bk,
There are several people in that club who hunt the Jersey beaches all the time. I can't keep up with them as far as gold rings and jewelry goes. They each find 5 or 10 gold rings and a couple necklaces and/or bracelets, etc. every month in the summer. And the people who hunt the farm fields in Jersey do real good with large cents and old silver. Just check Don of South Jersey's posts on the Tnet forums. Anyway, our contest judge usually has three coin categories and three relic or jewelry categories on his questionnaire each month. You get points and sometimes prizes for each category you win. The categories are different every month. He might ask for a specific date mercury dime or the most clad quarters or the oldest US copper coin. For jewelry, he might ask for the number of sterling silver pieces or gold rings with K marks. Sometimes he's looking for the most and sometimes he's looking for a specific number and the person who is the closest to that number gets the points for that category. He might ask for transportation or amusement tokens or combinations of keys and sinkers, for example. You also get one point for having a display and 4 more points if you have more than 25 items. And you get a bonus of 10 points for displaying your finds every month. After six months he adds up everybody's points to determine the winners. Usually the first 10 people get a prize, from $100 for the top prize down to a silver round for the lower prizes. Hope this answers some of your questions.
Bob
