DocBeav
Bronze Member
My first day out in LA I got up REAL early and hit a beach close by, large slope and the tide wasn’t off that well but I was happy to be out after taking a few days off back home to pack and whatnot. The tgts weren’t that great and while there, I ran into another hunter working the dry sand with a Bounty Hunter. He said that this was a good area to detect as some rich people live close by. I asked how many gold rings he has pulled from there (said he’s been hunting there 10+ years) the answer was “one”. What? Did I miss something? 10 years and one ring? Ok then….lol
Mostly clad change that was REALLY crapped up, the salt water and mineralized sand (I’ll get to THAT in a bit) really destroys the clad much worse than I’ve seen in our usual east coast spots. Though I’ll try here again at some point, I knew I had to start checking out other places.
The next opportunity was that same night at a different location and boy am I glad I found this place! It was afternoon when I got there, beautiful, sunny……you get it….its’ California! The first thing that got my attention was that there were trucks and a bulldozer dumping and spreading sand on a section of beach and I thought “oh no, this can’t be good” and I couldn’t have been more wrong…..I asked a local what the deal was and he said that there had been some sand eroded away and they had just dumped a few loads but he didn’t know where the sand came from.
After digging a few tgts a nice little gold (14K) heart ring with ice (not sure if real yet) came out followed by a nitro ring that really didn’t get my attention, I just chuckled when I saw it since it rang up at a 12.37 on the CTX and I could see where the copper was showing through. The mineralized sand here is deff a bit of a problem till you get used to it. It’s not that you get a bunch of false signals (not too many anyway) but the mineralization seems to mess with the tgt ID so an initial signal of 1.50 can easily be a quarter (normally 12.46 or either side of that). It wasn’t until it was out of the hole or shallow that you might get the correct reading. There was also such a plethora of tgts that you think you are digging the same signal only to find that once you get it that in the multiple scoop piles there are more that you already had out of the same hole. It was not uncommon to get 2-3 coins in one scoop in spots.
There was another pirate further up from me and working another spot that looked productive as well but he split before I could talk to him.
I saw him again on the second (and even better hunt) a day later but again he was in his spot, I in mine and I wasn’t leaving it! This hunt was SPECTACULAR! One of the first tgts was a sweet 14K band, followed by another 14K with a flower design. Just when I though it couldn’t get better, a nice fattie comes out with a black (onyx?) stone with ice in the center. The ice is real, had a jeweler here look at it. The ring has some strange marks that nobody seems to know what they are (I think a possibility is Cyrillic letters) but it looks incomplete, poss worn off. It was sized at one time so maybe they were removed. It tested to at least 14K but could be higher, I’ll check when home. This hunt also produced a silver ring and cross in a chain along with several junker rings. I was exhausted but was just as happy as anyone with my finds this day!
Resolved to get back, I had to wait a few days and the tgts were still in the same spot but not quite as many. The first ring that came out was green and crusty and was hoping it was old gold but that’s pretty doubtful…the stones though got my attention as they looked perfect and I could see no scratches or frosting on them. It got me all fired up and I was sending the pictures to a couple of our brethren here on this site but the general consensus was “crap” and they were right! I also dug another junker on this hunt too.
Figuring there had to be more, I returned once again to my new honey hole a few days later and there was a huge difference in amount and quality of the tgts. At first I thought I was on it again when the second tgt was a small band with a 14K stamp (does anyone in Ca wear 10K? Not complaining…) and very few tgts after that. There were plenty of wierdos on the beach this night so I packed it in and headed to the car. I was checking out my new 14K ring when I noticed the color wasn’t quite right (should have known that 12.09 was a bit high for such a small ring) and that the gold plating was coming off on my hands! Bummer….the nerve to mark it 14K the bast***s! lol
In the end (and it AIN'T the end, I still have 2 more weeks and plenty of places to hunt) I have NO complaints about my finds here. I sort of reasoned out that they are dredging sand up (prob just offshore) that is used to maintain some offshore structures and may have “borrowed” some from there. If so…let’s hope they keep doing it as it’s full of great stuff!
Total count from the 5 hunts I’ve been able to squeeze in:
4 x Gold (2 with Ice, 1 confirmed real)
1 x silver ring
1 x silver cross and chain
8 x junker rings (grrrrrr….)
The usual assorted junk jewelry pieces and over $22.50 in clad.
Sorry for the long a** post but wanted to capture as much as I could on each hunt.
Mostly clad change that was REALLY crapped up, the salt water and mineralized sand (I’ll get to THAT in a bit) really destroys the clad much worse than I’ve seen in our usual east coast spots. Though I’ll try here again at some point, I knew I had to start checking out other places.
The next opportunity was that same night at a different location and boy am I glad I found this place! It was afternoon when I got there, beautiful, sunny……you get it….its’ California! The first thing that got my attention was that there were trucks and a bulldozer dumping and spreading sand on a section of beach and I thought “oh no, this can’t be good” and I couldn’t have been more wrong…..I asked a local what the deal was and he said that there had been some sand eroded away and they had just dumped a few loads but he didn’t know where the sand came from.
After digging a few tgts a nice little gold (14K) heart ring with ice (not sure if real yet) came out followed by a nitro ring that really didn’t get my attention, I just chuckled when I saw it since it rang up at a 12.37 on the CTX and I could see where the copper was showing through. The mineralized sand here is deff a bit of a problem till you get used to it. It’s not that you get a bunch of false signals (not too many anyway) but the mineralization seems to mess with the tgt ID so an initial signal of 1.50 can easily be a quarter (normally 12.46 or either side of that). It wasn’t until it was out of the hole or shallow that you might get the correct reading. There was also such a plethora of tgts that you think you are digging the same signal only to find that once you get it that in the multiple scoop piles there are more that you already had out of the same hole. It was not uncommon to get 2-3 coins in one scoop in spots.
There was another pirate further up from me and working another spot that looked productive as well but he split before I could talk to him.
I saw him again on the second (and even better hunt) a day later but again he was in his spot, I in mine and I wasn’t leaving it! This hunt was SPECTACULAR! One of the first tgts was a sweet 14K band, followed by another 14K with a flower design. Just when I though it couldn’t get better, a nice fattie comes out with a black (onyx?) stone with ice in the center. The ice is real, had a jeweler here look at it. The ring has some strange marks that nobody seems to know what they are (I think a possibility is Cyrillic letters) but it looks incomplete, poss worn off. It was sized at one time so maybe they were removed. It tested to at least 14K but could be higher, I’ll check when home. This hunt also produced a silver ring and cross in a chain along with several junker rings. I was exhausted but was just as happy as anyone with my finds this day!
Resolved to get back, I had to wait a few days and the tgts were still in the same spot but not quite as many. The first ring that came out was green and crusty and was hoping it was old gold but that’s pretty doubtful…the stones though got my attention as they looked perfect and I could see no scratches or frosting on them. It got me all fired up and I was sending the pictures to a couple of our brethren here on this site but the general consensus was “crap” and they were right! I also dug another junker on this hunt too.
Figuring there had to be more, I returned once again to my new honey hole a few days later and there was a huge difference in amount and quality of the tgts. At first I thought I was on it again when the second tgt was a small band with a 14K stamp (does anyone in Ca wear 10K? Not complaining…) and very few tgts after that. There were plenty of wierdos on the beach this night so I packed it in and headed to the car. I was checking out my new 14K ring when I noticed the color wasn’t quite right (should have known that 12.09 was a bit high for such a small ring) and that the gold plating was coming off on my hands! Bummer….the nerve to mark it 14K the bast***s! lol
In the end (and it AIN'T the end, I still have 2 more weeks and plenty of places to hunt) I have NO complaints about my finds here. I sort of reasoned out that they are dredging sand up (prob just offshore) that is used to maintain some offshore structures and may have “borrowed” some from there. If so…let’s hope they keep doing it as it’s full of great stuff!
Total count from the 5 hunts I’ve been able to squeeze in:
4 x Gold (2 with Ice, 1 confirmed real)
1 x silver ring
1 x silver cross and chain
8 x junker rings (grrrrrr….)
The usual assorted junk jewelry pieces and over $22.50 in clad.
Sorry for the long a** post but wanted to capture as much as I could on each hunt.
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