New Zealand Gold Fossicking Forums

Hey there i just thought id post something here about a kind of fossicking related activity.

Since im a student and have a very limited budget i often find that i cant afford to drive the 100 or so kms to get to the closest decent gold bearing spot. While i was looking on u tube i saw a video of a guy detecting for things other than gold, like coins jewellery etc.

Again being a student made geting a decent detector hard so i had to settle for a second hand brandless Chinese machine off trademe. A couple of weeks later an identical machine was on www.1day.co.nz for $50. Bearing in mind the overall crapness of this machine i had no great hopes but 4 months down the road ive had hours of fun finding around $300 in gold coins, over a dozen silver (sterling silver some of them)coins and 3 silver rings amongst other things. Oh and around 100 pennys dating back as far as 1861.

I guess this can be taken as inspiration for those of you that lack the means to get some of the flash gear or gas money. My detector cost me $92 including postage so a good return i would say!

If any1 shows any interest in this ill post some photos

Take care

Hey here is a few pics of my detecting achivements so far. The gold ring is 9ct and found it while panning the coin next to it is not silver and just for scale its an australian 10cent piece. Any Questions just ask.


So thers 5 Pictures below it seems thats all i can put up but i put two more in with my first post

Nice coins! Did you find them on a beach? Also, does your detector discriminate or do you just dig the lot?
Cheers :)

G'day Hatter,
Good to see you having a prod around for coins and rings etc. Just to give you a little extra inspiration, if your detector is up to handling salty to dry/salty sand, try St Kilda beach in front of the surf club when a shelf or bench appears. I have an XT18000 which didn't like the salt sand at all but when I got an SD2000 I had an absolute ball about 3 years ago when conditions had stripped tonnes of sand and left an 8 to 10 foot cut. (I've just thought you may have read this in another forum...but anyway...!)Over about 3 months mostly in the evenings I eventually accumulated over 5000 coins and over 50 rings. (most of the coins were the old 1 and 2 cent pieces, so it all didn't amount to much!)

It got to the stage that if I didn't detect over a 100 items a session, I wasn't working hard enough! Unfortunately, I've never seen conditions like that, before or since.
Interestingly, the area from in front of the surf club and about 100m to the right (looking out to sea) is where I found a higher percentage of pre-decimal coins. Too bad I didn't find any sovereigns or halves, although I found every other denomination bar a farthing.

There used to be another chap who I would see occasionally, but I don't think he found much, perhaps because he was waving his machine around like a fly swatter! One time I arrived (sans detector because the tide was high) and just watched the wave action. To my surprise you could see with wave backwash, coins being picked up and rolling back down the beach! I managed to score a couple of them, but it was a bit too dangerous at the time. So, I believe there is still plenty there, but perhaps deep down or far out.

I've had a couple of goes since with the 4500 but with no success (not as much patience fiddling with controls to get rid of EMI, plus having a small coil.)

The best of luck,
Rick.

Yeah, I did do a little bit when my kids were younger, but only 2 or 3 times. I guess I feel just a tad uncomfortable by myself, but we could have a bit of a go sometime. I'll pm you at some point.

Cheers,
Rick.

Crikey! Dddddid you say GOLD coins!? ^^

i might have to give the parks a go.

Well done on your detecting. Pretty good with a so called "cheap" detector. I have a Minelab Sovereign which I bought about 15 yrs ago, still goes well apart from I can't use headphones on it anymore. I now have a Minelab Quattro but sometimes wish I had gone for a gold detector instead. Can't get my head around the bloooody machine. Found more with my old Sov.

Excellent! Well done again!

Dave

The gold coins I mentioned are simply the New Zealand 1 and 2 dollar coins. Sadly I have yet to find any actual gold with my detector but i think it is just not sensetive enough to pick it up. Sorry about the confusion

Just found half of a Georgian Crown!!! that makes it from around 1820 and would be my oldest coin. BUT notice is said half, that sux gotta find the other half now

Guess u could call that having a whinge about lawnmowers/cultivators

Silver coins dating back to 1864, a few rings and badges found over the last year