Saturday the 27th of july, I went on a beach detecting date with Howie, the maker of my still new Howie Beach Scoop, and his wife Lisa on North Beach. No joy for any of us, but we had a darn good time. It was a good confidence building trip, starting to think I might have the chops to someday find something valuable at the beach. Sunday, July 28th, I took my Howie Scoop and whites beach id to the beach in the predawn darkness. The water was smooth the moon was out, low tide, perfect conditions.
I had a great time in the water. But no joy. Walking back to the car I was swinging my stick along the weed line on the wet sand, good signal like a screwcap - alternating yellow and green. Turned out the be a nice Indian .800 silver toe ring or thumb ring. on the flat it signals silver, on the side it signals screwcap.
A few yards down, i get a good mid-range yellow signal. After 2 shallow scoops did not reach it, I buried my 12" Howie scoop all the way down at the center bottom of the hole, which was already about 7" deep. I dumped the sand out and a bright yellow ring tumbled out of the pile. A man's pinky ring winked up at me. It had the head of a woman - laser cut I would guess - carved out in the center of its oval table. Nice! My first beach gold.
Gold ring #1. It has several hallmarks, including one that says 375, indicating that it's 9k gold, made in England. It weighs 5.2 dwt.
The next morning I went to a beach in Broward County. The water was rough so I detected the wet sand. A lot of rusty iron flakes and garbage. Then I hit a dip with a sandbar that was almost out of the water about 30 yards offshore , making a calm area inside. I enjoyed wading there. No signals, at least there was no trash. I walked along the top of the sandbar, still no signals. It went down into a rocky hole chest deep, and here there was some pretty heavy wave action. I got a Yellow signal. I worked the Howie Scoop into the rocks, pulled up a basketful of rocks and coral and a gold ring with 3 diamonds. OMG! Did I say gold ring with 3 diamonds? Yup. My first water gold.
On the beach was another detectorist chatting with a park employee operating a sand cleaning tractor. I showed them the ring. The kid on the tractor asked me if it was real. I said I didn't know yet. He seemed surprised, "You really don't know?"
"I can't see up close. I can't make out hallmarks. I don't think there are any hallmarks in this ring, but maybe you could take a look. You have good eyes." Or, so I assumed since he was young.
"No, I don't have good eyes, actually."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I saide.
"Don't be. I can see you good enough!" He laughed and started up his machine, raking the beach.
I chatted a bit with the other detectorist. His name was Ron, he was a high school math teacher. I told him I had a son in high school and that I loved teachers. He seemed bemused when I said that. He was using a Teknetics 4000.
We agreed the ring looked pretty real, and we shook hands. As I made the long walk back to my vehicle, I noticed some green spots on the band. They did not rub off. Darn. Green spots and no hallmark. It was fake - a good, heavy plated fake, but a fake. Well, at least I could wear it and impersonate a real estate salesman.
Later that day, back at the ranch, I showed the ring to Howie. I had rubbed off the green spots from the band by then, and washed out the sand from behind the stones. I could now see a large, white metal, 3 position mount soldered inside the face of the ring. There was a little green where the solder was.
Howie bounced it up and down in his hand. He looked at it with a loupe.
"I think it's gold. Maybe 10k. 10k can get green spots. Also, the bands been worked on, and the solder is always a lower karat than the ring metal. You should acid test it."
I didn't have any acid. But I had an idea how to authenticate the ring myself, without acid. I had read that real diamonds flouresce under black light. None of the materials commonly used to fake diamonds flouresce, including moisanite, which can fool a standard diamond tester. To confuse things a bit, really fine diamonds do not flouresce, either. But most diamonds commonly found in most jewelry, are not high grade. So, if you question whether a "diamond" ring is real or plated, check the ring under a black light. If the stones flouresce then they are real diamonds. And real diamonds, even ones of indifferent quality, are not normally mounted in base metal rings.
Under a black light, 2 of the 3 stones, the outside ones, flouresced. The center did not. I figured the center stone was probably a fake replacement stone.
The next day I took the ring with me when I went grocery shopping; there is a jewelry store inside the grocery. The gal behind the counter had testing acids and an electronic diamond tester. I asked her to test all three stones. She did, and all three are real diamonds. That makes me wonder if the center stone is a better diamond than the other two, since it did not flouresce. She then acid tested the ring, and it's 14k.
It weighs 6.9 dwt. The center stone is about 33mm across, or about .12 carats, the side stones are slightly smaller.
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2012 totals (8/2/12)/ gold rings-4; Sterling jewelry-15; wheaties-48; IH-2; war nickel-1; Barber quarter-1; Franklin half-1;Mercury dime-3; .90 rosies-2; Biker ring $215; .90 Wash. quarters-2; vnickel-1;
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