Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
I mentioned the other day that sometimes metal detector finds are put aside for a while - maybe a long while - before being inspected well. Today I decided to take a look at some very small finds that have been sitting around - some for a short time and some for longer.
The small ring shown above is a very small ring - undoubtedly a baby's ring. I found a good number of very small gold rings like that in the Miami area back in the day.
It is so small that even if it is gold, it isn't worth much. I took a good look at it and couldn't find any mark. I didn't test it otherwise yet.
It is an example of some of the very small things that can be found by some metal detectors, including, for example, the Equinox.
Below are some other finds that are similarly small.
The heart pendant and cross, shown below, are not only small, but almost paper thin.
Using magnification, I found an 14K mark on the back of the larger heart. You can see that in the picture on the right above.
The photo below shows the size of a couple other very small items. On the left is a grandma pendant, and on the right is an earring.
I didn't find any mark on the grandma pendant. That surprised me. It could still be gold, but I'm not sure yet.
And below is the same earring, which has a pretty good catch - the kind I would expect to find on a good piece of gold jewelry, but I found no mark on the earring either.
The cross below did have a 14K mark on the bail. It wasn't easy to see, but again with magnification I could see it.
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| 14K Gold Cross. |
The cross is a little larger than the heart pendant, but almost paper thin.
Of the five small items shown today, I found 14K marks on two. The marks weren't easy to find.
I took four of these items out in my test area, which, as I've said before, is clear of trash, but has a lot of ambient electrical interference from cables etc. I couldn't find the grandma pendant right off, so I only took four out for testing.
The strongest signal was given by the ring. It gave an eight or nine on the readout.
The earring produced a very weak signal under the circumstances. It was barely detectable. The signal was so weak and unreliable that the digital ID number didn't show.
The heart pendant produced a signal that was much weaker than the signal produced by the ring but stronger than the signal of the earring. The heart pendant produced a digital ID number of 1.
The gold cross gave a signal that was about the same as that of the heart, but maybe a touch stronger. The ID number for the cross pendant was also 1.
It would have been very easy to miss three of those items, and suspect many detectorists would have missed them, especially if they were trying to use the signal or ID readout for discrimination.
The results obtained in my yard would not be exactly the same as those that would be obtained on a beach.
I did switch to discrimination mode, expecting a stronger signal, but in this environment, there was no noticeable benefit of switching to pinpoint mode. The signals were still pretty faint, except for the ring.
At this point I can't say for certain if the three unmarked items are gold or not, but the main point is that very small targets can produce signals and ID readouts that could challenge a detectorist.
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I wouldn't expect the beaches to be very different today as compared to yesterday. The surf is supposed to be a touch bigger, but the angles still aren't good.
The morning high tide will be unusually high - well over three feet.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
