Thursday 26 April 2012

Excalibur Trips#4/5/6

Hi All,
Trip#4 was the day before yesterday to Kohimarama and yelled absolutely nothing :-(
Trip#5 was a scouting trip to one of the remote shore parks where we had a BBQ:
- 1967 2 cent piece
- Maybe a  Silver "Nike" Ring :

Trip#6 , Takapuna today, 3 hour hunt :

- 15 Gram 925 Silver Bracelet
- 9$ in coins
-Stainless steel Men Ring
-Stainless steel Pendant with "Our Father " prayer in Spanish :


Padre Nuestro que estás en el Cielo,
Santificado sea tu nombre,
venga a nosotros tu Reino.

Hágase tu voluntad así en la Tierra como en el Cielo.
Danos hoy el pan de cada día.
Perdona nuestras ofensas como nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.
No nos dejes caer en la tentación
y líbranos del mal, amén.

It is called "El Padre Nuestro" in Spanish

------------------------------------------------------
- Silver earring
- Also 2 pet tags, The big one has name "Sparky"- i actually found it second time. Initially i got it on my trip#2 but lost on the beach, so today i found it again :-)


But main find for me is the location of 2 "Honey Holes" , however they were about waist deep. I tried them quickly and could hear a lot of targets, but could not really stay there as it was windy and waves were smashing up to my shoulders. I will buy Wet Suit tomorrow and go after all those heavy items :-)

Stay Tuned for the next update!





Monday 23 April 2012

Mission bay: Excalibur Trip#3, GOLD #6 for the year

It was a warm,sunny afternoon at Mission bay.
i arrived 2 hours before low tide and tried to do "washing board" without any success, after 1 hour got only 1$.

The good thing - i met another metal detectorist- Pam, She is a member of Te Tahi Detector Club. We had a little chat and shared couple of stories:-) - she has been detecting over 5 years now.Really lovely Lady.

So with a low tide started the "washing machine" - area were waves brake between settlement area and the shore. within minutes i found 2$ and ...an awesome condition 1936 half Rupee India :


Then i found a crap necklace(really wanted it to be silver, but no) and in about 30 minutes got....
2.4 gram 9CT 3 diamond ring :


And here i would like to stop for a second and tell you something. I decided to collect all Pull tabs i get between gold rings. and here is  only a fraction of pull tabs collected,probably 10 days 151 pulltabs (all those kilos of other rubbish is usually discarded right at the beach bins ). So if to take into consideration that last gold was over 1 month ago, triple the amount i had to dig to get to the gold ring:

Now i reset the count till next gold ring. This post is for those who sometimes say:"Oh it is not fair someone lost a ring,you need to give it to police/newspaper/radio..." - all that crap. I spent hours trying to find those rings, My equipment has quite a high cost that i need to earn back. And also i clean the areas. So please, if you see that one of the rings belongs to you or someone you know- Be generous with a reward :-) And remember - if you claimed insurance, you are no longer the owner and it is illegal to double dip :-P ....


...After i finished  "washing machine" i started the settlement are and found a Silver Fish, crap Ring, A belly piercing-they usually gold or at least silver, rarely stainless. But this one is crap one (that girl is stupid- Ferrous item should not be inserted) Also a small plated Bird.

And final find for the day- pretty good condition Sun Glasses! ya baby :-)

Thanks for stopping by and see you later :-)



Sunday 22 April 2012

Takapuna, Excalibur trip#2

Hi all,
today was an absolutely lovely warm day, so i went to the beach and tried to hunt in the water.
I was trying to locate main "Honey hole" or at least the settlement area, but without success.
However still managed to pull 3 keepers:
2$, Junk hear clip and 2$


Tomorrow will be going to my triple beach :-)

Saturday 21 April 2012

First Finds with Excalibur

I couldn't wait any longer....
So Andrew and i went at a high tide to Devonport beach so i can test the Excalibur while he went over dry sand.
It took me about 20-30 minutes to get used to the machine. then the fun begun. spent about another hour there going up/down the "washing board" - that is what we call wet sand slope down to low tide mark.

Got Silver earring and some coins.
Then close to low tide - about 11 pm we went to Takapuna to try bottom of the "washing board" and ankle deep water :

Got a Silver ring :




So far not bad for a first time with Excalibur.

Stay tuned for further updates

Wednesday 18 April 2012

It is Here !!!! :-)
















I was waiting for it for almost 2 weeks to arrive...
And finally it is here, the best underwater detector voted by users around the world:
Minelab Excalibur 1000

Just doing initial charge of the battery and also need to make coil stabilizer (a small plastic piece that will hold coil at the chosen angle )

I have 2 leads for lost rings at the beaches that were lost below low tide mark....
...So as soon as my sand scoop arrives- i will be on the quest for recovery of wedding rings :-)

Tomorrow Andrew and i will conduct test between His Garrett Infium and my Excalibur on target depth in a wet sand.

Stay tuned for all upcoming updates :-)

Quick Update- Got my Sand Scoop today as well! :

I want to try Bamboo handle first, if fail in strength will do Wood/Metal

Sunday 15 April 2012

Tuesday 10 April 2012

"Nickel silver" Alloy


You probably had a thought in your head- that it is simply Silver + Nickel . Wrong!
 
Me and Andrew we digging an old stream during low tide during Easter weekend.
Andrew Got lucky with 6pence and a gold Ring, where all of my 2 shillings and a florin were just couple of years away from Silver Mint.

 
The story is about this spoon anyway :
 
It has a hallmark :
Nickel silver Birmingham England

So I thought I got at least Silver plated spoon, but after look up I found that :

Nickel silver, also known as German silver,[1] Argentann,[1] new silver,[1] nickel brass,[2] albata,[3], or alpacca,[4] is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc.[5] Nickel silver is named for its silvery appearance, but it contains no elemental silver unless plated

So check your Silverware at home, you might have some of that Nickel silver L

Have a good day .

Saturday 7 April 2012

Good Friday Hunts: Old School, Takapuna

Good Morning everyone

Yesterday started with a greet and meet of  Aaron Neave who is also using Gold Bug.
Our First stop was at 6 am at Parnell beach was freshly designed and rebuild the summer just gone. Also we had a quick scan around old trees in the Rose garden with ZERO success, it seems it was not just overhunted, but the last piece of foil removed from soil.

So to avoid disappointment i took Aaron to Parnell School (I do have permission for that one ) as there are heaps of old coins. We got about 5 pennys each with my oldest being 1917 and Aarons 1913 i think.
Then he screamed in excitement : he pulled an old penny with 6 pence attached to it! :-) well done Aaron.

As for me i encountered  a parent with 2 little brothers who were really interested in what i was doing.
Father told them that i am looking for treasure :-) So to support a good image of Detectorist i gifted couple of pennys to those boys. They were just over the moon!

Then a teen girl came over who  said that she is studying at that school and one day she found a XX $ bill that she spent :-)  she was around for a bit then her older brother called her back...

After school we had an attempt at the Oraki beach that resulted in the same as it did for Andrew and I before- heaps of Rubbish and no good targets...

That was the morning....
...The evening.....

Andrew was really keen for a night hunting at the Takapuna Beach during low tine 0.32M. so we went about 9 PM with a tide at 1 AM (2 crazy detectorists) . we wanted to scan drys sand, as beach was crowded today, but result was appalling.

So we waited till tide going out and hit wet sand at the waves with Andrew Fetching 1933 3pence and a ring with a stone but not confirmed material.

As for:
My first target was 51 on gold bug that either foil or 18 karat gold rings. but, unfortunately I was only stainless steel ring with a missing stone,
then I got A silver mens ring . that was about half way tide down,
And a find of the night was an old, really old ..

... Silver ring with 2 stones and marking 92.5  not 925, but 92.5  :


That is is it for now, see you soon and Happy Hunting 

Small Update:
Forgot to mention that Andrew Had Devided Universe by ZERO - He found a signal and when he puled a metal object from sand, following happened:


And that is right at the Low tide Mark..
Crazy! we were were running away as fast as we could, being afraid of following :

Joking :-) but we still do not have an answer what had happen that night

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Rose Gold&Platinum Ring returned to owner :-)


I have a story to share,
I was metal detecting yesterday at Mission bay/Kohimarama, closing my beach season (5 hours and found only 4$ and scrap metal pendant).
About lunch time a young fellow approached me and told me that he has lost a rose gold&platinum
wedding ring about 2 month ago at St. Helliers. He also thought that it might has been stolen as he left it on the towel . I asked him if he claimed insurance on it and he didn’t and also it has great sentimental value for him- the Rose gold part is from same chunk that was used to make his Wife’s wedding ring. He also advised that he set a 500$ reward for the ring
I gave him my phone number and email address and asked to email me the Picture of the ring.

So last night I got an email from guy with attached poster: 
 
Now, do you remember THIS post?
Here is a close up of the ring :

 
It was buried for 9 days. (see time stamp on my post Friday 17 Feb 2012)
it was found on the High tide mark in sea weed, He indeed lost it on dry sand .If it was just 2 meters closer to water- it would be sucked into the sea by high tide and dragged with tide in unknown direction or buried underneath meter(s) of sand

So today I have met the guy and reunited with the ring after 2 month separation.
Here is a pic of us:

 
And now I am half way through saving money for Minelab Excalibur 2  that I will use to recover more rings and stuff in water :-)