Happily swap you a pile of snapper for Blue cod - Snapper are a nuisance (and over-rated IMHO) bycatch up here - I’m sick of the damn things. I give 'em away over the fence to the old dear in exchange for chocolate cake.
Much more palatable.
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I was given two large snapper a few weeks ago when I was up there and hope to be up there again real soon.
Had to shoot into ‘town’ this morning, and since it would be low tide on way home, well, it’d be rude to not take the magic wand.
Plenty of sitting water in the paddocks, but the rivers and streams weren’t overly impressive. Tried the first beach, nice sharp change in gradient with a promising black stripe along the length of it. Unfortunately the coil was silent. Nothing, at all.
I seldom hang around a beach if I don’t get a dig within 10 minutes.
So lobbed the kit back into the car and continued my way home.
Contestant number 2 didn’t fill me with excitement, full and fluffy. Didn’t even get out of the car.
#3 I know has a secret vault, and the door was at least partially open today. Intae it!
Within seconds of switching on, I was winkling my first manky 1c piece out of a crack. Plenty of different tones to keep me entertained, and guessing/hoping. Few boomer sinkers but couldn’t quite jump far enough up the periodic table to gold.
More than happy with my first '33 florin for a long time, and a chunky and well-worn silver ring. Both in the magic sauce at the moment.
I’m wet, the car is soaked and will be steaming up for the next fortnight, but everyone’s happy.
Waiting and watching for that potential tropical low next weekend…
Updated, here’s the 925 after it came out of the NH3 compared to the final sparkle (Silver is so damn hard to photograph with a cheap instamatic)
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Put in the time and got some silver nice one.
Nah your photo is fine. I’ve got a decent phone camera and it still struggles to capture exactly what I see.
Is there something on the top of that ring?
Flakes of paua nacre in a resin/epoxy base. It’s a $20 wonder.
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My God…It’s been over a month!
Some serious rectification needed.
Gambled a days pay that Hola had done some beach damage, even though it meant travelling waaay out of district to find some beaches with favourable alignments for cutting. Absolute bust on each of seven beaches. Having wasted the midnight low driving around, pinging screwcaps and trash, I headed for the mudflats for the midday tide. Glorious mud, always kind and generous. Still had the trash, but it was interesting trash for the most part 
Only found $1 (!) but blown away by the three best finds. Fobwatch ticked off the list (Finally!) Not complete, but I’ll take it. Eyeballed something I’d never even considered finding, lying in the stones, and in #1 place, my second cartwheel. Right chuffed! Thoroughly knackered, but chuffed. Will definitely sleep well tonight.
Cadbury UK Cococub Club badge. 1934-1939. The hole was to attach an extra ‘order of merit’ for dedicated members - I presume you had to scoff several pounds of chocolate or something…?
16" down - My second Cartwheel 
Top Finds. (Arrangements are underway to get the adze back to local Iwi 
- Hopefully they won’t misplace it again 
)
And the rest of the junk:
.303 is a bog standard Mk7 1945 CAC - Be interested if anyone can shed light on the brass shottie? @Lammerlaw @CosmoCoinage
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No markings on base of shottie shell?
Its pre 1880ish.
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its something special to get a coin from the 1700s knowing the last person who touched it could have probably fed his whole family for the whole day on that penny.one once of pure copper,imagine having its big brother the two pence cartwheel in your pocket.
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Unfortunately, no - pitted to Hell.
Casing Dia: 16.8mm (0.66")
Rim dia: 18.5mm (0.73")
Length o/a: 47.2mm (1.86")
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Brass shotgun shells go back to prior to 1870 with the Drapers Patent cartridges - these were a brass shotgun shell which had a rim that screwed off and a percussion cap nipple that looked just like a percussion gun nipple and onto which you put a percussion cap. After these they made standard brass shotgun shells of which you have found one. Reasonably scarce today but common enough once.
Paper shotgun shells began to replace brass ones prior to 1880 but brass ones continued to be made for a good many years after and most definitely until after 1912 AND today it might still be possible to get new made ones due to a revival in popularity.
They will generally be headstamped and common headstamps are WINCHESTER, KYNOCH, UMC, (pre 1912) REM - UMC (Post 1912), STANDARD, EVERLASTING, HOLLAND AND HOLLAND and many many more. They were made in the US, UK and Continental Europe.
They were readily reloadable.
Kynoch actually patented a hand tool to give them a semi star crimp away back in the latter 19th Century.
A nice find. It is the first one I have heard of being found not because of rarity but because they were looked after as they could be reloaded many many times. They were very durable providing they were washed of all powder residue between reloading.
I think I have about forty old ones here still and indeed some I have have never been loaded.
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Great finds, that cartwheel looks awesome!
Nice haul of brass & lead, and silver ring is cool.
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Awesome old penny Mr Wiggle! Not many people in the 1700s coin club in NZ.
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Belt buckle went in the machine today - confirmed silver
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Great info, thanks.
Finding out the background of some of this stuff is brilliant. Learn something new every day.
Until I dug this, I never even knew they made brass shotties.
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Tried to sneak past Chris again today, unfortunately he caught me at a one-lane bridge - Busted! 
I decided to thrash a specific piece of mud to death, just to see what lay under the Steiny crowns, offcuts of copper sheathing and lead - Turns out, bugger all.
Finds of the day were a G. McBride button (circa late 19thC), 1922 penny, a coin spill of old decimals, a plastic bag full of lead sinkers! and 4x old GPO lead seals
…And a lone $1 coin. I’m rich! I don’t have to sneak out of the hotel in the morning.
The usual Brass doo-dads that always come out of mud, and possibly (remotely) the remains of a tankard. Whatever it is, it’s high quality manufacture, and a salt-resistant metal. Into ‘The Big Machine’ tomorrow, I want to know what the metal is.
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Going hard, nice to see.
The ‘tankard’ fragments turned out to be copper, heavily tin plated. Thinking something like a coffee pot or similar now.
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Slow news day obviously - My toki made the local paper…
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has called for claims of ownership of two Maori taonga found in Northland.
The ministry has been notified of two newly found taonga tūturu from Ngunguru Estuary and Giles Rd, Horeke, as required by the Protected Objects Act 1975.
In the Ngunguru Estuary find, a small dark grey basalt toki (adze) was discovered earlier this year, lying on a tidal deposited bank of cobbles of similar size at the mouth of the Ngunguru Estuary, by a member of the public.
The taonga has been left in the care of Whangarei Museum and Heritage Park, Kiwi North…
Now everyone knows where I’s been a swingin’ 
Otherwise hunts have been very quiet, “best find” (if you can call it that) would probably be a 1960’s tube of Shoo insect repellent “avoid contact with plastic handbags…” it says, so obviously loaded with Deet…or DDT.
Found them before, but this is the first where enough paint has remained to ID it.
Big tides at the moment, pre-work pre-dawn raid tomorrow, I think. Fed up with tabs and scraps.
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After playing with the Ace250 for a few hours (mostly seeing what it could, and couldn’t, do) I whipped out the soldering iron.
The Ace 250GT is now sporting a volume control on the audio, and also a functional ground balance which tested out great on inert soil, our standard iron-rich basalt dirt and a patch of mineralisation we have where there was previously a huge bonfire. Without the GB it was twittering away and was having trouble finding my 1/8 oz lead shot test target. Once I got the hang of tuning it in it was banging on it everytime.
Next up field trials on the beach
I decided to go with a nice clean line arrangement and put the tuning knobs inside the battery housing. Logic being that once adjusted for a site, they’re not often revisited (other than wet sand)
The switch underneath is destined to be for screen backlight - unfortunately I cocked up the order and ended up with a strip of 25 nano SMD LEDs 0.75mm x 0.5mm designed for reflow or similar soldering - I don’t have the eyes for that (although I did try under the microscope, instantly abandoning any efforts once the telegraph pole-sized soldering iron tip came into view!).
Once I get some human-sized LEDs I’ll plumb them in.
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