No nitro, no bling-bling, but interesting.

[BarnacleBill]

Hit Drakes Island Beach, Maine for four hours yesterday with fresh batteries in the CZ20. Hunted a section of beach of about 200' by 600'. Beach had a good deal of sand on it, but there was a section that was steeply banked, to the point of being almost shelved right below the dry sand line. So I headed right for it and found nothing but tabs about midway up it, no heavy stuff lingering anywhere near it.

Sooo... started the wandering "W" pattern to try and find a drop zone. Finally hit a quarter about 20 feet from the water, about mid-tide water mark, and started a spiral out search pattern. There was nothing remarkable about this area that would make you think there was more there, than any place else on that beach. But within 25 feet I found these coins and then nothing after that anywhere on the beach.

What makes it interesting is the coins found, and their denominations, and age. The Half is a '74 and was only a few inches below the surface, easily found by any machine, even those considered in the "toy" category. With a date of 1974 it has most likely been there a while, plus there are two 1965 quarters which have to have been there a while.

Further there is the denomination distribution, it makes very little sense. Look at David from Suffolk's recent post titled "Saturday Morning more gold". The denomination spread makes sense, as opposed to what I found, especially since my machine is very hot on dimes, as can be seen in a previous test I performed. And besides dimes are easy to lose.

BarnacleBill

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

It's all in the movement of the sand. The beach shifts constantly, so to find something that has been buried for 40 years close to the surface or even laying on top does not surprise me. I dig 60's stuff frequently at Virginia Beach. Usually '65 to '69. I have dug a few rare silver coins down there but mostly those come out after a big storm or hurricane. After Isabel my buddies and I dug silver coins into the 1800's on the beach. I got 17 of them in one outing. But just normal tide and current action can and will uncover and move around a lot of stuff from one night to the next. And sometimes you see that weight distribution thing and sometimes not. Sometimes you hit a "hot pocket" and it's target-city for a few feet and then you're done. The good news is that means that the beach hunter can find ANYTHING at ANYTIME.