Christmas gold

On Christmas eve, the temperatures were holding on the high 50’s and the sun was out and shining. After a while, my family got busy with things and my wife told me to go and hunt.

I wasn’t planning on disturbing the soil this day and so the XP Deus was not charged. I decided to do a little gold hunting with the mighty Tesoro Compadre.

I spent two hours at the park and for my effort I found this:

This read as a nickel and although it is not marked, I know it is gold. The button has the words Fide Et Fiducia at the bottom and a lion atop a crown above that motto.

This it turns out, is a button from the Royal Army Pay Corps. These guys did the finances for the army of the crown. They were vigent from 1919 t0 1992. What in the world this button was doing in one of our parks, I will never know.

The second piece of gold is not less impressive but I won’t picture it here. Also unmarked, it tests as 22k gold with my old acid. It is super soft and about 1 oz heavy. The signal was that of a pulltab. You can id things on the Compadre by dialing the discrimination up or down. Anyway, when I came home, I ran both pieces by the Deus and the id’s remained the same.

The problem with these two pieces is that since they are unmarked, no one around here will pay me for more than 10K gold. The thing to do is to send it to a smelter but I quit doing that a while ago when they lost a necklace with diamonds on it and only gave me $18 dollars for my trouble.

I’ll figure something out later. Meanwhile, I have the day off tomorrow and the day promises to be a beautiful one. I will go see what other gold may be lurking under the dirt. Hopefully I can find enough to finance my next detector.

Thank you for stopping by.

I’m not dead yet!

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post!

I am back in the game though. I’ve managed three hunts in as many days. For my return to my beloved hobby, me and Maurice are looking for gold.

Now, I’ve heard tales and I’ve heard fables about people who can tell gold by the type of signal they get. Not to call anyone a liar but I am highly skeptical of this. I remember ONCE, with the AT Pro, getting a nickel signal that was silky and full and all kinds of groovy and finding a pendant in the hole when I dug the signal. That was it however. Not before and not since have I gotten a signal like that on a mid tone. Even the gold rings I have found sounded like a plain old mid tone signal.

So, this means I am digging every signal between high foil and pull tab. It’s unforgiving work let me tell you. So far, I estimate a total of 180 pull tabs, and about half that number in aluminum foil. Out of all that I have found a Wichita Transportation token from the 60’s and a pretty metal button. Brutal.

Oh, and I am digging every bottle cap as well. I have dug about 100 bottle caps so far in these three hunts. The reason for digging the bottle caps is that when I look for gold, I don’t meander around but rather, I pick a spot and work every signal there. It keeps me from losing my mind because as I am looking for gold, I am also cleaning a spot for future deep-signal hunting. To this end, I am selective about the spots I choose.
A) They have to be target rich. That tells me that there was heavy human activity in the past.
B) They have to be spots that are no longer popular, thus ensuring all targets are old-ish.

Hunts like these make me wish I had started metal detecting in my 20’s. Right now, I can do this non-stop for about three hours. After that, my attention wanes and all I want is a sandwich and a drink. Once I stop, I am useless as my body stiffens and all I am good for is sitting and watching tv.

I intend to keep on going until I score a ring, or a chain or some other gold item. Stay tuned for updates.

Thank you for stopping by!

 

The park gave

I stopped by the park for a quick 20 minute hunt after work. I really just wanted to test a new tweak I made to Maurice, my XP Deus metal detector. Right away I started getting good, deep hits. The first thing I dug up was an old gas tank door key (no photo). Then I found a couple of ancient brass whatsits. Finally, at the very end of the 20 minutes I got yet another deep, repeatable hit. At 7 inches of depth I found this:

Yep, that’s my first gold ring of the year. I was beginning to think that I was going to go the whole year without finding a gold ring. Phew! This signet ring is 10K and as soon as I can discern the maker’s mark (it looks like a B and an O with the 10K wedged sideways between the two letters) I will have a more accurate idea of its age. I can safely say that it is not a modern ring though, given the park and the depth at which I found it. Plus the style just says vintage.

I think I will have it reshaped and polished.

Thank you for looking!

Evening gold

The second gold of the year comes in the form of microgold. I stopped at Riverside park on my way home to release a little stress with Maurice. I was swinging along when I got a deep buzz. Usually, a deep buzz turns out to be non-iron, non-trash. Maurice said the target was somewhere in the eight to nine inch depth range so using my new shovel (he he he, I love my shovel) I dug a nine inch hole with an intact plug.

When I put the pinpointer in the hole all I got was silence. I then scanned the plug with the pinpointer and somewhere around the five inch mark I found this:

I couldn’t see any obvious corrosion at the park but then again it was getting dark and the piece was dirty. When I got home I cleaned it and looked for markings but found none. I also found no corrosion. The acid test revealed it to be 10K gold.

I am nothing but impressed with the Deus. It picked this up even though I don’t swing slow with the Deus because of the detector’s legendary recovery speed. And even though the signal was a buzz (not a grunt), the buzz was consistent and repeatable.

I also found three buttons during this hunt, one possibly very old but not in very good shape.

Thank you for looking!

Auspicious Beginnings

I woke up this morning with plans to explore a site that may hold some good stuff. It was snowing and the temperature was hovering around 24 degrees. No matter; I put on my long johns, grabbed my Deus metal detector and headed out into the white. With no wind, it was actually kind of pleasant outside.

After about two hours of exploring and finding $1.55 in clad and two wheats, I moved on to a large and open grassy area where, according to my research, nothing has ever been built. I began detecting and within minutes I got a nickel signal. I dug the hole and at about five inches deep I got the first gold of 2013:

It is a small medallion with the letter S on it. I could tell I had gold right away as there was no sign of corrosion anywhere. In addition, the high yellow color told me this was a high carat gold piece.

I decided this was a good time to stop and headed home. Once home I cleaned the medallion and looked for the carat mark:

Sure enough, the piece is 18K gold. I have found my share of gold since I began doing this a year and a half ago but this is my first 18K gold.

So I begin 2013 with a good find. The medallion weighs 2 grams. That’s a bit over $50 U.S. Not much value money-wise but but I’ll consider it a good sign of things to come.

Thank you for looking!

The Goings On lately

I’ve hunted sporadically lately with my XP Deus metal detector.

I went out with the guys from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum to a former Girl Scout camp and found a cool old button with religious (Catholic maybe) motifs. The guys found silver and other cool stuff. I had to leave early for my Karate class.

Then I went out on my own to my old trashy park and found a 24 gram, 10K gold chain. I haven’t determined yet if it is plated or solid. It is almost too heavy to be plated. At first glance it appears to have some corroded spots but under the microscope that seems to be some kind of tar-like material sticking to the gold. I snipped the chain with a wire cutter but this didn’t help as the wire cutters crimped the metal and it made it look like it was solid gold. I just got the idea to break the chain the way I saw someone else do it by bending the chain link back and forth until it breaks. This will surely reveal the true nature of the chain. I sure hope it’s the real deal as it would be a cool $500 for mee pocket!

Last, I procured a nickel program for the Deus from Pescadore from the Friendly and after a couple of times of using in the old trashy park, I’ve collected a fistful of Jefferson nickels. I know there are Buffalo nickels there as I have pulled nine of the them from there this year. I also know there are V nickels since I dug one up near the park this Summer. I am hoping this nickel program will increase my count of cool nickels.

So I am looking for more gold. I need to have enough for both the 11 inch coil for the Deus (due sometime late this year or early 2013) and whatever new machine Fisher comes out with next year. If Fisher doesn’t produce a new unit, I will then get a Garrett AT Gold. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I am 110% happy with the Deus but I really liked my AT Pro and I miss it sometimes. I want to have a water proof machine anyway. As for the Fisher, I hear their new machine may be a multi-frequency  a la CZ-3D. I hope they make it light!

Sorry I didn’t have time to process the pictures I had for this post so I leave you with this photo I found on the InterWebs:

Yummmmmgrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Thank you for looking!

14K Gold Bracelet

I went out today with my XP Deus metal detector for the first time in almost two weeks. I met three guys from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum  at a very old park here in Wichita. I have hunted this park before with my other detectors and the best I had ever found there were wheat cents.

This morning, after about 20 minutes I found a gold bracelet about four inches down. I knew it was gold the second my eyes laid on it.

I get the Gold!

Pretty!

Ka-ching!

Although there were no markings on the chain, there was no doubt in my mind this was the real deal. I tested it with my acid test and sure enough, it’s 14K and not plated.

The XP Deus is quickly on its way to paying for itself and every other detector I’ve owned!

Micro gold and the AT Pro

I went out to the Iron Pit again this afternoon. I hunted for three hours and added so many pull tabs to the gallon jar that I am now half way to full. Besides a Jefferson nickel, I found a tiny gold chain clasp.

At the Iron Pit, I run the AT Pro with the sensitivity at four bars and iron discrimination at 35. I do this to deal with the vast amounts of rusted iron at the site. So I was swinging away when I got a very soft middle tone that would sound about every third swing. It was the quality of the sound that made me take notice. The Target ID (TID) was 35 and the depth indicated was six inches. Since I have no experience with deep gold I thought I’d dig it.

I dug a six inch hole but there was nothing at the bottom. I investigated the pile of dirt with the Propointer and I got zilch. Last, I ran the Pro over the hole and the dirt and I got a hit with a TID of 35. Whenever I saw a TID, it was 35. I then spent a few minutes running small amounts of dirt through the Propointer until I got a hit. I didn’t have to look anymore as I could see the beautiful yellow of gold.

Tiny gold

The clasp actually had a couple of links attached but I lost them during further air testing. The air tests revealed that the coil had to be in contact with the clasp to get a tone and a TID. I guess the clasp was barely beneath the soil and that’s how I detected it.

There is a chain and a pendant out there waiting for me…

From the look of the links that I lost, the chain that this clasp went with was very dainty. I did spend 20 minutes looking for the rest of this chain but I could not find it. I may try to find it again later when I am rested.

So now I know how incredibly difficult it is to detect micro gold. Were I not looking for mid tones, I would have never even considered investigating an iffy mid tone with a TID of 35. I am not surprised that the Pro alerted me to it since I have found tiny bird shot at depths of three and four inches with solid tones and TIDs.

Thank you for looking!

Gold ring #2 for the year plus a V nickel!

Woo hoo!

Thank you for looking!

The Very Definition of Masochism

I have gold fever. I can’t deny it. I want gold and lots of it. To that end, me and another hunter, Stevouke, have vowed to dig pull tabs until we both find another gold ring.

The problem is that the very goal seems infinite. There seems to be an endless number of pull tabs and this makes the job seem unmanageable. Maybe I am over thinking this but I thought one way to make the task less daunting was to set boundaries to it somehow.

Stevouke is doing this by keeping a count of the pull tabs he digs. Me, I decided I needed something more tangible and visual. Here is my idea:

If you ever wonder what pain looked like…

I am going to see if I can find a gold ring before I fill this gallon container with pull tabs and foil.

Thank you for looking!