Told ya so, told ya so, told ya so - The shouts on you?
That depends on the exercise of rights by NZPAM.
My real collector guns which are genuine antique ones I will wait and if need be have them altered. Ironically enough I could do a better job than most gunsmiths but it has to be done by a properly authorised person - how fucking quaint. I have taken back all my spare parts - I put them together to make fireable shitheaps and got a price which more or less equated to their spare parts value so in that regard I am thrilled to bit, I had been given .22 rifles over the years which had broken triggers etc and I made new triggers but had not fine tuned them by filing and polishing them so that they functioned flawlessly and I got a good price for them PLUS I had their magazines which I also sold. I have no complaints about what I did get - believe me, the happiest guy on the block.
It definitely isn’t a light shade. Looks like it was plated. Cannot find the maker’s mark, but obviously from an era where plated bowls were the thing, if anyone has a maker for it, great.
Before cleaning…
After cleaning it as best I could, as you can see I was losing bits.
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Very low tide. Some coins, but the more interesting stuff at the low tide mark were the spent shell casing (mark says vii the rest is indiscernible), a thimble and completely had it formerly fancy watch.
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Casing will be a Mk7 .303 round, post 1910. There should be a date as yyyy or yy (eg 1944, or 44) and the maker - Probably CAC.
Nice selection, more tides to go yet 
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I do think you are right, I’d found another, live round, there before. And frankly, I think it was the era when firing a weapon at fish from a shore or a boat was thought of as funny, I’ll back that up citing a picture I have but I cannot reproduce here because it is in a national library file and subject to their rules, of WW1 soldiers in the mideast doing just that in their downtime with the Queen’s (King’s rather) ammo, the reporter’s comments, something to the effect of, ‘look at these NZers showing off their new fishing methods.’ Doubt that’d get the same reception today. I’m going to let it dry a bit more and try again.
a popular method of getting a trout. fill the barrel with water and close the bolt on the round, hold the gun under water well the barrel at least, tie a string round the trigger and pull on the string. bang one trout for tea.
im sure there are a couple on this forum that has done this in the past.
Hey Keith Shhh - shutuppayourface!
Has New Zealand got a Statute of Limitations? Oh well here we go. One night about 1976 I took this bloke flounder spearing. His daughter is a facebook friend and she looks after her Dad and the old Bastards still kicking! Anyway off to the river we go.
Now I had this dinghy and in the middle of the night we used to float down the river and row back up, spearing flounders as we went. Anyway there was a small side creek going into the main river and large trout used to go up it so off up the creek I went. In five to ten minutes I go five 5lb trout some with my spear and at least one with a .22 rifle. All you did was slip the rifle under the water and ‘POP’ stunned the trout.
Next day at work I got a phone call - it was from the Police who told me that they wanted to see me after work. After work I head up to Gestapo Headquarters and the Police boss gets me in and shoves a piece of paper into my hands.
“Here read this and memorize the names” says he. The paper had about fifteen or twenty names on it and some I know or knew.
I asked him why and he answers “Thats our list of local narks. Always in here reporting someone for something. Recognize any of them?”
I told him that I knew a few of them.
“You didnt take one of them flounder spearing last night would you?”
I assured him that yes I had indeed taken one of them flounder spearing last night.
“Well he came in today to nark on you - Jack Simmonds down at Ministry of Agriculture and fisheries wants a chat with you”
So down I go to see Jack - “I hear you’ve been up to no good last night” he says.
"So they say Jack’ I replied
“Well I wont prosecute you this time but dont take the rifle down the river again and take all the prongs off your spear except one”
“I hate to tell you this Jack but my spear only has one prong”
I have always remembered that and really lucky to get away with it. I have another flounder spearing story worth telling about the guy who tried to climb the mast in my dinghy - and it never had a fucking mast but he still tried to climb it!
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We were up in Wellington a while ago and from the plane Dad pointed out a lagoon or Lake named Lake Onoke and said "See that lagoon down there. Well during the war three of us were stationed there to keep a watch out. When we got back to camp we could not account for 100 rounds of Bren Gun ammunition. It took the whole hundred rounds to get just one swan out of a mob of swans! Maybe the .303 case was one of theirs!
There’s loads of anecdotes like it, If you ever help with memoirs you’ll find the confessions come thick and fast after the statute of limitations has passed.
the old spear fishing for ells. opihi river mouth north of Timaru was great a good assortment of ells there.
remember one night crossing cross to the north bank at low tide in the dark when we got to go back the tide had come in abit , the water was deeper and the ells seamed to like the smell of their bros in the sack . I think it was one of the times I managed to walk on water.
so much fun in those days. coming back to the car finding it surrounded by water half way up to the roof. the tide had come in .
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Did you say Eels Keith - well I mentioned the bloke who tried to climb the mast of my boat. That was in the Waihao river in South Canterbury and it was eels that caused that fiasco! I took this guy flounder spearing one night.
He told me that I was not to get any eels because he was terrified of them. He kept reminding me of the fact every ten minutes.Well I was getting bored listening to him. Now when you get bored and you have ADHD then something HAS to happen so my wee mind begins ticking away
‘So what WOULD happen if I got an eel - a big one. What would happen?’
Sometimes you HAVE to find out so here we are with him rowing - thats why I took others. They were the motor! Me up front with spear and spotlight.
Every time I speared a flounder he would say “Is it a good one?” - I only speared ‘good ones’ - he didnt need to ask.
And then I saw an eel - it was a good one! So I speared it. I was good at spearing trout and eels even with one prong.
“Is it a good one?” he asked as I bought it aboard the dinghy. He couldnt see as his back was to me.
“It sure is” I replied as I held it over his head and shook it off the spear. It hit his head, sssllllidddddd around his neck and by the time it got to his legs he knew what it was.
And the moment he realised what it was he panicked. Now I cant swim and I sure had not accounted for this. He was in such as state that he had climbed up on the seat of the 8 foot pram dinghy and his hands were clawing skywards - he seemed to be trying to climb an invisible mast.
He was screaming “Get it out’ get it out”
Before the boat tipped over, and we had drifted into deeper water and as I said - I cant swim, I had to get the eel out so that this rooster with me didnt drown me by tipping the boat over and so heres me in the boat trying to grab the eel. Now the boat had a bit of water in it and a lot of flounders to complicate the exercise and I simply couldnt grab the eel.
So I decided to spear it!
I missed the eel - Have you ever seen a spear go through the bottom of a boat? Have you ever seen what happens when you pull the spear out of the hole? The geyser put old Pohutu Geyser at Rotorua to shame. So here we have eel in bottom of boat, a madman trying to climb an invisible mast, and ‘Old Faithful’ ( Thats the geyser in Jellystone National Park in US where Yogi Bear lives isnt it?) erupting right in the middle of the boat.
Do any of you know what happens to boats with geysers coming up through the hull? The Captain of the Titanic could tell you if you dont know. They fucking well sink. So heres me frantically trying to get the boat back to the shore while the madmans still in a world of insanity and me trying to block the geyser with my foot but forever slipping on the flounders.
Finally the torch beam shows a good spot on the bank to step out of the boat and so I took a step ‘ashore’ right into the reflection of the bank in the water! Wet to up past my waist.
The moral of this story is never get pissed before you go flounder spearing.
You shouldnt have mentioned Eels Keith - you got me started.
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I worked with a guy in Auckland who was stationed out at Motutapu. Boredom inevitably set in so his crew lined the ‘small’ gun up on a bunch of seagulls standing around a bit further away.
They got a Court Martial for it, although the charge was ultimately reduced to “Unsporting Conduct” with fatigues.
Could be a yarn, but knowing him as a character, I wouldn’t be surprised 
theres nothing as good as a good elling story. a couple of beers a good fire on the beach and a nice warm night . of course a good story teller.
that reminds me lammerlaw you are still due for a visit up here. bring your story book .and a box of matches for fire lighting. I think we will need a couple of nights round the fire.
I sure in hell want to but that blasted truck of mine costs two arms and a leg driving anywhere…I have been going to Auckland on the plane because it is too expensive to go up to my place. I do intend getting that way as I often think of you. I dont seem to be up to walking far now days either - my back fence is too far…miracles happen. I still intend and still think that I will get there.
no problems I don’t walk all that far. better buy a landie.
I have got one! It doesnt go far either - about tens years ago it took me to the gate and back - after we managed to get it going - on three cylinders.
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So this is what my NZPAM/MBIE submission looks like, its about solving my current problem (scroll back on this posting thread), but if anyone has something to add or sees holes in my argument I cannot see, I’m happy to add to it. I’ve put it here rather than the gold conversation thread as it relates more to a coil swinger happening upon something than serious dredging and so on.
This submission relates to instances of truly accidental or happenstance gold finds on Crown land or within NZ territorial coastal areas where the ownership is able to be disputed, such as at a beach where it could be posited that a nugget (as opposed to flecks) washed up from, say, a shipwreck or was dropped by a swimmer.
Currently the Crown Minerals Act’s (1991) solution to mineral interests of unknown or disputable origin is to submit the interests to the public trust office and have all interested parties submit applications for consideration of their interest, to the High Court (Crown Minerals Act 1991, 79). However, sometimes a gold find is not of sufficient value to cover even the administrative costs of this process. Being in such a situation first hand, I was once told by NZ PAM to wait and I will be told, making me in effect, guardian of property, under current legislation, of which the ownership is disputable yet it is not cost effective for any party to set about a settlement process, it is unsaleable.
This submission presents two solutions with the intention of closing the current legislative gap and turning a situation where no party wins into one where everyone wins.
Scenario 1.
Finds of a value of less than (a predetermined value that covers admin costs of the Public Trust and High Court processes) go through the normal NZ Police lost and found process, where the finder is given the opportunity to be a legal owner at the completion of the process.
Problems
The NZ Police Lost and Found process is already overtaxed and while it is apparent that some investigative resources have been committed to gold resources of NZ and mining and illegal mining, to focus a resource such as this upon a gold find of $500 or so comes at the cost of attention upon illegal activities that are actually being used to subvert the Anti Money Laundering limits, this is not desirable. An unintended effect is that the rigour of a person’s testimony may also have to be checked creating a tax upon an already over taxed system.
Positive points
An opportunity for ownership, for, for example, those in the hobby of metal detecting, is sufficient motivation, as it is in the case of found jewelry, to be upfront about activities and finds, potentially making the task of identifying illegal activities that much easier.
Scenario 2.
All gold dealers are directed, up to a predetermined (by NZ PAM and based upon research into the amount needed to cover the clause 79 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991 process) amount of grams, to withhold a predetermined percentage of an unprocessed find’s value and are required to give this to the crown and all finders must compulsorily report a find to MBIE/NZ PAM within a set amount of days of identifying that the find was an unprocessed mineral.
Problems
This proposal is a step further than current AML requirements for mineral/gold dealers and may meet with some resistance over associated costs. A percentage of award to Crown and finder will have to be researched and decided upon, though this may not mean diversion of policy research resources as the United Kingdom model has been in practice for some time and can easily be used as a measure.
Positive points
The police lost and found system is relieved of tasks that are, in effect, primarily for legalising a title to an object, yet the records of finds are checkable and available to the policing system and some percentage of a find is awarded to the Crown, as well as the finder.
Scenario Two is preferred and the decision process for a finder should look as follows:
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Actually in Taupo, from an afternoon jaunt with nephew, walkie talkies (useful with 9 year olds in Pak N Save) and a football.
Have been up here previously and gained permission to search along the lake front (it is joint guardianship between Iwi and council and permission took very little), but niece’s swimming effort took us away from participation in this morning’s beach clean up. But attached what I found last year when I went looking with permission, suffice to say they needed the beach clean up.
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