ground.

Why?  As Simon said you hear things you don't when the ground is dry.

An explanation might be as simple as conductivity.  The damp ground seems to carry the pulses better and if I can't cite an increase in depth, I attest to an increase in clarity of the nuggets in wet/damp vs dry.

I'd like to recycle and sell my metal scrap but the storage process is just too daunting when you have a small place.

3 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Was this wet sand or surf?

This is a familiar pattern around here of a new patch created during high tide and then when the tide goes out some of it might still be 'wet' depending how early after high tide you go and how big the patch is.  I think of the patch as having length (perpendicular to the beach) and width (shoulders) which have fewer objects but can sometimes be good and then you run out of the patch.

This patch pattern can lead to another pattern which I call 'energy lines' where I find objects in a narrow, parallel to the beach where objects have be deposited and sorted.  Both of these patterns are dependent upon 'evidence' not being removed by another detectorist who got there before you did.  There was more evidence years ago.  Just like your relic patches and of course gold nugget patches.

Beach patches move and can have the help of storms and swells.  Sometimes storms help nugget patches in washes.  Do storms help relic patches?  Maybe to get some overburden off?

7 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Thanks NC. Hope the streak continues, but I'll probably have to get creative, or get more land to search. 😀

Well done and it sounds like you have the creative part in hand.  You can ignore that pesky iron so all the spots you can remember with iron are back in play again.  Can you imagine if you had been doing this 20 plus years?  You can't fret that, but you have a tool that will let you find what others could not.

Thanks for showing us the history and letting Chase tag along.

When you are at the beach you don't know what you are going to find.  My target is normally gold jewelry of course but was I surprised to find a silver half.  It is only the second Franklin I've found.

It was found on a long, long walk near the end when I found a patch back where I started.  We have had a few really low tides and some good waves and I was headed to a spot but I knew someone else was working it for a couple of days and sure enough they were already there.  I was late again.  I give another detectorist wide berth to do their thing.  When I saw their light and them working the spot where I've found some nice jewelry in the past it was time to turn around and walk the 2 miles back where I started.

It was a good workout without too many coins until I got to the patch.  Many of the coins were surface and not many were deep as it turns out.

I had thought this was toy car beach until I found the coin patch.

This was the coin front before cleaning.

This was the coin back before some cleaning.

This was the front after using some baking soda.

And this is the back.

Along the long walk I came across a mystery object.  It is not magnetic, so I suspect it is copper as it looks.  It weighs a little over 40 grams and has worn holes in it.  It is about 2 quarters high and 2 quarters will fit across the bottom.  At first I thought it was part of a flashlight but there is a solid bottom and not a lens.  I know what comes to my mind but what do you think it could be?  I haven't done an image search.  There is only so much time.  I could/should be out at a beach now but ...

A few nights ago, I went out to the beach after getting things done with the family.  When I got there the place was just covered with holes.  I was late to the party but whomever had dug all the holes had gotten tired and left.  I had to go in a direction that they didn't go and try and find a patch of my own or get a stray.

I got a stray.  It is the pearl ring that is 2.3 g/18k.  It was down from a cut but there wasn't much else so I went back to the dug up patch.  As it turned out they didn't get it all.  In between the dig holes I found a 1g/14k kids pendant.  I can only imagine the nice finds that were gotten out of that patch.  I had been there earlier in the week and there was not much but we had a short interval swell come in and I missed being the first one there.

It changed where I've hunted since then but that is another post.

My beaches haven't been good to me.  Yours have been excellent.

WTG

I'd go back to a hole like that also!

Well done.

How did you keep from telling 'someone' about the spot for a year?

Largest Mojave Rattlesnake Ever Recorded (msn.com)

50 minutes ago, geof_junk said:

It is a double digit nugget, but the wrong side of the decimal point. ☺️

If I find it with a metal detector then I'm going to call it a nugget and not a picker!  😜

Yesterday I went out to find a birthday nugget.  I hunted all day and barely got a .11g nugget.  The most significant thing was that I got it with the 15" CC Xcoil at 4-5 inches.  It disappeared in the hole a couple of times before it came out.  I didn't have hearing aids in as my new ones are on order.

What a pickture!

I like the fish hook idea but don't use anything that will break off and make your problems worse.

On 12/30/2023 at 2:10 PM, glacialgold said:

After around 1.5 years detecting, I finally dug gold today!

Congratulations.  It gets easier and more frequent now that you know what it sounds like.

I went out tonight and worked an old faithful spot and found a couple of rings!  That lets me say "I'm ringing in the New Year."

Are you ringing things in?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

On 12/28/2023 at 7:46 AM, Mike Furness said:

Andyy ... Did you ever lose one over in the Cleator AZ area on one of the Road Runner claims? I found a Bunk's Burro (I think it is called) pick, the smaller of his two sizes, over there a few years ago and gave it to one of my 'students' during a detector lesson.

I lost one on Bunk's and Frank's claim in Gold Basin.  He was all out of little ones and I had to buy a big one.