Added a new Aussie $1 to my collection too. Centenary of Womens Suffrage (2003) Wish NZ kept the coins interesting like this.
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Tube identified! Musket ramrod guide. My first musket piece. Stoked!
EDIT: Update - I was confused why the name William would be in a position hard up against the wood. Itās the maker! Willets. Willets died around 1796. His executors completed his last ordnance contracts in that year. So predates 1796, early model Bess.
Grinning like a Chesire cat.
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Awesome between us we should be able assemble a muskeet in the near future
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Very nice maori obsidian piece there. They mined it on Mayor Island (Tauranga) and it was quite the tradable commodity in their day.
Agree about the commemorative coins, USA does a fair few too, Euroās also.
Any chance of some pix of those two dark lumps?
There are several sources up this way too. Have a read of this if keen: Obsidian sources of Northland
The chips of Pungaere material can be found all down the Waiare gorge, just south of Kaeo if youāre into rockhounding. Largest I have seen was a football sized chunk lurking in a corner on the outside of a bend at one of the swimming holes. Likely still there.
This is a section through one of the chips, image shows 5x15mm. Material is very dense and fairly brittle. Possibly slag. The XRF will tell all on Monday 
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Very nice, Iāll add that to my list of To Visit locations.
Can do Kauri gum at a spot thatās not on the maps, just outside Kerikeri too 
This is literally 30 minutes-worth, picked up on the surface. Havenāt found any big bits of gem grade yet, but then I havenāt been there with a pick.
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Now thatās different. Guess you just get an eye for it?
HH
I wonder why the Tarara Gumdiggers didnt target that spot.
Its funny about 4 years ago I found a piece the size of a grapefruit that had that had washed down the river it sold for $210 on TM then started to stockpile the pieces I was finding then flicking it off here and there then it looked like people stopped buying there was a shitload on TM not selling and there were some nice stuff to so gave it up and bought a bloody metal detector
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Great, keep an eye out for ye olde insects inside.
Sadly I listed my crumbly bit on trademe for $1 reserve, and it sold for $1 
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Ran one of the iron āchipsā through āThe machineā.
Two solid peaks of ironā¦nothing else, at all, which is unusual.
Suggests it may be mill scale off ingots or summat. Certainly say itās manufactured rather than a natural ore.
@Westiedigger Itās a very localised patch. Maybe only 15 acres or so, and being on top of a hill, wouldnāt be the first place to look.
Iāll take the camera next time Iām passing.
I was just doing a casual beach detect at a very small, unassuming patch of sand tucked away in a corner. It is the sort of place that would struggle to have 20 people squeezed into it on a busy summer day
After I had been detecting for maybe thirty minutes, a beach-goer wandered up and asked if I would be able to find his wifes ring. Quick background of, āIt fell off her hand outside the car as we turned at a junction, six months ago ā I saw it rolling across the roadā. This was a new scenario for me!
I said Iād give it a go.
Packed up and followed the gentleman to the scene. I was envisaging a sea of can pull tabs, the usual metal detritus that litters the roadside, and possibly a flat and chewed ring.
When we got there, I didnāt have my usual high vis gear with me, so it was a very cautious operation to ensure neither I or the detector got clipped by a passing wing mirror as I nosed the coil in and out of the undergrowth and leaf litter. My helper made life easier by shifting all the crushed cans and foil packets he could ā But there were plenty of scraps left for me! After four to five minutes and another crumpled up bit of foil, I got a hint of a clean tone under one of the plants. I couldnāt get the beach coil in properly, so scuffed the leaf litter out into the open, and left behind, lying in the dirt was his Precious.
Happy faces all round back at the beach
ā¦and I went back to where I left off twenty minutes earlier.
The beach smiled kindly on my good deed and gave me an old and ornate silver ring shortly after 
ā¦Which also partially made up for the crapload of spacejunk I also dug 
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To the best if my knowledge your crossed wire looking ring has a great and amazing history behind you. They were given by Knights going to the crusades to their truly beloveds, wife etc with the instructions that they were not to be removed from their finger.
If the Knight came back from the crusades and the ring was disassembled in pieces then he knew she had removed it to deceive a suitor into believing she was not accounted for, attached, had a partnerā¦in other words married, so she could engage in a little sword play of her own while her man was awayā¦pork sword play that is.
The ring if removed from the finger would easily come apart and real difficult to reassemble.
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Iād heard that about āpuzzle ringsā.
Looks like this one was on and off regularly! Has been tied with thin linen cord. To paraphrase a well worn proverb: āWhere thereās a willy, thereās a wayā¦ā 
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In my case its willy or not but thank god for viagra! This is another of these rings - as you can see I had to wire it once I had managed to get it together last time I found it apartā¦ya just cant trust some people!
I note that it is exactly the same pattern as your one.
![IMG_7499[1]](http://paydirt-discourse.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/2X/c/c008d44e93e8e78273dd39f75f4d26b2a4503dc5.JPG)
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Yeah, I think itās a standard key pattern for rings as it balances nicely (I used to doodle Celtic art for a bit in the late 1900ās)
Most modern puzzlers have the four components, whereas the one I dug has 8(!) wires. No chance of getting that one back together before Hubby got home 
Was planning on a beach hunt in search of further goodies today, then remembered how much the Bay fills with grockles on Waitangi weekend so killing a couple of Coronas and searching through my old B&W aerials ready for winter doorknocks.
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Its gotta be unlawful to put photos of fish on as I LOVE fishing and still have NOT got my Snapper and highly indignant about it and any one who catches a fish makes me jellyarse.
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