My beach finds

[Goldagettin]

Robert Le Mal, if you do get a second hand Excalibur and it is the older model, get it serviced before submerging it.

I got one and the first time I got it wet it died. They are a fantastic unit but if they have sat for awhile the seals can go hard and allow water into the control unit (as it did in mine) and if that happen its over. I was lucky I got mine second hand from a good shop in Vic and they refunded my cash.

I wish I still had the Excalibur over the units I have now though.

good luck and good hunting

 

[Goldpick]

I see a few people have had issues with the ctx leaking into the battery compartment, one fella was quite ropeable with minelab over the design and the subsequent warranty claims. I think he ended up buying a Whites PI detector for the water, and reserved the ctx for the shallows and beach detecting. Might be something to keep an eye on.

 

[Robert Le Mal]

Hi Goldagettin & Goldpick, thank you for advice. Might be getting an Excalibur soonish.

best regards

Robert

 

[Pilsner]

I heard that the problem with water leaking into battery compartment could be solved easily with a different sealing - like an O-Ring type. On other side, for the price of the detector it should be solved by manufacturer as this looks a bit like a design/technological issue.

 

[Paulmarr]

Went out for a quick 90 minute swiff and here are the treasures ...

Not a lot but I had a blast

Here is a sterling silver earring fob

And a 1939 shilling ( remember there are no old silver coins on metro beaches )

Oh well ... Better luck next time!

 

[Goldpick]

How do the beach silvers clean up considering the amount of corrosion, or do you leave them as is? Finding silver in parks is great considering most 3p & shillings come out of the ground in great condition.

 

[Paulmarr]

Hi Goldpick

As you have said - most silvers found at the beach are at best covered in tarnish and at worst completely covered in barnacles and whatnot.

Sa_bogan will hopefully put up some pics of the silvers we have cleaned so far. He uses electrolysis to get most of the grime off and then bicarb to bring them back to a respectable luster.

Yes - many of the silvers - while you can read the dates - are either badly worn on one side or are completely toast. It seems the shillings and florins fair much better in the sea than six pence or three pence but we have also found some 3p and 6p in nice shape.

The three pences are very small - and I have found the ones that are toast will disintegrate if you clean them so I just leave them be. We are amassing a silver scrap pile that will be turned into .999 by the scrapper at the end of the year after we film a display video before selling it all off.

Thus far (from Feb 17th or there abouts to today - so let's say 8 weeks) we have found a combined total of 86 silver coins and a dozen silver and gold rings. The men's gold bracelet is the pic of the litter so far realising $250 at the scrapper. We are putting in about 12 hours per week in tandem plus the odd session on our own if the other guy is working. I personally am enjoying the time at the beach very much - probably spent more time in the last 8 weeks on the beach than in the last 8 years! I prefer beach hunting to parks as nobody cares what you are doing, you are walking in the best real estate in the country, plenty of eye candy about, and the tide removes any trace of our hunting the minute the tide comes in! You can dig a hole to china if you want to without anyone batting an eye lid. If the passersby bother me with their "what have you found" questions you just move into the water as they approach which gets rid of 95% of them. And I reckon it's the best chance of finding gold and silver on a regular basis. Finding the modern coins just isn't doing it for me anymore. I give away more change to the buskers and homeless in the city than I find so I am really interested in finding pre decimal coins and jewelry plus old artifacts.

On low tide you detect and on high tide you fish - god I love this country!

 

[Paulmarr]

Here is the shilling after a quick bath and scrub

Before

After

So as you can see this one is toasty but interesting and another addition to the scrap pile - I can tell you it is much better to find than a 10 cent piece

 

[Goldpick]

The shilling cleaned up pretty well, but as you mention, the features are toast - not a problem if it is going for scrap. The beach certainly is a preferable spot to detect, I just need a detector that has a little more depth than the Ace, or look at getting a larger NEL coil in the meantime.

 

[Paulmarr]

You can't override the auto ground balance with the Ace250/350 unfortunately which is what you are attempting to do with the pinpoint button.

Being able to balance the detector and threshold is the key to depth in difficult conditions.

 

[Goldpick]

Another member was using the pinpoint button to operate in all-metal mode to scan the ground, so it is not related to the ground balance, I use it purely for pinpointing and use the detector as it was intended. The ground balance is fixed on the Ace, but there is an internal pot that can be adjusted to change the preset balance. Some guys have wired up an external pot to adjust the ground balance, but you may as well upgrade if that is the case (also no adjustable threshold), defeats the purpose of being a turn on and go detector if you ask me.

Even though my Tesoro Vaquero had ground balance and adjustable threshold, it was near on impossible to cancel out the effects of salt at the beach, the gb simply did not have enough range of adjustment, with regards to single frequency detectors, you really need something like the Goldbug Pro that will balance all the way to salt.

 

[silver]

Hello fellas , the Ace 250 is ok on the beach in pi$$ing rain as the salt is washed down deeper and the pinpoint works great, other wise just drop it to the sand and then press pinpoint before raising off the sand. no noise and you have to be able to have that trust in the Ace to let go and believe you will get the stuff you are after, only thing is you can't have a great deal of distance between sweeps to be sure your not missing stuff. I've been out at the beach in wind and rain to beat the old boys after a beach rip in the middle of the night with the Ace and come up a winner, with the old fellas reaching for a tissue when the sun comes up.( The old fellas beat me too on occasions , and it takes a while to see their tracks in the early morning light).

 

[rgmhot]

Day off work, went to Westlakes. $2 find. I had a 35 hit, so started to dig and dig, changed the setting to see if it was rubbish still a good hit, still digging, oh it's a can.

Council shoud start paying for cleaning the beach, I'm good at it.

 

[Paulmarr]

Another Saturday morning swiff - this time my detecting buddy was out of commission due to a sore back so I ventured out locally for a short session and this is what I found....

No jewellery and only 4 coins - 3 predecimals inc a bend and battered penny and a crusty old 1967 20 cent piece I thought was a florin for a moment

I did get a shilling though ... Not at the beach Goldpick I was at ahhh.... A big sand pit!

And the 20 cent coin was right next to the shilling!

I have been reading some advice from a USA treasure hunter who said "dig the iffy signals". So I did - about six scoops down I got it out of the hole and then spent the next 10 minutes looking for the target and glad I did!

It is very delicate and missing a bit of the rim but pretty old I reckon - the three pence seem not to fair well in the sea.

Also an old pocket knife (the blades look good so I will clean it up)

Most of the targets were quite deep (just my luck) and a small variety of trash I will post for Goldpick ...

Let's see what tomorrow will bring ....

 

[the duck]

They are really hard to find the old threepence they love to play hide and seek

 

[Goldpick]

That's some lovely looking trash there Paulmarr! At least you got a couple of pre-decs for your efforts. I'm still waiting for the tides to come down a bit before I give the infinium another run down the beach. The other night high tide was 1.6m and low tide was 1.5m, so a bit pointless looking for some flats to detect. Looking for those 0.4m tides to go out and look for some jewellery.

 

[Paulmarr]

Yes the tides are quite high at the moment but it was the bit of surf today that stopped me from detecting the water - unfortunately for me the tides don't always cooperate with my days off work

 

[Tassie Daz]

Thank you to you guys for showing us your finds. While I've been steadily pulling stuff out of the ground, I haven't found any gold yet.[You've probably heard my whinging for a while] But the list is growing.
A couple of Chinese coins, from Ararat
A florin(1947), 2 half pennies(1925, 1927), from Swan Hill
A penny(1917) from Maldon (a sunbaker for at least 50years)
A Threepence (1954) Marabel SA.
No KG silvers yet
And the usual decimals from everywhere. ($2,$1,20c, 10c,5c, 2c,1c) No 50c yet.

So while I think I'm not doing too good, I have actually surprised myself.

Oh and I forgot all the lovely buttons.........Haha

 

[Paulmarr]

Hey TD

Have you tried the beaches in your area like Wallaroo for treasures?

 

[silver]

I'm probably being sucked in here , but what the #%$@ is a KG silver ?