Best Day.

American Five Dollar Gold Coin and Ring Found with my Nokta Velox One.

 My Best Detecting Day Ever

May 2013 

Detector: Nokta Velox One

What a day. I ventured out after lunch this afternoon and done a good 5 hours detecting on my wooded area. Now I've been there many times and have found decimal coins, as well as a few silver shillings, sixpences, old pennies, halfpennies, etc. This time I had my new Nokta Velox One with me, really just to see if I can fish anything else out,,, but never imagined the day I would have. All I did different apart from having a new machine was to go slowly, 'low and slow' as they say, I kept thinking keep the coil to the soil and boy did it pay off.

After carrying my gear from the car to a spot I haven't been near for a while, I set up and started detecting. First signal was a lovely one, dug it and up pops a £2 coin, a recent loss from a dog walker or rabbit hunter I thought, so a good start.
In between digging up a few bullet shells which you have to dig because of the nice signals and other bits of junk I was finding more decimal coins, some old pennies, half pennies, a threepenny bit and I was enjoying myself. After all, that's only what I was expecting to find. After about 3 hours I got my first silver for the day, the George V sixpence,,,, lovely I thought, to me that was icing on the cake and if i found no more I was happy.
I sat down for a break in the glorious sunshine, had a drink and a smoke and thought to myself this 'low and slow' is paying off and I'll carry on searching this way. After my break I found a couple more coins and started detecting over an area that seemed softer and looked like dried mud. After all the rain we have had this area looked liked it had been flooded.

Anyway, I worked it and after a little while, at the edge of this area I had a lovely signal, oooh I thought, this sounds nice, has to be an old penny. I put my spade in, turned over the turf, and the sight that greeted me I'll never forget. There stuck in the side of the hole and on edge was a golden disc shape. I thought...is it a coin....bleddy looks like a golden coin....I dropped to my knees and peered at it...and I peered some more. The only part of me that had touched it so far was my nose trying to make out the detail on it. My eyesight isn't that good.......First thing I did was to get my phone out and took the photo. I was still not 100% sure it was a coin but the excitement I was feeling I had a job to hold the phone steady to take the shot.

This is the shot I took, never been touched since the day it was lost. (Well, only by my nose).  Its was only about 3-4 inches deep and as you can see it is on its edge.

Now was the time to pick it out with my fingers, YESSSSSS, its a coin and sure looks like gold, 'ell, I was shaking now, a quick wipe and it looked like it had just been minted, super-clean. I laid it on the turf for another shot but its came out with the sun gleaming off it. With it out the ground and cleaner as I said I knew it was a coin, but my heart slumped a bit as I saw it was a foreign coin. I remembered digging a couple of foreign coins before that were just gold coloured. I could read the detail easy as it was in nice condition, could see it was American and there were a lot of American servicemen over here during the war. Being dated 1903 it was old'ish, so I thought its still a nice find even if it wasn't gold. Also I thought being a $5 coin that would be like if we had a £3 coin which beats my £2 coin I found earlier.

Well, after finding that beauty I sat down for another break and just admired it. Lovely looking coin and I think deep down I knew it was gold but at the time I had a niggling doubt. It wasn't till I got home and googled it I knew for sure.

Didn't care now if I didn't find anything else as I was well happy, but thought I'd give it another hour. So off I goes again, 'low and slow'. Picked up the odd penny and it wasn't long before I had another crisp signal. Dug it and out pops a ring...WOW, what a day I'm having,,,,party in my pants time again..During the excitement I forgot to take an 'in situ' shot of it. Cleaned it gently  and could see the top was gold, wasn't sure if the band was silver, looked it but wasn't sure.

After cleaning it at home I found 3 marks on it.  The underside of the gold says 9 CT Gold front.

On one side it says H.G&S.... Found out that stands for HENRY GRIFFITH & SONS.

On another side it has the Lion mark, with what looks like a heart shaped shield, and I think the letter k.

Now I was buzzing, what a day, for some reason the Detecting Gods were happy with me today.
Now I wanted to get home to clean and show off my finds so started to detect back to the car. On the way back I managed to find an odd copper or two but near on the very last signal I dug I turned up a silver George VI shilling.

The two silvers I found were a George V sixpence dated 1930 and a George VI shilling dated 1937. Both in lovely condition.
Below a pic of all the decent finds for the best days detecting I've had to date.