RatherBeDigging
Sr. Member
- Jun 16, 2020
- 399
- 2,175
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 3
- Detector(s) used
- Started with a Minelab xterra 505. Then Equinox 600 with stock coil, xl coil and sinper coil depending on circumstances. Now use a manticore.
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I zeroed in on this place because of the Victorian bridge and ability to get into the water easily. Well I have yet to find anything actually Victorian. But did score a brass buckle, a 1930s hair tonic bottle, a 925 ring (diamond is fake), bunch of clad, fishing lures, fishing weights ( I like the two home made ones) and what believe it or not is a 1oz silver ingot! Was in about a foot of water with strong current. Not easy to swing a detector. High tone maxed out at 38 on the equinox. But then jumped to iron. Hmmm. I was intrigued and tired of digging clad so I gave it a shot. Iron ended up being a bolt from the bridge. But the high tone stayed and jumped between 33 and 36. Out came a non discript bar of a heavy metal. Pretty pitted from knocking around the waterway in the rocks and gravel for who knows how long. Absolutely no signs of markings. But a few science experiments confirmed it's silver. I was a physics major in college so without a proper test kit this is what I came up with. It weights just over 1 oz, tarnishes almost instantly if you put a dot of bleach on it, melts ice really fast a room temperature and displays paramagnetic behavior. So we have a highly thermally conductive metal, non magnetic but displays paramagnetic properties, weak magnetic attraction in strong magnetic fields ( I slid bar down a 295 pound pull neodymium magnet and it slides very slowly) and it oxidizes really fast in the presence of sodium hypochlorite. Seems like silver to me. Have no idea how it got there but I'm going with Victorian carriage robbery Haha.
Attachments
Upvote
19
