And the WINNER is................................

The total value of the coins in the jar is $143.97.  That makes Peacehavens (Ged Dodd) from Yorkshire UK the WINNER! with a guess of $144.44. Thanks to all those who participated and perhaps I've inspired you all to to something similar. The shiney silver Aussie 50c piece will soon be winging its way to the other side of the planet.

Cherry picking again............

Back to the park tonight to a really trashy hill overlooking a cricket ground, I've been over and over it, again and again, and thought I would give it one more go.................Nearly every signal is a shallow ring pull or pull tab.............however a really slow careful swing unearthed these few coins amid the trash. I only dug the iffy signals deeper than 4" and this was the result. Quality not quantity tonight!

Pocket Spill.

I had a busy weekend, with the rugby on Sat night.............yes I still follow the Wallabies, once an Aussie, always Aussie! It was the first  Tri Nations win for us since I arrived on these shores in 2003. Then last night went to the Taranaki vs Hawks Bay game and saw the home boys retain the Ranfurly Shield. In between I managed a few quick hunts with not much success......................So tonight I was hell bent on some pre decimals. I went back to a spot in 'the park' that I had hunted only once before, back when I had the 'el cheapo' headphones and no propointer. I had always thought there should have been more there than the few old decimal coins I picked up back then. Well the pictures are worth a thousand words........30 coins in 1 1/2 hrs including this pocket spill of 4 half pennys, a florin, sixpence and threepence.

What is it?.................Identified.

Thanks to Ged (Peacehavens) in the UK for identifing the mystery object. It is indeed a Jews Harp, a musical instrument. Here are a couple of pics from the web. Its held by the round end with the 'forks' to the lips, you either hum or blow through the forks while plucking the middle bit.

What is it?..................

Back to the park tonight for a quick hunt, I found this strange object. It's non ferrous but seems to have had some sort of iron attachment at the top where the corrosion is. It's strangely familiar to me but I can't for the life of me work out what it is. Any ideas?

Also dug a nice 1934 sixpence amongst the  ring pulls and this very worn, young head Victoria 1/2 penny. The only detail you can see is Vicky's head, nothing on the other side but I think comparing it to other coins I have, she is somewhere between 1860- 1880.

COMPEITION TIME!

Ok guys, lets have a bit of fun.................I'm going to run a competition, sort of like, guess the amount of lollies in the jar. Here is a pic of my jar of old decimal coins dug this year. All you have to do to win, is guess the value of the coins.

The prize will be this Australian .800 silver 1966 50c piece. I will run the comp for a week or until someone gets it bang on. If no one guesses exactly, the prize will go to the closest guess.

A couple of hints:

The coins and jar weigh 9kg, its 340mm high and has a diameter of 110mm. All the currency is represented from 50c to 1c, I would say the 50 % of the coins are 1,2,5 &10c pieces.

There is somewhere between $130.00 and $160.00 worth of coins in the jar.

GOOD LUCK!

YES IT'S GOLD!!!!

After last nights success with digging the 'iffy' signals at the park and finding those 2 nice lockets, I was keen to go back again and prove out my theory....................... the results speak for themselves. Another 9 copper nickel old decimal coins, 3 really deep $1 coins, a penny, a stainless steel ring and this little beauty......all 18 carats of her!

Locket update

The silver locket I found last night was hallmarked, research shows it was made in Birmingham in 1888 by a William James Dingley making it well over 100 years old..........I'm stoked with that one! The gold plated ( I thought) locket is in fact what they call rolled gold or gold filled, an outer casing of thin gold sheet fused to a base metal (in this case brass). It was made by S.K. Merril Company in Providence, Rhode Island,USA sometime inbetween 1871 and 1915, the detail on the front suggests Victorian, so around the turn of that century I would guess.

STAY TUNED FOR TONIGHTS FIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why you should dig ALL the 'iffy' signals...........

Was on the way home for lunch today, pulled in to a dairy to pick up some milk and had a momentary lapse of concentration when pulling out and had a bit of a vehicle bingle................... nothing serious, nobody hurt (except my pride!). Thank goodness for insurance, the  4wd will be out of action for a couple of weeks for a new front end and guard so I was feeling a bit , shall we say, down this afternoon. Carol's answer to that little conundrum was 'lets go treasure hunting", so after work we headed out in her car to 'the hill' in 'the park' that we have been over and over again and again. I really didn't expect to find much, so decided to just dig everything that wasn't registering as iron. Most of these signals came up in what I call the 'iffy' range, pull tabs, jumpy signals, is it-isn't it and so on. Well my spirits were raised when I dug the first locket, looks like gold plate on brass, underneath it was the filligree jewelery. Next was the stg silver horse locket, I couldn't believe it, it was such a jumpy signal on the F4, it was quite deep though at around 9". The rest of the coins with the exception of the 'goldies' came in as pull tab signals. The old lighter was jumping from iron to silver, the brass button couldn't decide if it was brass or steel and the Hong Kong 50c was a pull tab one minute and a copper coin the next................. LESSON LEARNED............I will dig all the "iffy" signals from now on!

Weekend tally

I thought I was going to be totally skunked on pre decimals and silver this weekend. The coin tally started out well with plenty of goldies and brown buggas, but do you think I could hit on a pre decimal for trying? I tried 3 different spots in all over the weekend for a total of 73 coins, only after this afternoons hunt did I hit the magic silver and pre decimals. Ended up (desperate!) going back to the park out of town where I found the 1/2 crown last weekend, that ended the drought...............4 pennys, 2 half pennys, a 1950 florin and this beauty.........dirty as she is..........a 1934 florin.

The coin tally goes like this:
$2 - 5
$1 - 12
Old Decimal
20c - 2
10c - 2
5c - 5
2c - 17
1c - 21
1906,'46,'50,'58 pennys
1921,1936 1/2 pennys
1950, 1934 florins
Aussie $1
Suffice to say I'm as pleased as punch with the silver florin.

Finaly! Big Silver

You wouldn't read about it...........after blogging recently about there being only one silver 1/2 crown lost around here, and that I've already found it...................Today I dug another one. Carol and I decided to head out of town for a drive earlier today, and as always I threw the detector in the back.........just on the off chance we might see some potential new hunting spots. We did find one small park we had never hunted before, it looked promising but after 40 mins in the freezing wind all we dug was a solitary penny. There was another park around the corner that we had success with before, so I thought we would give it a quick going over before heading home. After about an hour we had dug another 4 pennys and a 1/2 penny, a bunch of old decimals and $4 in goldies. It was about this stage the cold wind was getting to both of us and we decided to head off home, I joked about how finding a  silver 1/2 Crown would be a nice way to finish off the days hunt. Carol just smiled and nodded and I kept swinging on the way back to the car. Suddenly I hear a nice tone, a bit higher than a penny........the signal says 2", I'm thinking bottle top, propointer screams at me..................now I'm sure its a bottle top. Flick the soil away and this is what lay beneath.............

Boy did I do the happy dance!

Video of last weekend's hunts (31.7.11)

Goldies, Silver and Jewellery today

Back to my favorite park today, a place I have only done once before but gave up on as it is littered with ali screw caps, bottle tops and pull tabs. Now I have more experience..............and the trusty Propointer I thought it was worth going over again. As you can see plenty of reward for the couple of hours spent hunting there. $25 in goldies, a pile of old decimal, a few pennys, 2 silver shilings and the most interesting piece was the NZ 1/2 penny made into a ring. It's soldered to a hallmarked silver band. Also dug another old pocket knife, the second this week that is not in the pics.
If the weather keeps fine I think I'll be back there tomorrow.

New Propointer finds silver first time out!

I arrived home today to find my new Propointer had been delivered.............Just had to get out for a quick hunt to try it out. We went back to a favorite park, on a particular hill that I had been over a few times before but I knew there were a few signals there I had never been able to find. I thought it would be a good test for the Propointer. This particular spot overlooks a sports field and is full of bottle caps and ring pulls so I intended to use the pinpointer to dismiss the finds just under the surface..............I must say, I'm Impressed! We hunted for only an hour or so and unearthed 19 coins I had previously missed, 7 pre decimals (1 silver)  and 12 brown buggas. Add to that 2 keys and an old Tangee brass lipstick case and I think I can say I am entirely satisfied with the Propointer. I just wish I had bought one a year ago instead of my useless Automax!

Here are the pics of the hunt.