I was out at a benefit party last night and didn't get in until very late so I almost missed surf church this morning. I managed to drag myself out of bed in time to catch the tail end of the low tide. I knew Horseshoe Bay would be a waste of time so I decided to go for old instead of gold and headed to the old military beach by the Royal Naval Dockyard. This area has a lot of history and has turned up some nice relic finds in the past.
I was into the water and up to my neck in no time, plenty of targets but a lot of it was junk. I've worked this old swimming area many times in the past year but you never know what you're gonna get. After half an hour I had managed a pouch full of aluminium and a little bit of clad. I was digging a large high toned signal when a school of fish swarmed by me so I looked up from my digging to see a large swirl of water and a large triangular fin cutting the water about 50 feet out from me. I backed up to knee deep water as fast as I could, then climbed up on a large rock to scan for the shark. The school of fish was gone and so was the shark. I stayed up there a while looking for more action from the deeper water but saw nothing more in the next 5 minutes so back into the water but no deeper than waist deep. I looked into my scoop and there was a black encrusted rectangle with a bit of brass shining through. When I backed away from the shark I took my scoop and Excal with me to use as a defense if the shark came in and I guess I had the target in there all the way back to the rock. It turned out to be an old Rolls Royce key ring made of brass, neat find.
I dug a lot more trash and modern clad until I got another high pitch tone; penny I thought to myself and close to the surface. After much digging I found a very deep, old British Large Penny - 1918! Very Kewl!
Shortly after this I hit a nice gold tone under some large rocks and dug out a crucifix at 2 feet. It was heavily encrusted with sand and corrosion but large 3 1/4" x 2", it looked rusty and I figured it for a junker with a good tone but tossed it into my loot bag anyways.
[attachment 62107 P7080037-1.JPG]
Constantly looking over my shoulder for that bloody shark was really killing my concentration and ruining my hunt so I baled after spending 2 hours in the water. When I got home and started cleaning the crucifix it became obvious that it was gold and probably a relic as well. It takes a long time for gold to build up that much corrosion.
An acid bath, some hand cleaning, dremel tool to cut off the coral sand/corrosion and finally some hand polishing produced a beautiful gold crucifix with fleur de lys - probably french.
[attachment 62108 P7080032.JPG]
[attachment 62109 P7080039.JPG][attachment 62110 P7080040-1.JPG]
A relic and gold in one find, the perfect find for BDA
No chance of a return on this find as I would guess that it is at least 1800's and possibly earlier.
Cheers,
BDA
Lucky thing the shark came along or I wouldn't have hunted in the shallows.
I was into the water and up to my neck in no time, plenty of targets but a lot of it was junk. I've worked this old swimming area many times in the past year but you never know what you're gonna get. After half an hour I had managed a pouch full of aluminium and a little bit of clad. I was digging a large high toned signal when a school of fish swarmed by me so I looked up from my digging to see a large swirl of water and a large triangular fin cutting the water about 50 feet out from me. I backed up to knee deep water as fast as I could, then climbed up on a large rock to scan for the shark. The school of fish was gone and so was the shark. I stayed up there a while looking for more action from the deeper water but saw nothing more in the next 5 minutes so back into the water but no deeper than waist deep. I looked into my scoop and there was a black encrusted rectangle with a bit of brass shining through. When I backed away from the shark I took my scoop and Excal with me to use as a defense if the shark came in and I guess I had the target in there all the way back to the rock. It turned out to be an old Rolls Royce key ring made of brass, neat find.
I dug a lot more trash and modern clad until I got another high pitch tone; penny I thought to myself and close to the surface. After much digging I found a very deep, old British Large Penny - 1918! Very Kewl!
Shortly after this I hit a nice gold tone under some large rocks and dug out a crucifix at 2 feet. It was heavily encrusted with sand and corrosion but large 3 1/4" x 2", it looked rusty and I figured it for a junker with a good tone but tossed it into my loot bag anyways.
[attachment 62107 P7080037-1.JPG]
Constantly looking over my shoulder for that bloody shark was really killing my concentration and ruining my hunt so I baled after spending 2 hours in the water. When I got home and started cleaning the crucifix it became obvious that it was gold and probably a relic as well. It takes a long time for gold to build up that much corrosion.
An acid bath, some hand cleaning, dremel tool to cut off the coral sand/corrosion and finally some hand polishing produced a beautiful gold crucifix with fleur de lys - probably french.
[attachment 62108 P7080032.JPG]
[attachment 62109 P7080039.JPG][attachment 62110 P7080040-1.JPG]
A relic and gold in one find, the perfect find for BDA
No chance of a return on this find as I would guess that it is at least 1800's and possibly earlier.Cheers,
BDA
Lucky thing the shark came along or I wouldn't have hunted in the shallows.
It's still gold though.