Metal Detecting an old Western Australian Farm House
Old Western Australian Farmhouse
On the weekend I got permission from a local farmer to do some metal detecting around his old family homestead, which is no longer lived in, it is situated around 20 kilometres from my local town.
So I headed out there in my car excited to be on another metal detecting trip, confident of finding some lost momentos of another era.
On arrival it did not take long for me to find my first old coin, around 2 minutes, so that is always a good boost for confidence when metal detecting, finding something more or less straight away.
I spent a couple hours there, and found a few interesting things to add to my metal detecting collection.
This is what I found
The firm of Thomas Bolton & Sons grew out of a business producing metal buckles into one of the world’s leading wire, especially electrical wire, manufacturers. This article traces the development of the company from its early years in the late 18th century to its takeover by the cable companies in 1961. Important stages in the company’s growth were marked by the introduction of cold drawing and continuous wire drawing to meet the demand for long lengths of high-conductivity, high-tensile-strength copper wire for the telegraph and telephone industries
- Australian 1 & 2 Cent Coins
- 1911 Australian Penny
- 1942 Australian Penny
- 1941 Australian Penny
- Highly Decorated Ladies Victorian Era Broach – Reverse Side Photo
- Victorian Era Necklace Pendant – Made from Lead – Would have previously been painted gold
Highly Decorated Ladies Victorian Era Broach
Thats about all I found at that place, apart from the usual junk, such as pulltabs, aluminum cigarette foil and nails and heaps of lead to add to my lead collection.
There would likely be much more around the place, but as usual with alot of these old houses, they have lost bits of their tin roofs and the ground is heavily littered with tin, metal and much more.
It was a great day and it is always great to bring home a few lost treasures!
Recent Silver Coins Found with Metal Detector
1958 Silver Australian Six Pence
A few days ago I went coin shooting around an old town hall, and managed to find only a couple of coins, the area I searched had recently been graded so I was expecting to find a few more, but only managed two coins.
Here are some photos of the coins after I cleaned them up.
The 1956 Shilling is quite rare, according to BlueSheet.com.au worth $200 plus apparently.
1956 Australian Silver Shilling
1956 Australian Shilling
Attention Australian Bottle Hunters and Coin Shooters!
If you are an avid Australian Bottle Hunter and Coin Shooter like I am, I would like to recommend a couple of great websites that may be of use to you as they are for me.
Bottle Guide Australia
This is a brilliant website for collectors and searchers of Old Bottles, there is nothing better than coming home from a Bottle Hunt and then to bring your old bottles inside, put them on the floor next to your computer and then to do some research on the bottles you have found.
You do a keyword search of the bottle you have found e.g. “Fremantle” and Bottle Guide will present you with a list of all bottles which have Fremantle stamped on them, then you can browse through the photos of bottles listed and find the bottle you have found on the day, if it is on their database, the database will give you information on how much the bottle is worth, the rarity of the bottle, past auction results and prices paid for that bottle. And so much more.
See attached image for an example.
Bottle Information Page on BottleGuide.com.au
BottleGuide.com.au is not free though to search for bottle prices and bottles on their database, it costs $33 AUD for a one year membership, but it is well worth paying that outlay, you can pay via paypal, cheque, credit card or postal order.
I like to also use bottle guide when looking at bottles for sale on Ebay, you can get some great bargains from sellers or are unaware of the bottles value that they are selling.
They currently have over 10,000 bottles on their database.
So if you love bottle hunting, make sure you join bottle guide!
BlueSheet.com.au
The same goes with what I said about Bottle Hunting, I also love coming home with the old coins I have found to see if they have some value to them. So once I sort them, then I go to BlueSheet.com.au and browse through that dates I have found.
This site is great also, before I found BlueSheet.com.au I used to go to a couple of websites which did show current valuations, but their information was out of date, and BlueSheet.com.au coin values are always up to date and accurate.
Highly recommended for coin collectors, coin hunters, or people with a big jar of old Australian Coins laying under their bed!
BlueSheet.com.au cost me $26.95 AUD for a 12 Month Subscription, but they have many more membership options.
BlueSheet.com.au Half-Penny Prices
BlueSheet.com.au specialises in the following Australian Coin Valuations
EARLY AUSTRALIAN COINAGE
NEW SOUTH WALES (1813)
HOLEY DOLLAR (1813)
DUMP (1813)
AUSTRALIAN GOLDADELAIDE ASSAY OFFICE (1852)
ONE POUND (1852)
FIVE POUND (1852)
HALF SOVEREIGN (1853 – 1920)
SYDNEY MINT (1853 – 1869)
YOUNG HEAD (1871 – 1887)
JUBILEE HEAD (1887 – 1893)
OLD HEAD (1893 – 1901)
EDWARD VII (1902 – 1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1920)FULL SOVEREIGN (1853 – 1931)
SYDNEY MINT (1853 – 1870)
YOUNG HEAD (1871 – 1887)
JUBILEE HEAD (1887 – 1893)
OLD HEAD (1893 – 1901)
EDWARD VII (1902 – 1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1931)TWO POUNDS (1887 – 1902)
JUBILEE HEAD (1887)
EDWARD VII (1902)FIVE POUNDS (1887 – 1902)
JUBILEE HEAD (1887)
EDWARD VII (1902)
AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH COINAGE
HALF PENNY (1911 – 1964)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1964)
PENNY (1911 – 1964)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1964)THREEPENCE (1910 – 1964)
EDWARD VII (1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1964)
SIXPENCE (1910 – 1963)
EDWARD VII (1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1963)
SHILLING (1910 – 1963)
EDWARD VII (1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1963)
PATTERN (1927)FLORIN (1910 – 1963)
EDWARD VII (1910)
GEORGE V (1911 – 1936)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1952)
ELIZABETH II (1953 – 1963)COMMEMORATIVES (1927 – 1954)
CROWN (1937 – 1938)
GEORGE VI (1937 – 1938)
KOOKABURRA PATTERNS (1919 – 1921)
HALF PENNY (1920 – 1921)
PENNY (1919 – 1921)
Pennies and Cents
The days are getting shorter here, come around 5.30pm it is nearly dark, so I got in around two hours detecting today before the sun went down.
I went to an old house near town which no one lives in, with the aim of finding some coins to add to my current pre-decimal australian coin collection
There is not much else to find around here unfortunately, this town is not a gold town… the nearest gold from Dumbleyung is around 500 kilometres away, in the gold town of Kalgoorlie, so hopefully one day when I have all the proper gear, I may go out that way detecting.
But it is hard to find gold nuggets these days due to most of the surface gold nuggets having been found throughout Australia and I suppose it is just a matter of knowing where the secret spots are.
I often see quite a few gold nuggets for sale on Ebay, most of which seem to come from the Victora region. Gold seems to be a great investment at the moment due to the current global financial crisis.
So at the moment I am more interested in finding Coins, Jewellery, Relics and even Old Bottles and Jars.
Anyhow in a couple of hours today I found the following coins:
A couple months ago I wrote a post on how I found an ancient abroiginal stone knife well a few days ago I found some more Aboriginal Tools, one of which looks as though it could have been used as a cutting implement such as an axe head …. the reason I know that it is aboriginal is because the stone which I found do not exist in this area, and the stones have been “imported” into the area by aboriginal traders, hundreds if not thousands of years ago.
Aborignal Stone Axe Head or Cutting Stone
Aborignal Stone Axe Head or Cutting Stone
Today’s Old Church Finds using my E-Trac Metal Detector
Todays E-Trac Metal Detecting Finds from a Churchyard
Click on the above image to see a bigger photo
I went shopping today at a town around 100 kilometres from my hometown and also went to visit my Mum who is currently residing at a nursing home.
On the way back, I decided that I would go and visit this old Church which located in the middle of nowhere, it is just a Church around 20 kilometres from my town.
I have been there before Metal Detecting, but I had no luck, also because there were a lot of mosquitos and I took my girlfriend and Mum at the time and they just did not want to hang around, so it was a bit of a rush job.
Anyhow, today I was by myself, so I had plenty of time, at least an hour or two before it got dark. So I detected in the same areas as before, and this time I had some great luck.
Using my Minelab E-Trac Metal Detector, I found 4 Silver Three Pence Coins, one of which I dropped and will have to go back at a later date to find again. Thats the most silver coins I have found in a day, so I am really happy about that.
I also found an Australian Penny, which looks to be damaged from the highly salinity affected soil (Soil Salinity is a major problem in Western Australia)
I also found a couple of 10 Cent Coins, which had been in the ground for quite a while, but finding modern day coins is nothing to show off about, unless you find a hidden stash of them.
And I also found the usual junk.
I am glad I went back to the church for another try, gives me some confidence to go back there again in the near future to try my luck again.
I know of plenty of other Churches around the district which are in the middle of nowhere, so I can’t wait to test my luck on them as well.
Finding the silver coins also gives me the opportunity to give them a clean using my Coin Cleaning Electrolysis Method
