Tag Archives: button

Christmas gold

25 Dec

On Christmas eve, the temperatures were holding on the high 50’s and the sun was out and shining. After a while, my family got busy with things and my wife told me to go and hunt.

I wasn’t planning on disturbing the soil this day and so the XP Deus was not charged. I decided to do a little gold hunting with the mighty Tesoro Compadre.

I spent two hours at the park and for my effort I found this: img_2162

img_2163

This read as a nickel and although it is not marked, I know it is gold. The button has the words Fide Et Fiducia at the bottom and a lion atop a crown above that motto.

This it turns out, is a button from the Royal Army Pay Corps. These guys did the finances for the army of the crown. They were vigent from 1919 t0 1992. What in the world this button was doing in one of our parks, I will never know.

The second piece of gold is not less impressive but I won’t picture it here. Also unmarked, it tests as 22k gold with my old acid. It is super soft and about 1 oz heavy. The signal was that of a pulltab. You can id things on the Compadre by dialing the discrimination up or down. Anyway, when I came home, I ran both pieces by the Deus and the id’s remained the same.

The problem with these two pieces is that since they are unmarked, no one around here will pay me for more than 10K gold. The thing to do is to send it to a smelter but I quit doing that a while ago when they lost a necklace with diamonds on it and only gave me $18 dollars for my trouble.

I’ll figure something out later. Meanwhile, I have the day off tomorrow and the day promises to be a beautiful one. I will go see what other gold may be lurking under the dirt. Hopefully I can find enough to finance my next detector.

Thank you for stopping by.

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The Goings On lately

20 Aug

I’ve hunted sporadically lately with my XP Deus metal detector.

I went out with the guys from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum to a former Girl Scout camp and found a cool old button with religious (Catholic maybe) motifs. The guys found silver and other cool stuff. I had to leave early for my Karate class.

Then I went out on my own to my old trashy park and found a 24 gram, 10K gold chain. I haven’t determined yet if it is plated or solid. It is almost too heavy to be plated. At first glance it appears to have some corroded spots but under the microscope that seems to be some kind of tar-like material sticking to the gold. I snipped the chain with a wire cutter but this didn’t help as the wire cutters crimped the metal and it made it look like it was solid gold. I just got the idea to break the chain the way I saw someone else do it by bending the chain link back and forth until it breaks. This will surely reveal the true nature of the chain. I sure hope it’s the real deal as it would be a cool $500 for mee pocket!

Last, I procured a nickel program for the Deus from Pescadore from the Friendly and after a couple of times of using in the old trashy park, I’ve collected a fistful of Jefferson nickels. I know there are Buffalo nickels there as I have pulled nine of the them from there this year. I also know there are V nickels since I dug one up near the park this Summer. I am hoping this nickel program will increase my count of cool nickels.

So I am looking for more gold. I need to have enough for both the 11 inch coil for the Deus (due sometime late this year or early 2013) and whatever new machine Fisher comes out with next year. If Fisher doesn’t produce a new unit, I will then get a Garrett AT Gold. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I am 110% happy with the Deus but I really liked my AT Pro and I miss it sometimes. I want to have a water proof machine anyway. As for the Fisher, I hear their new machine may be a multi-frequency  a la CZ-3D. I hope they make it light!

Sorry I didn’t have time to process the pictures I had for this post so I leave you with this photo I found on the InterWebs:

child licking ice cream cone

Yummmmmgrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Thank you for looking!

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Another old button

16 May

I found this button at lunch time today at a new park I’ve been hunting lately (the park actually opened in 1900). The AT Pro picked up and it reported thus:

VDI = jumped from 39 through 42 and back

Tone = Dim, soft, repeatable, mid-tone with an occasional high tone peep.

Depth  = on pinpoint, 10+

I run the AT Pro wide open on Zero/Pro mode with sensitivity at one bar below max.

My ground balance stays at 76 always (manual ground balance varies between 83 and 86 around the city).

I was using the 8.5×11 DD coil.

When I dug the button I dug a hole seven inches deep and the Garrett pinpointer gave a very broken signal at the very bottom of the hole. I dug and cleaned out another inch or so of dirt and the pinpointer signal became very strong. The next scoop of dirt brought the button up so I am calling it eight inches. And I am not taking into account the height of the grass so the button could have been deeper still. Impressive for a mid-range detector!

***A note about me measuring depth. I have been digging holes for a year now and I know when a target falls from the side of the hole and when the target is still in the ground at the bottom of a hole. Just saying…***

Now, the question is; is this a military button or is it a civilian copy? The back is made of brass with a square shank and with no maker’s mark anywhere.

brass button and Linconl cent

A tad smaller than the Lincoln cent and much older

Thank you for looking!

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My First Military Button

23 Apr

I have been hunting for almost a year now and although I’ve found many interesting things, a military button was not one of them. Until now.

This button showed as a coin on the CZ-3D. The CZ accurately read the depth of the button; seven inches deep. The button is heavy, made of brass, with a diameter of 27mm (9/8ths of an inch),

The park where I found this button during my lunch-time hunt, McAdams park,  has yielded other military– items in the past.

There is a tinge of doubt in my mind as to the nature of the button only because I see no maker’s mark on the back of the button. I will research this button to make sure. At first sight, it appears to be a Marine’s coat button from WWII.

***UPDATE***
The button is from an Army coat from WWII. The official diameter is 28mm or 1 inch and 1/8th of an inch.

brass military button front

brass military button back

No maker’s mark visible. Civilian copy?

Thank you for looking!

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