Featured Online Article

Volume 37 July 2003

This is the beach where the gold and diamond tennis bracelet was located. As you can see, it is extremely crowded during the fair weather months.

It was a hot August evening, and my wife and I had returned to our hotel room after having supper at a nice restaurant. It seemed an ideal time to do some detecting, so I decided to try my luck at one of Cape Cod's many beaches. Nearby there were a number of small beaches separated by groins, and during the past week they had been packed. Arriving at the beach, I noticed that there were many people still there with their blankets and chairs, enjoying the cool evening breeze coming off the sound. I walked down the stairs and, stepping off into the sand, turned on my Tesoro Cortez.

This gold and diamond tennis bracelet landed the author a place in the 2002 Best Finds list.

I could feel eyes watching me as I began to swing the detector back and forth across the sand. Checking right alongside the bottom step, I got a signal. With my right foot I pushed some sand away, and a bright object glinted up at me. Knowing those eyes were still watching me, I grabbed it quickly and, with little or no emotion shoved it into my bag. I had found what turned out to be a Decade designer watch, and it was in great shape.

The author has had success over the years shallow water detecting.

I slowly worked my way out onto the beach, where I soon got a broken signal. Experience has taught me to check out these readings, since some gold items will give just such a signal. My instincts were correct, and just under the sand lay the golden proof. In a flash I closed my fist around the target, sand and all, and tossed it into my bag. I thought it was a bracelet, but I didn't stop to admire it for fear that someone on the beach might try to claim it. Don't get me wrong. If someone comes up to me and asks for help in finding an item lost on the beach, I will go out of my way to search for it, and of course I return lost valuables whenever possible. However, there are those who will try to take advantage of TH'ers.

An early summer's morning on a Cape Cod beach.

I continued hunting, finding the usual tabs, foil and some clad coins and Memorial pennies. When searching a beach, I use minimal discrimination; that is, I set my discrimination just above iron, and I dig every repeatable signal.

By then it was getting late, so I decided to call it quits and head for the car. Actually, I was eager to see what kind of bracelet I had found earlier. Arriving at my car, I put all my gear away and then pulled out the bracelet. To my amazement, it was a very nice diamond tennis bracelet with a clasp marked 10K. Thinking that the stones were CZ's, I put it in a bag with the other pieces of jewelry I had found on the trip.

When we arrived home a week later, I checked out the stones in the bracelet with my Diatech 4000 diamond tester. Lo and behold, it beeped on all 85 of them! I began shouting to my wife, "They're diamonds! They're diamonds!" and she thought I had gone crazy!

I recently had the bracelet appraised by a certified gemologist. It is 10K gold, with 85 straight and tapered baguettes set in 17 links separated by "X" bars. The diamonds have a total weight of 2 carats, and the bracelet weighs 8.9 grams. The jeweler appraised it at $1,800.

I love those Cape Cod beaches!