Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Variety of Chains Found This Year. |
I was thinking back over the year and realized I had not posted much about modern finds this year. It just wasn't my primary interest, so I decided to go back and catch up on some of the things I intended to post but didn't post at the time.
The year hasn't been the best year for finding shipwreck coins on the beach, even though a few have been found, but one thing you can do when old stuff isn't readily available, is hunt for modern items.
When I started metal detecting I lived down south and started out hunting mostly modern coins. I quickly switched to targeting modern jewelry, which required some changes in strategy and technique.
In the early days I didn't find many chains, and those that I did find were not very good. Small gold chains are not the easiest things to find. Some detectors do a better job on thin gold chains and some do not do well with thin chains. Of course your detector and the settings you use make a difference. You can't use much discrimination if you want to find thin gold chains.
Many gold chains are found because they have a larger pendant, and some are found because of the catch, which can be one of the largest single parts.
Maybe one of your first gold coin finds was found as a pendant. Among the most common coin pendants (according to my experience) are the Mexican dos pesos coins.
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| Dos Peso Coin Pendant Found Mounted on Small Chain |
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Anyhow, when you can't find much old stuff on the beach, you might hunt change beaches and go for modern items. At the top of this post are a variety of chains found this year.
Chains tend to break or fly off and get lost in the dry fluffy sand or get lost in the water when someone decides to dive in or do a handstand. Many found chains will be broken - often at the catch.
If a chain does not have a pendant, the second easiest part to detect is often the catch.
The catch will often provide a good hint to the quality of the chain. A quality catch will often have some sort of safety.
Surprising how easily chains become invisible in fluffy dry sand.
The catch will many times be where you will find any markings.
The chain bearing the dos peso coin has the catch shown immediately below.
Chains can be very small and thin and be a real challenge to detect. Below is one very small thin chain that was detected.
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| Thin Gold Chain. |
Here are some other marked catches.
I should do a test on the relative detectability of chains of different types. I've never done that.
Gold chains can be a challenge to detect, but they can also be difficult to test. If you use test acid, it is not easy to get a good rubbing from small chains.
When a chain is very thin, it is also difficult to tell much from the weight.
You have to be careful about the marks you find on chains too. It is not uncommon for a catch to be replaced or not be of the same quality as the rest of the chain. It is easy to put a catch with a high karat mark on a lesser quality chain.
Of course you'll find a lot of silver chains and junk chains too, but I'll save that for another time.
When conditions are not right for finding old things on the beach, you might want to adapt and go after other kinds of things. That is a message I've repeated many times, but it is an important one. There is always some place to hunt and something to find, but you will have to change and adapt.
You might even be surprised to find something old when targeting something new.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |
Nothing real exciting in the forecast, but at least there is some surf and the tourists are here.
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net