Banz Detector Finds

[Banz]

This thread will be where I put up my finds. It's pretty humble beginnings but I guess the joy of detecting is you never know what is under the dirt until you dig.

This is the stuff I have been digging out of the back yard

Treasures include: lead capped roofing nail, an old key, wingnut, a 2c piece, one of our dog's old tag, bottle caps, ring pulls, washer, and other scrap metal.


This is what I am keeping in my treasure tin

A railway spike (my first find), the coins I found over the road ($1, 50c, 10c, 2x5c), 5 various pieces of lead, coins I found in the yard (10c, 3x2c, 1c), and Oscar's old dog tag

 

[Dave law]

Well done Banz hey we all gotta start somewhere. Keep up the good work. Effort = Reward. Cheers.

 

[golddiggerart]

Good onya mate for starting ya thread.....It gets better and better from here on out... :Y:

 

[Dave79]

Hey, my first find was a railway spike too, and my 2nd and third up to about 10th then i gave up detecting along old railway lines with my cheapy detector. Looks like you've got a few coins so keep up the good work.

 

[DetectingSA]

Good on ya mate, welcome to the addiction

 

[Smoky bandit]

Well done mate.
Keep at it

 

[silver]

Then it's down to brass tacks.... look back at the holes you've dug in the backyard.... did they recover well (we're all hoping there not still there lol)... main part of detecting is to make your old holes undetectable. ... to know all about when and when not to dig, that's the trick... dry ground is hard work anyway.... ground softened by rain is easy to dig and the grass recovers well too.
what more can I say....
the lead coins are the tops from old roofing nails...
and if you get a find of interest on your hunts, then a good closeup photo of those particular items as well as an overall photo goes a long way in satisfying the onlookers curiosity.
Good first efforts... we can see you're well on the way down that first straight and onto the learning curve. :Y:

 

[Banz]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

To Silver: It has to be said that my digging has been a bit un-pretty so far. Up until yesterday the ground was dry as a bone so I have only been digging in the areas by the house that are sparsely grassed anyway due to foot traffic. We've had a bit of rain so the ground has softened up nicely so I have moved on to the grassy area down the side of the house. I must admit that in my eagerness to get out I have not been as careful with my holes as I could be. I was using possibly the worst tool possible, which was all I had to hand, being a three-pronged gardening thingy which just tears up the ground.

In my excitement to get out and find stuff I have not really taken the time to improve my digging skills. I will pop out at lunchtime today and get a more suitable trowel and use that and a screwdriver to open up the turf more carefully. I don't have any plans at this stage to go detecting on public grassed areas but it definitely will pay to have the skills to do so without causing any damage.

During my yard exploration I finally found something that caused me real joy to dig up, even if it's not worth a lot of money...

I guess it's a common thought when we dig stuff like this up but I can't help wondering what this coin's story is, how long it has been there and how many people have walked over it without knowing it was 2 inches below their feet. I guess it was dropped sometime between 1960 and 1966 when they went out of circulation so it will have sat there for 50 years.

Must be mind boggling to dig something up that has been there for centuries!

 

[Jackthehound]

Yes it is a great hobby and going out on first hunt and finding stuff, even if not worth much, is exciting, I can remember when I first started. You will start looking at vacant land, parks and open areas with a different view now.

PS Be careful though as this hobby can take you over and next thing you know you are in Vic or Wa looking for gold layful: :Y: :goldnugget: ickshovel:

 

[DetectingSA]

Well done mate! My first silver was a shilling too, scored it from the local park that I had been too a bunch before!

I must have looked like a mad man to any potential onlookers, wooing, fist pumping - the whole lot haha

 

[Eldorado]

Congratulations on your first silver Banz and a Rams head at that.Well done and welcome to the forum.Looking forward to your future finds.

 

[Banz]

Been round the yard again honing my detecting and digging techniques. A few more coins including my oldest yet.

The "haul" was five decimals - four 2c and a 1c - and one pre-decimal, a 1953 half penny which is in pretty bad condition.

Here's a not very good photo:

Here's the half penny up close:

This may have been answered here before but...what's the deal with 2c pieces!?? I am digging them out of the yard way more frequently than any other coin in the yard. I have pulled out 8x2c, 2x1c, 1x10c and the two pre-decimals. I would have expected to find as many 1's as 2's but that hasn't been the case.

Also, seeing the state of the half penny has made me appreciate what great condition the shilling is in!

 

[Goldpick]

1 & 2c coins have always been a pain to deal with, have seen some members on here with a pretty hefty numbers of them from park hunts. At least they give you something to do between finding the older coins - better than nothing at all.

 

[Banz]

Spent another hour or so in the back yard working on my digging technique as well as trying to get a bit of discrimination going. There's an area where our trampoline disintegrated which is full of crumbled iron and I managed to get it to mostly ignore the iron there. It still bleeped for a few buried pieces but I was starting to recognise the difference in the beeps between that and something worth digging up.

So onto today's finds. More of the same really but fun anyway.

Coins: $2, 2 x 10c, 3x 1c.

My oldest coin! A 1946 Half Penny. I found this about 2m from the bottom of the stairs a couple of inches down. It must've been walked over thousands of times in the last 50 or 60 years.

A vintage Kirks lemonade cap

 

[Banz]

Well Im still working my way around the yard but have moved to the area at the front of the house. A couple of pre-decimals (and a bunch of coppers not shown) but this may be the most interesting find I have made...

A fork from James Dixon and Sons.

Hallmark on the back with a stock photo of Dixons hallmark.

My googling has not turned up the exact fork, which looks Art Deco to me, but I reckon it is just plated or just stainless.

Here are the pre-decimals I mentioned at the top of the post.

 

[Goldpick]

Well done on the predecs, by the look of things Dixon & Sons mainly produced electroplated or silver plated cutlery, so I'd say your assumptions are correct ( can see the coating bubbling off the base metal). Hopefully you might locate a few silvers in the area with some further exploration. :Y:

 

[Banz]

The main reason for getting a detector was to scan on the beach during our Easter holidays at Tallebudgera Creek. Weve just returned after a week away and my results were almost everything I hoped they would be.

I didnt scan on the Sunday we arrived but managed to get out after dark on Monday with the head torch. It was all bottle caps and ring pulls on the beach but I tried again near the campsite by a bench and the beach shower and found the coins

 

[Banz]

The next day I got up early and hit the area under the shade cloths where I got the goldies amongst the usual drink-litter and sinkers.

I decided to have a go in the area around the tent during the boys afternoon quiet time and somehow managed to find this half penny. No idea if it was dropped recently or sat in the ground for 50-70 years; either way it blew my mind.

 

[Banz]

On day 5 I went the other side of the bridge near the surf club and had no luck with the detector but managed to find a $20 half-in-half-out of some fence netting.

By the end of the day this was all the good stuff I had found on the trip so far.

 

[Banz]

Another 6am start where I was rewarded with the $5 on the way out of the campsite. I found coins under the shade cloths again and some further round near the boat ramp.

Note: the dozens of beer caps, ringpulls and sinkers are not pictured!