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- Feb 6, 2018
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Hi all, thought this was pretty cool so I thought I'd share. I've owned my first detector, a White's GMT for a few months but found (not unexpectedly) it to be a bit frustrating for those times when you're just looking for coins and relics. To fix this I picked up a Minelab Go Find 40, and gave it it's first run out in the Costerfield State Forest after work. In 20 minutes I dug about half a dozen targets, two of those turned out to be coins, the rest being bottle tops and pull tabs. The first was a 1922 penny down about three inches, and the second was more or less on surface under a tree next to my car. When I picked it up I thought it might have been trash as it didn't have any discernible features and nearly left it behind! A bit of a rub on my pants brought out the outline of a bust though..
As far as I can figure out from the bust it's a George III shilling from 1816-20. I'm pretty stoked about it even in such worn condition, it's the oldest coin I've found by probably 100 years! It must have been a pretty old coin when it was dropped - Costerfield wasn't settled until around 1861, being part of Moorabie pastoral run before that. The scratches on the front look deliberate, I wonder if someone back in the day picked it up and thought it wasn't worth keeping... Got to recommend the Go Find though if you find it on special, it certainly works well although I guess the plastic construction is what you give up for the price. Still yet to find my first bit of gold with the GMT, lots of .22 bullets and shotty pellets around the workings though so it can't be too far off!
As far as I can figure out from the bust it's a George III shilling from 1816-20. I'm pretty stoked about it even in such worn condition, it's the oldest coin I've found by probably 100 years! It must have been a pretty old coin when it was dropped - Costerfield wasn't settled until around 1861, being part of Moorabie pastoral run before that. The scratches on the front look deliberate, I wonder if someone back in the day picked it up and thought it wasn't worth keeping... Got to recommend the Go Find though if you find it on special, it certainly works well although I guess the plastic construction is what you give up for the price. Still yet to find my first bit of gold with the GMT, lots of .22 bullets and shotty pellets around the workings though so it can't be too far off!
