So The Beach Hunts Start Again

[schoolofhardNox]

3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Something doesn't *sound* right.  ?  6.9/6.25 = 1.1.  If coin silver has a specific gravity (s.g.) of 10.3 then multiplying by 1.1 results in an s.g. of 11.3 which is the s.g. of *pure* lead.

If the fake is larger in some dimension (e.g. thickness) than the standard coin, then the s.g. might be lower as my conversion calculation assumes all dimensions are identical.  Another possibility, assuming it's a lead alloy:  what is the density of that alloy?  In theory it's possible it could have the same as or even higher s.g. than lead.  The obvious lead alloys are solders and they have a lower s.g. than pure lead.  Bullets have antimony in the alloy, I think, but I don't know the resulting s.g.  There are untold possibilities.

Maybe it's just an experimental piece -- someone playing around rather than trying to make money off of this.  I'm also trying to think of a gambling game where it would be an advantage to have a heavier quarter than standard, but off hand I'm not aware of one.

A nice hunt, regardless of this head scratcher.

Yep it's weird. It's the same size as a regular quarter. It's tarnished to look just like most silvers we find on a beach. I agree it's for "can I do it" purposes and not monetary reasons. Very well made. Whatever the composition, lead will likely be one of the components. Someone tried to get the weight similar enough to not make it noticeably different from a regular silver. It may just have a tiny amount of silver, some lead and who knows what other combination of metals. I'm just wondering if it was struck or cast? I had a friend who struck his own copies of colonial coins (replicas) in his back yard. He traced and engraved the dies, touched them up a bit and used a screw press to make his coins. So there are people out there that just want to test their talent out a bit. I'll take that coin over all the silvers for the day!

[TampaBayBrad]

Enjoying your write ups and pics. Thanks for posting these....

[rvpopeye]

A counterfeit clad quarter , a very rare find  !  

Possibly a forum first ?

I give it two thumbs up !??

Your detective work gets three ???

[CPT_GhostLight]

Another fine haul, SohN, congrats on all the copper and silver and wanna-be silver!

I'd take that quarter to a coin dealer or jeweler with an XRF machine to read the metal contents of the coin. And to a coin dealer, it could actually be worth a fair amount of money.

[schoolofhardNox]

Beach hunt # 31 was an all-day hunt with the Manticore. I need more time on the Manticore, so I took it back to the fields that surround one of the beaches I do. After about 6 ½ hours of doing the fields, I was close enough to the beach to see that there was a section that looked like it had some big waves scramble it around a bit. So, for the last 2 hours I did that section. The fields I did will definitely give you some experience hearing targets close together. I used 5 tones for this as I am not too interested in hearing every variation in the tones like all tones would give you. I’m basically hunting for silver, but any high tone will do. I did manage 3 silvers there, each one being fairly deep and having a slightly different difficulty factor in hearing it. One had a soft but solid response, while the other two were harder to hear, but repeated enough to pass the “I’m not iron” (hopefully) ? test. I’m definitely better at ID’ing deep iron on grass vs the beach. So, 3 silvers dimes from the grass and also the usual bunch of clad and copper cents, that the other guys ignored. After being tired of hearing all the pull tab low tones, I ventured out on the beach. I quickly noticed that the purple/black sand was all over the place. That’s usually a good sign since I usually get some rather shallow coin signals there. But as usual for me and the Manticore, it struggled with that sand. So, I figured the Goldfield mode was my best chance. I lowered the sensitivity but found that I could use up to 19 as a sensitivity setting. I ran recovery speed at I think 6 or 7. It chirped a bit but handled the sand quite well. A couple of junk targets and then a nice small silver knot ring. More clad as well. I’m just happy that I could hunt that sand and I’ll try to tweak the machine a little more the next time I’m in that situation. Nothing spectacular showed up but I’m grateful for the 4 silvers I found.

[Rick N. MI]

You do have a lot of stuff where you hunt. Nice silver. The Manticore did a good job.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Dang, SohN, looking at the trash page, I thought you were using the GPX! ? Nice haul and congrats on the silvers. It looks like you're getting Mandy dialed in nicely. Well done!

 

[schoolofhardNox]

13 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Dang, SohN, looking at the trash page, I thought you were using the GPX! ? Nice haul and congrats on the silvers. It looks like you're getting Mandy dialed in nicely. Well done!

 

? Yep, it looks like GPX material. Almost all of the iron and all the aluminum foil was found on the beach. Only a couple of pieces of iron were from the field hunt. Almost all of the aluminum cans were from the fields though. The short beach hunt had targets very close together. You didn't have to swing far to get the next target and most were within 4".

[TampaBayBrad]

8 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

? Almost all of the aluminum cans were from the fields though. The short beach hunt had targets very close together. You didn't have to swing far to get the next target and most were within 4".

Man, that's a lot of digging. I'm not sure I'm in shape enough to do 8.5 hours anymore.

Sounds like the beach area was more productive, but I know you wanted to learn the machine in the fields.

I'm glad we don't have that hot sand to deal with here in Florida. Great hunting....