Metal detecting in Southern Peru - UPDATE: First finds

[Benjamin52]

Hi everyone!

I live in southern Peru since 2005 and yesterday my sister, who went on a student exchange to Florida came back and brought me my brand new Garrett ACE 250, my first metal detector.
I am very excited about finally having a detector here.
Very luckily I live right next to the cities biggest park and so I went out to try my Ace 250 yesterday and today. I found a few local clad coins and a 1979 "10 soles de oro" coin, which belongs to perus former currency.

The Ace seems to be working pretty well here, as I dug a tiny piece of aluminum wire from over 8 inches deep, pretty impressive machine. (Sensitivity was only 5 bars)

I know that finding interesting items will require lots of digging and patience, nevertheless I am very interested in any comments on Metal detecting in south america, especially Peru and your experiences in the region.

Maybe someone can tell me anything about the soil composition or any other usefull information regarding MDing here in Peru...

Looking forwards to your comments / tips / tricks / suggestions...

I will use this thread to keep you all updated on my finds and experiences and will post pictures of any interesting findings!

Greetings, Benjamin

 

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[theseeker]

Re: Metal detecting in Southern Peru

Benjamin, welcome to TreasureNet! Good luck hunting. Looking forward to seeing the things you find.

 

[Sandman]

Re: Metal detecting in Southern Peru

Hello Ben, welcome to Tnet. Everyone here started out as a newcomer at some time. I have never been to Peru so I don't know your soil there. As for use of the ACE 250, you just need to practice and learn what it is telling you. Start out by finding clean ground without metal and then lay down various coins, nails, pull tabs and a gold wedding band. Wave the coil over each while messing with the disc and noting where they drop out or null. Note that if you want to find gold rings your going to have to dig lots of Pull Tabs. Course you will find more gold rings at a beach where water makes rings slide off fingers easier.

 

[Benjamin52]

Re: Metal detecting in Southern Peru

Okay everyone so I am back after my first week of hunting with my ACE 250 in southern Peru, I am actually pretty content with my findings.
Here are the results:

BEST FIND:
18k red gold wedding ring, found at the park in front of my house under a small tree, detector went of like crazy, the ring was about 4 inches deep.
It has an "18k" stamp on it, three initials "V.J.Q." and a date that reads "16.11.03" so It has probably been lying there for a few years. Unluckily I have no information on how to locate the owner so I will sell it and donate 50% to charity.







Other than that I found some clad coins over the last week in the same park and some older coins being
MY BEST COIN FIND SO FAR:
"1935, 1/2 Sol de oro" a former currency of Peru from around the beginning of the 20th century.





On the weekend then I drove down to the beach where I had some problems with my ACE because the sand here seems to have a very high Iron content. I tried turning down sensitivity and discriminating Iron but the constant beeping went on. Anybody have a clue what to do about that?

Nevertheless I went on hunting at a park near the beach with normal soil no more beeping.
I found another ring there.

BEHOLD ( ) : 950 Silver ring with five small 18k-gold plates alligned to form a geometrical symbol (see picture)
That ring was about 6 inches deep and the silver part was all black so I assume it has been lying there for at least 10 years...
The pictures shown are taken after polishing it continuously with lemon juice





The rest was local clad and junk including a Key.
I hope you enjoyed reading and I will keep you updated on my next interesting finds.
Greetings from Peru
Benjamin

P.S: Here is a picture of my best finds and one of all finds:

 

[LiquidAsset]

Re: Metal detecting in Southern Peru

I backpacked Peru a few years ago.....
Congrats on your finds....
I am leaving for S. America soon for an extended period of time....
Start researching....
Research is key......... oh my, Inca treasure
U have a lot of history in your country to investigate....

 

[wildman4910]

Cool finds!

Try turning the sensitivity down while at the beach and notch out everything left of the 5 cent icon.

~~Happy Hunting~~​

 

[njnydigger]

Nice finds Ben Believe it or not, my girlfriend is actually from Arequipa !!! She came here when she was 20 years old. Her brother and other family still live there. Planning to go visit soon, so, maybe we can meet up and do some hunting.

Good luck with the new machine. BTW, are you American? If so, where you from?

Joe

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Hey Ben52, welcome! My Garrett 250 found my a bucket full of good stuff! On the Fla SE beaches, I keep the sensitivity notch backed down 2 bleeps or marks. I run in jewelry mode, and the gold will mimick a pull tab, almost everytime, and even fall 1 notch under the pull tab notch. Platinum will almost sound like low tone foil, on my machine.

I tested out by laying out coins, 925 silver, 10k, 14k, 18k, platinum, and different yellow and white gold 14k, to learn the sounds. But I can get fooled on our trashy beaches. Ran over a Mentos candy wrapper, got a hit, kicked the wrapper aside, got a different hit, 925 Tiffany Heart ring, I'll take that. Was also getting blanked from beer cap, but would just barely catch another sound. Dug out beer cap, the other sound was a 10k diamond and sapphire ring. You should have a lot of fun!

My motto is, dig everything, you just never know! Looks like your doing GREAT! Good luck friend!

 

[CanadianTrout]

Re: Metal detecting in Southern Peru

BEST FIND:
18k red gold wedding ring, found at the park....... Unluckily I have no information on how to locate the owner so I will sell it and donate 50% to charity.

That's the nicest thing I've heard all day. Muchos gracias Benjamin.

 

[Benjamin52]

Hello everyone!

Thanks for all the nice replies!

@Joe, Hey JOe my girlfriend is also from Arequipa, thats why I am staying here so anytime you will come for a visit let me know so we can go metal detecting together! I know some cool sites I still haven`t checked out! Would be real fun so let me know...
---By the way I am not american, I am from Germany and I am studiying medicine here in Peru in order to be together with my girlfriend---

Okay so on Tuesday I went out to the park again which is pretty big (about 5 blocks big) and went to a site that seemed pretty forgotten, trees and plants very untrimmed and everything looks a bit old there so I checked it out.

BEST FIND:

Two "Un din" peruvian silver coins one dating 1866, the other 1872, the second one with a small hole in it (seems someone nailed it to a wall or used it as a pendant)

As you can see in the pictures they are both in terrible condition, the 1866 one is in better condition but the silver went all black on most portions of the coin, the 1872 coin has a small hole in it as I mentioned above and in adition it seems to have come in contact with concrete or something I just cant get off, see for yourselves:













Other than that some Clad and three Items I cannot identify:

1 spherical metal object, half an inch diameter seems to be lead because it did not light up as Iron and it is very heavy for its weight
1 unidentified metal object, seems to be made out of the same materialas the first but it looks like someone cut it into half or it impacted something ... Maybe colonial age pistol/musket bullets or is that just my fantasy ?

and 1 strange object maybe a BUTTON? The sourounding part seems to be made of copper or brass because of the greenish tone and seems to enclose some kind of stone or object made of animal horn... would be very glad if somebody could ID this stuff:

 

[mpetrillo]

I leave for Peru in July, my wife's family owns 300 acres of empty grass land just outside of lima. I plan on detecting there instead of of places I've have been in New Jersey. keep updated