scaupus
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- Joined
- Apr 20, 2011
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- Location
- Not too far from a beach
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
After doing garage and estate sales all saturday morning, I stopped by my dads for lunch. After we ate, I couldn't resist running the old MD machine over his yard yet one more time. But it was too hot in the sun so I decided to just go over the little patch of grass that was under tree shade and then call it quits. I'd been over this ground a half dozen times before I'm sure, but this time, I got a solid half dollar signal. I looked at the ground, and I was over a hole I'd dug 3 or 4 weeks earlier from which I'd taken a Mercury dime. I probed a little in the still-loose dirt with my Harbor Freight wand, and out popped a 1942 Walking Liberty.
Well, I was kind of dumbfounded how i'd missed that coin! I even imagined my dad could have planted it - after all he'd wondered aloud how come the only silver coins I'd found in his yard were dimes. But he swore that no way had he planted that half dollar. It did seem kind of fabulous that he would have done that, especially in a hole I'd already dug - and with no idea that I'd bother checking the yard again at all. That still left the problem of how I'd missed the coin. I think I'd found the merc, and gone straight inside the house, tired and hot. I may have filled the hole after I came back out much later, and not bothered to check it again. I don't remember seeing a 50 cent signal that time at all, so maybe it'd been on edge originally, and went back in the hole flat when I refilled it. It's the only explanation I can come up with. So far, from my Dad's quite modestly sized yard and swale, I've recovered 5 mercs, 2 rosies, a 1912 Barber, a walking liberty half, a small cross charm, and the clasp from a Taxco bracelet. Also several wheaties, the oldest being 1916. And an oddity: a crude bronze dagger. My dad's owned the property since 1976, so all of these items were lost before then, except maybe the charm, which was found in the swale very close to the street, and might have been dropped by a nun that i remember sometimes seeing walk by when I was visiting.
Then my mother called my cel. I was late for a farewell dinner for my niece, who was moving to London, England to study theater.
My mother lives on an island in Biscayne Bay. After dinner, and just before dark, I went MD'ing on a tiny patch of beach on the south end of the island, and found a thin, little black ring, very deep, maybe 12". My siblings who had walked over to observe, laughed at me. I looked ridiculous with my MD, digging in the little sand-box of a beach. My sister complained the water smelled bad, and they walked back to the condo. Well, it was dark so I left, too.
The ring was completely black and very small. My mother said it was just junk. And it did seem to be some sort of base metal. The next day I dropped it in some Tarn-X and let it soak for an hour. Then I rubbed it with Magic Wadding. Then soaked it again. Rubbed it again. Dropped it in the ultrasonic machine. Turns out, it's Mexican 925 sterling. The initials spell SEK.
PS
9-1-2012:
I think the triangular stamp is probably an eagle; the ring was badly corroded in saltwater and obscured the graphics, but it is close enough in general to both varieties of the eagle stamp that I think it is an eagle stamp. Everything fits the form of 1948 to 1979 eagle stamped Mexican jewelry. That fits nicely with the depth at which I found the ring. It would have been lost before the island was developed, probably somewheres near the time when my friends and I used to adventure on the island and grab lobsters back in the late 1960s.
Well, I was kind of dumbfounded how i'd missed that coin! I even imagined my dad could have planted it - after all he'd wondered aloud how come the only silver coins I'd found in his yard were dimes. But he swore that no way had he planted that half dollar. It did seem kind of fabulous that he would have done that, especially in a hole I'd already dug - and with no idea that I'd bother checking the yard again at all. That still left the problem of how I'd missed the coin. I think I'd found the merc, and gone straight inside the house, tired and hot. I may have filled the hole after I came back out much later, and not bothered to check it again. I don't remember seeing a 50 cent signal that time at all, so maybe it'd been on edge originally, and went back in the hole flat when I refilled it. It's the only explanation I can come up with. So far, from my Dad's quite modestly sized yard and swale, I've recovered 5 mercs, 2 rosies, a 1912 Barber, a walking liberty half, a small cross charm, and the clasp from a Taxco bracelet. Also several wheaties, the oldest being 1916. And an oddity: a crude bronze dagger. My dad's owned the property since 1976, so all of these items were lost before then, except maybe the charm, which was found in the swale very close to the street, and might have been dropped by a nun that i remember sometimes seeing walk by when I was visiting.
Then my mother called my cel. I was late for a farewell dinner for my niece, who was moving to London, England to study theater.
My mother lives on an island in Biscayne Bay. After dinner, and just before dark, I went MD'ing on a tiny patch of beach on the south end of the island, and found a thin, little black ring, very deep, maybe 12". My siblings who had walked over to observe, laughed at me. I looked ridiculous with my MD, digging in the little sand-box of a beach. My sister complained the water smelled bad, and they walked back to the condo. Well, it was dark so I left, too.
The ring was completely black and very small. My mother said it was just junk. And it did seem to be some sort of base metal. The next day I dropped it in some Tarn-X and let it soak for an hour. Then I rubbed it with Magic Wadding. Then soaked it again. Rubbed it again. Dropped it in the ultrasonic machine. Turns out, it's Mexican 925 sterling. The initials spell SEK.
PS
9-1-2012:
I think the triangular stamp is probably an eagle; the ring was badly corroded in saltwater and obscured the graphics, but it is close enough in general to both varieties of the eagle stamp that I think it is an eagle stamp. Everything fits the form of 1948 to 1979 eagle stamped Mexican jewelry. That fits nicely with the depth at which I found the ring. It would have been lost before the island was developed, probably somewheres near the time when my friends and I used to adventure on the island and grab lobsters back in the late 1960s.
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However, if you cover the shadow on the right side with your fingertip, the number 5 sort of appears. Mexican stamps can be pretty hard to read sometimes, and this ring corroded a bit in the saltwater.
Congrats to you.
