1715 Fleet Gold Chain and Medallion.This is lot number 2445 in the upcoming SedwickCoins Treasure and World Coins Auction. The starting bid is $35,000.
Although precious metal prices are now high, you might consider keeping unreturnable gold and silver finds as a long-term precious metals investment. Here is what one financial analyst says.
"The US supremacy as the top world economy will end sooner than many people believe, so gold is a better investment than the dollar despite it hitting a new record..."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39376706
Yesterday I talked about detecting more junky locations. When you find a location that is heavily littered with junk, it has probably not been well detected. The junk actually protects the location from most detectorists because not too many people are willing to put in the effort to properly detect a place like that. Unfortunately, places that have seen centuries of human activity are often junky.
When you find a junky place like that, there are a few things you can do to find the hidden goodies.
First pick up any large pieces of metal that you see. Then in order to remove the smaller pieces, you can use a magnetic rake or a magnetic sweeper with wheels. Maybe you've seen a roofer use a long-handled magnetic sweeper to clean up a work site after a job. A magnetic rake like the one shown here, will often work better for working some places. If you don't have one, a regular garden rake will help you pick up some of the medium sized pieces. A rake is also good for finding gold chains that have been lost - sometimes better than a detector. You can use a rake on a beach or volleyball court too if you know where a thin gold chain has been lost.Another technique is to use a sifter. You can construct one that you can pull through the top layer of dirt. It should be constructed with a wire frame that will sift out an debris larger than a dime. Mount the frame with handles and wheels. Lawn mower handles and wheels can be used. A sifter can also be used on beaches where detecting is not permitted. It's a lot of work, but it works.
Water can help. Naturally moving water (flowing, tidal or rain), or water that you can dump or spray on the surface to wash debris away or simply uncover debris can be effective.
Of course, one thing that anyone with a detector can do is simply exercise great patience and detect and remove the junk one piece at a time. Or, you can try to discriminate out the junk, but you will undoubtedly miss some good targets that way. As I've mentioned in the past, target ID is not totally accurate, and good targets will often be masked by junk when you use discrimination. I've talked about that a lot in the past.
Of course all of this requires work an patience. Those are two things you can use to take your hunting to the next level if you are willing.
Forecast and Conditions.
The seas are still relatively calm today, but will be increasing to about 7 feet early Wednesday if the surf web sites are correct. The high tides are still relatively high and the wind is out of the north. That all could make for a good combination. At this point, next week looks promising.
Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
