A Silver Day

I went for a 2 hour hunt today. Back at the location that gave me the platinum ring on the previous trip.
Conditions were about the same but there had been some very high tides with bigger than average swells.

I noticed that most of the lead weights I was digging up had been there for a long time. To me this is a good sign. I believe they were brought in from deeper water and deposited by the swells.

From past hunts I have learned that these conditions can produce old jewelry too, if I look hard enough.

I dug a small earring first, followed by the ring. The amount of tarnish on them told me they had been there awhile.

Later on, at home, I used electrolysis to remove most of it and they cleaned up well. Pity they are only silver, but I am happy to have them anyway.

Here are the before and after pictures:

Low tide hunts

I have been enjoying the low tide hunts lately. The weather has been really nice but still the beaches are deserted.

The finds have not been great (with a couple of exceptions) but interesting.

I got this half ring, which tests as 18k. It took a lot of cleaning but still weighed 7.9g

On another hunt I managed my first Platinum ring, coming in at 11.6g.
This one was found at the mid point during peak low tide.

Of course there was a lot of trash to dig up too..

Here is the gold ring after cleaning:

My dog Ona died on Tuesday. She was 17 and the mother of my one remaining dog, and love of my life, Toots.

She is, and will always be, greatly missed.

A couple of short hunts

While my wife took the van shopping I went on to the dry sand with my Garrett Ace 250.
I circled a few fire pits then scanned as I walked towards the ocean to check for erosion.
This hunt only lasted 45 minutes at the most.
I did manage to get a tiny, 1.2g, silver ring. This is the smallest ring to date, yet it still had .925 on the inside. When I first saw it I thought it was a metal separator part from a ballpoint pen!

Later on I went back to the section I have been hitting lately. I was too early for the low tide. I gets dark before peak low right now.

Again iron was prevalent as well as lead weights. I ended up with $2.86 in usable coin.

I know the good stuff is there somewhere, but I have to keep working it. 

December hunt #6

I went to a different stretch of beach at 2pm today.
Working the high, wet sand area between two lifeguard towers I found numerous coins and a lot of iron!
Later, as the tide receded, I worked the stretch closer to the sea.
Here I started finding lead weights, 
a junk ring, some more coins and a tiny
 gold pendant.

I've been finding gold pendants lately, I don't know why.

I'll check to see if this one is real or not tomorrow.

I managed to get $6.38 in usable coins to go in the coffee can.

Fifth, partial, December hunt.

In the interest of truthful reporting I am posting all my hunts, even the really crappy ones.

I just went out for a short time and was not having much luck. The sand is coming back!

Then I came across a sick or injured seabird.

I always grab them and take them to the Wildlife Sanctuary close by.

Unfortunately they were closed, so I kept it in a box overnight.

It did not make it.

It was a Northern Fulmar. The sad thing is that they mate for life, so somewhere out there it's mate is wondering what's going on.

Oh well, you can't win them all.

So I did not have a good hunt, as you can see.

Fourth hunt...

Thursday found similar conditions but the sand is starting to come back.

I went the other way from my previous hunts starting point.

I ended up with $5.60 in coins but nothing else worth mentioning.

My coffee can was full so I cashed it in using a Coinstar machine.

The total was $54.88. This was a four month total but I did not hunt much for a couple of those months. And I used several quarters from it to do laundry!!

Third December hunt

 

When I went out on the beach a couple of days ago I saw that the high tide had worn away a lot of sand, leaving a 3-4 foot 'wall' the entire length of the beach.

Unfortunately I was not the first one there. There were tracks of a fellow TH'r who had made two passes parallel to the beach, from the foot of the wall down.

By doing this he had covered the first 10 feet, all along the wall. My hat is off to him for beating me there.

Not to be discouraged I proceeded to make a third set of tracks, following the wall.

After I had gone half a mile I met another TH'r who was working his way from the opposite end. We both turned and worked our ways back from where we came.

As expected, most of the finds were bobby pins and coins again.







But, just before quitting and right about where I had started, two hours earlier, I came across a little 14k Jesus pendant.

The coin is a mystery. The writing is Indian I believe, but there is no denomination on it so it is probably a token of some sort.

I collected $3.70 in usable coins. 

Second December hunt

I did not manage a hunt yesterday but today, despite van starting issues, I did get out for about 2.5 hours.
I went to a different beach at low tide.
Again I was disappointed to see flat, flat sand with no real low spots.
There had been some erosion higher up, so that is where I concentrated my efforts.

The first thing I found was the trowel!
A lot of nails and iron...$4.35 in coin, a Norwegian coin, keys, weights and one gold pendant.

It is always nice to find a bit of gold, this is 2.3 grams. 

                                                                  I'm not sure about the markings but 

I did find similar cartouches on Japanese Ebay with similar markings.

So...today was a little better, but far from spectacular.

First December TH

Well I did hunt for 2.5 hours, but it was not very productive.
There are no cuts or troughs even at peak low tide.
The finds I did get were mostly in the high, wet sand area.
Tomorrow I will try to locate a section of beach that has had more erosion.

As you can see there were a lot of bobby pins and trash, some fishing hooks and lead weights. One junk earring. There is $1.20 in usable coins. The pennies are not worth cleaning.

Not a great start to December, but there is always tomorrow! 

December

It looks like December should be a good month for TH'ing.

There are only four days that do not have a good low tide and the good lows are all in daylight hours.

Today's low is at 2.14pm so I think I will start at about 11am. Close to where I park the RV. 

I noticed, last night, that there has been a certain amount of sand movement to the south. This morning I checked again at high tide and I believe that it may be and area worth working.

September

I started another part time job...driving limousines! And, even though it 

                                                                    

has proved to be fun and financially rewarding, combined with my regular, part time, taxi driving job it seems I have had very little time to get on the beach to detect! 

  The few times I have TH'd have mostly resulted in 'junk' jewelry from the kids of summer. Gold has been elusive, but silver pops up now and again.

 The camera I found is fully working, now that I have a charger.(Purchaced from Amazon for about $4 ) It is an Olympus TS-1, which retails for $350-$400. I have not been able to find the owner so I have saved the pictures that were on it, just in case.

I am now able to take some close-up shots of my finds...like this 8g silver ring I  found two days ago:

The conditions on the beach make for very few targets. A lot of sand build up that is covering the good stuff. Occasionally I find a cut or a wall after the high tide, but I am still waiting for the first Winter storm surge to move some of the sand out of my way. 

 That being said I found this ring between areas that I thought would be productive. 

 This watch (a Guess Waterpro) was also a random find, so although you can watch the sand, gauge sand movement and pick spots, the fact is that finds can be anywhere.

This is a very annoying fact as the beach is huge. There is just no way to cover it all!

So I stick with my tried and true methods but also swing the detector when I walk from one area to another.

Here are a couple of other silver finds:

If I'm not driving this is where I can be found.

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Some local beach finds.....

Here are some of the more noteworthy finds over the last few months.