Corroded coins

[guru2743]

Yesterday 18th I went detecting by the river close to town, I was by the shore where the river split in the estuary, it is a very popular spot for crabbing and fishing. In the old days, at the turn of the century there was a ferry around half a mile away and the spot I went had a boat house.
All is gone now, but I still hunt the place.
This time I got something, very faint and decided to dig, after 6 or 7 inches I hit some black/blue smelly hard muck, but, the target was more intense, I kept digging and at 30 odd cm hit a clump of the smelly stuff who had something in it.
Could retrieve 3 coins, 1 was a penny, very corroded and still encased in muck, decided to get the other 2 clumps home.
After leaving the clumps in soapy water over night, cleaned the coins from the black stuff, amazingly the 2 silver did seem good and scrubed nicely,
The big penny, did turn to be 2 pennies stuck together and eaten away beyond recognition.
But the 2 silver, did actually broke in a few pieces. The metal did seem to have turned to rot.
Never had that before.

 

[Dave79]

I've broken a few of the later 50% silvers trying to clean them. We must have the same horrible corrosive dirt here.

 

[guru2743]

OOPS !!!, just read my post and saw I put 30 odd inches ....., never mind, it is still real cool.

Indeed, the hard blue/black muck smell a bit like rotten eggs and is found at around 25cm under the sand and is in general 10 to 15cm deep, then it is wet sand, water start to seep.
The ID of those coins has nothing to do with the real ID, I do go only by sound, and I dig anything who disturb my treshold, in general I have to reach the black stuff to start to have an ID, whatever I find, is so much encased that I wait until I am home and soak it overnight in light soapy water. I have done so for a long time, I live in a place who has been "trashed" by other detectorists and now I have specialised in looking for the deep stuff, full of surprises...LOL LOL, got a jar full of 3p and 6p completely unreadeable but, I look at them as a challenge surmounted.

Have a great day

Guru

All amended Guru.