By the light of a Silvery Moon

I find myself back at Beachlands once more looking after my brothers house and his pets. I'm not too unhappy being here as it is a nice community and plenty of detecting options and my bro has a great swimming pool and a nice drinks cabinet :)
Garfy, my detecting buddy has come up to stay as a surprise and we have now planned a few adventures. I'm a beach man but Garfy likes the smell of gold!!!  

It was full tide in the early evening and the afternoon low tide saw the beaches packed solid with holiday makers which is not that conducive with swinging a stick. So in preference we spent the day searching for old mines and following local streams looking for possible places for gold nuggets to be deposited. I know we are probably wasting our time but it is all an adventure and trudging through bush and wading through small streams is not a bad way to spend a day.  We did find one nice item. A five shot magazine from a rifle. No apparent markings on it though it still needs a clean up.  

5 shot? Magazine



Magazine Cover















Anyone who has an idea of what gun it serviced would be nice of you to let me know just to satisfy my curiosity.



So although we failed to find gold :),  we did think we located a few of the workings I have notated on a separate page in this blog. I'll update that another day.

With the tides against us Garfy and I decided to hit the Maraetai beach where the low tide fell at 1.40am. After catching a few hours kip we set off, a bit late, at exactly 1.30am. It was a beautiful night, there was a bit of breeze but it was a warm wind and the full moon gave us a little extra light. We both wore head lights which made it very easy to spot our targets. I started right down on the waterline and in my first sweep I found several lumps of iron, a 20 cent piece, a hair grip and a huge double ender bolt with a square washer. I then moved two yards up from the now returning tide and lo and behold I found my first ring. At the time I thought it was copper band but after returning home I realised it was Sterling silver with a lovely design of various fauna engraved all the way around. Inside it is stamped .925 8 K. Very happy with that. I wonder how many detectors have found their first ring at 2.30 in the morning. Chuffed.



A nice ring piece

.925  8 K


We continued on till 4am and in this time I had another nice find. My first florin dated 1934. Found midway up the beach at about 6 inches down. It is very encrusted and I have it soaking in lemon juice and salt to see if I can clean it up a bit. This coin is 50% silver so I really have had a silvery moon night. 

The mottled 1934 Florin after cleaning.

 These finds were all on the shop side of the wharf, so for the last 30 minutes I decided to go to the west side of the Wharf. After a few bits of trash I then found half a bracelet which shone gold in the glare of my headlight and I do admit my heart skipped a beat. On closer inspection it looked more like copper but lacked the green verdigris usually found on oxidised copper. I'll have a closer look in the morning or as the suns already up maybe tomorrow afternoon. I continued on and found a few more coins, in total two 20 cent, three 10 cent and one 50 cent coins. Other finds were a pair of four inch side cutters and the obligatory couple of tent pegs.

It's gone 6am and I'm still up as my favourite team Arsenal are playing Brighton (my home town and 2nd team :) in the FA Cup and they have just run out winners 3-2 which crowns off a great night.

So my Cobra Beach Magnet came through with flying colours and although it lacks any bells and whistles it seems to do the basics well. I'm digging every target, which, on sand is no great hardship but becomes laborious on firm ground when most targets are trash. Once I organise a decent scoop on a pole I'll venture out into the water as the Cobra is waterproof to over 100 feet. So a couple of feet should be no problem and it gives access to parts of the beach others might not be able to detect. I'll leave the grassy areas to Garfy and his AT Pro. I didn't get to see what he found as he was straight to his bed, he mentioned a few coins and some keys. I'll catch up tomorrow.



 See you out there.