A Few Of Guessologists Finds

[Guessologist]

925

Just thinking about it, through the quirks of the sites that I've hunted, I've never come across a 50% silver yet. Something to add to the checklist!

 

[DetectingSA]

925

Just thinking about it, through the quirks of the sites that I've hunted, I've never come across a 50% silver yet. Something to add to the checklist!

Thats pretty funny, while I havent found nearly as many silvers as you, around 15 or so. All of mine have been 50%ers, maybe we should swap sites :lol:

 

[Guessologist]

925

Just thinking about it, through the quirks of the sites that I've hunted, I've never come across a 50% silver yet. Something to add to the checklist!

Thats pretty funny, while I havent found nearly as many silvers as you, around 15 or so. All of mine have been 50%ers, maybe we should swap sites :lol:

Actually you've got me on the numbers, that florin was silver #13 for me. The Equinox seems to have an affinity for silver though, I feel like the silver/copper find ratio has changed a little but I'm probably just finding less coppers

 

[Guessologist]

Nothing too crazy from the last couple of days, mostly just showing off how the florin scrubbed up. Someone contaminated my nice old area with gross decimals! Grotty '94 $1, '66 5c and '77 1c from close to the florin's location which was a surprise given that even the florin is very late for the area. Also a gilded watch or clock winder, a button (J.E. BUCHAN SANDHURST, ~1880s-90s), an 1876 half penny and the big aluminium thing at the top of the picture appears to be the lid off a collapsible picnic mug, Hero brand.

 

[Guessologist]

Had a bit of a buckle day yesterday:

 

[Goldpick]

Looks like you've got yourself a merchant navy buckle there, cool find. :Y:

 

[Guessologist]

^^^ Neat, I figured it would be hard to get more info on it beyond Navy and Old-ish.

Had a couple of hours to swing the Nox over both the old's and the inlaw's lawns, all places I've hammered with my other detectors. Here's the worthwhile finds, predecimal coins are conspicuously absent for some reason:

This guy is the star, https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/53088 :

 

[Mackka]

Oh yeah that is a star, help me, what is it?
I looking forward to the clean.
Mackka

 

[Guessologist]

Haha sorry only put the link above it, it's a 1934/5 centenary of Victoria/Melbourne medallion. This one appears to be bronze instead of tin alloy like the one in the link so it was probably purchased instead of given out to a school kid. The only feature I could make out was 1934 on one side but googling "1934 medallion" found it very fast.

 

[Guessologist]

Here's the cleanup. Due to it's extremely cooked nature, I decided to go with some aggressive electrolysis to get the crud off (the Andre's steel wool and brass tools only got me a little of the way there). To give you an idea of how much metal was gone, check out the stuff exfoliating off the loophole! I guess 90 years in heavily fertilized orchard soils will do that. Tough to get pictures of it now being pretty shiny and pitted but here's my best shots:

Not that bad considering that there were no discernible features at all on the Melbourne side except for the barest outline of the man before I started electrolysis!

e: added a picture of a good one since most people will probably skip past the link:

 

[Guessologist]

Back to my old bush site with the right attitude to snuffle around the iron, chucked it into Park 2, wound the sensitivity up to 23 and sure enough after a couple of old square nails a halfpenny token popped out:

It was right up against a tree, and to be honest this is the third token I've pulled out of a 5m diameter area. Token spill? Probably not, my guess is that there was a structure that was burned there, and they might have been in a desk drawer or something.

 

[Sandta]

Cool, thats a beauty :Y:

 

[Mackka]

Cracker, Well done
Mackka :Y:

 

[Goldpick]

Wow, that token is in great condition for its age, well done! :Y:

 

[Guessologist]

Cheers, I love it's dark tone but it does have a few corrosion warts, suppose you can't have everything! I really need to get the steel wool pencil onto it to clear off the dirt in the areas where the corrosion bumps are densest to get it looking well.

Also found a strip of silver folded in half that had me bamboozled for a while until I looked up the hallmarks - it was off a GBD brand pipe manufactured in 1922:

 

[Guessologist]

Snuffled another coin out of the same patch, this one was right against another tree and under some brick. The coil was too big to get in the right spot to get a really convincing signal but it was strong enough to warrant having a punt. There was one of those waistcoat buckles in the same hole, I still can't get over the prongs on these things! The Victorian era was clearly a far more stabby time to live in. The coin has an even better preservation than the token from the other day, but the silty clay is sticking to the surface like the proverbial. I'm desperately waiting for some steel wool to show up so I can clean these things properly, I'm going to wear out the exposed clean bits if I keep trying to clean the thing. I think I want the six inch coil now too...

 

[Goldpick]

Going by the detail on that penny it looks to have been dropped near new, should clean up well. :Y:

 

[caparobertsan]

Shiny! erfect: :Y:

 

[Ship of fools]

Good searching.
Matt T

 

[Guessologist]

Here's something from the opposite end of preservation, a flattened 1903 half penny:

Unusual since it was at least 10km from the nearest train line, although there was a contemporary local sawmill tramway a few km away which I suppose is the best bet for squashing it.