Metal Detecting a 100 Year Old Australian Stone House
Beautiful Turn of the Century Australian Stone House
A few days ago I got permission off a local farmer and his wife to go metal detecting at an old stonehouse on their property, no doubt one of the most beautiful stone houses in the district.
I took a beautiful photo of this house a few months ago, and knew that I’d have to return one day to do some metal detecting for old coins and relics.
So finally I had a day off and eagerly drove out to the house with my E-Trac Metal Detector, Garrett Pro Pin Pointer, my trusty shovel and my sifter and plenty of water, as it was a bloody hot day!
One of my most favourite things to find while metal detecting is old dog licence tags, usually made out of brass.
I have found around 20 of these Dog Licence tags so far, since I started metal detecting, and I hoped to find one today.
These Dog Licence Tags are issued to dog owners, so that if the Dog is found it can be returned to the owner, even today the same thing happens, except the dog licence tags these days are made out of a crappy plastic, not like the good old days when things were made to last.
Well My luck was running high, and just near a old stone shearing shed, I found one with my detector, one of the best ones I have found so far.
1930 - 1931 Dumbleyung Road Board Dog Licence Tag
If you click on the image to the right, you’ll see a bigger and better photo.
This is the first of these tags I have found with a clover leaf design, usually most of the tags I find are in a triangular shape.
I also found a another dog tag just the other day, this one was also really nice, another unique design, and this tag originating from Wagin, some 40km away from Dumbleyung.
I spent around 4 hours at the old house, it was a really good day, nice and peaceful, just how I like it.
I found some really nice coins, and found my first English Farthing, dated 1926.
I also found some pennys, a couple of six pence coins, some nice buckles and other interesting things.
As well as that, I also found a really nice old bottle dump, basically a big pile of dirt, but plenty of signs of really old Marble Bottles, Codds, and other rare bottles… I just wish I had a bobcat or a dingo, if I had one of those, I could get underneath the soil to get the good bottles.
I am actually thinking about hiring one from a local bloke for the day, $250 a day he charges.
Feel free to watch the YouTube Video I made of the day below.
How to clean Silver and Copper Coins
- Very Corroded Australian 1919 Penny – Salt Water Metal Detecting Find
Click to Enlarge
When metal detecting in Rivers, Lakes and the Ocean, I find heaps of coins, and alot of the Coins of Australia I find are Pre-Decimal Australian Coins (Pre 1966 before the Australian Dollar and Cent was introduced and Pounds, Penny, Half Penny, Pence, Shilling, Six Pence and Three pence were removed) These Coins are either Silver such as the Florin, Six Pence and the Three Pence or are Copper, such as the Penny and Half Penny. Silver coins left in Salty or Fresh water for long periods of time do not corrode, but depending on the water movement, whether strong, or calm, these silver coins can still be damaged, such as being washed over the sand and shell grit over and over for many years, this will damage the coin, such as scratching it, wearing the face away, and putting little dings in the coin.
No different really than find a stone in the water which has been worn smooth over thousands of years of rolling in the water, once probably jaggard, now nice and round. Copper Coins left in Salty or Fresh water will definitely corrode, even if left in the water for very short periods of time, corrosion will start almost straight away. With the silver coins I find in the water, most of the time, they are tarnished black, this is a normal process of what happens to silver when left in a moist environment for long periods of time. Coins which have been left in the water for many years can become a home to microscopic crustaceans, shell grit and sand. Below is a photo of a coin which is encrusted with sand and shell grit.
The 1953 Australian Florin Covered in Sand and Shell Grit
Click to Enlarge
To clean the silver coins I find, I usually use three or four steps as follows:
Impatient Coin Cleaning Method
- Soak in hot soapy water for around 24hours
- Start the Electrolysis Coin Cleaning Method / clean with water and use thumb and finger to gently clean coin under running water
- Soak in Ammonia for 24 hours
- clean with silver cleaner and soft cloth
Note: (DO NOT CLEAN COPPER COINS USING THE ABOVE ELECTROLYSIS METHOD YOU WILL DAMAGE THE COIN, USE THE BELOW COIN CLEANING METHOD)
Patient Cleaning Method
Clean Silver or Copper Coins in Olive Oil or Distilled Water
Worn and Damaged 1953 Australian Florin - Swan River Metal Detecting Find - Cleaned using Electrolysis and Amonia Soaking
Click to Enlarge
The above Silver Florin was found by myself metal detecting on the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia.
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
The Coin / Medallion I found under an old house
The Mystery Coin
The other day I wrote about finding some interesting things under an old house (where the floorboards used to be) and said I would reveal what the coin I found was.
Well it is as follows:
Silver Medallion – May 12 1937 To Commemorate the Coronation of their Majesties – Western Australia
Unusual coin / medallion, but it is damaged from being in a high salt soil, but still came up good after cleaning.
Silver Medallion - May 12 1937 To Commemorate the Coronation of their Majesties - Western Australia
Silver Medallion - May 12 1937 To Commemorate the Coronation of their Majesties - Western Australia
Same coin but for sale on Ebay in better condition
Same coin but for sale on Ebay in better condition
No Bull! I found a Bull!
Metal Detecting Find - Old Lead Cow or Bull - Made by Timpo Toys England
Another beautiful day here today, but I forced myself to do some household chores today, washing clothes, watering plants, gardening, and preparing a wooden Jarrah Walkway I am building in my garden this weekend … can’t wait!
After I did all my jobs around the house today, I thought stuff it! I might as well go and do some more metal detecting, seeing as though I had been every day for the last 3 weeks, I might as well do it one more time… and then I am having a break for a few days.
I rang up a local farmer today to see if I could go and do some metal detecting around one of my favourite old abanoned houses in the district, and his wife answered and she said no problems, so I was pretty happy about that.
Old Brick House
The old brick house above is 300 metres from the house I went detecting at today, owned by the same family.
I only had around an hour to detect before the sun went down, so off I went.
My Favourite House in Dumbleyung - Nippering Hill
It overlooks Lake Dumbleyung
As usual … alot of these old house I go to have corrogated sheets of roofing tin laying around the house, due to being blown off the roof by strong wind and storms, and I find this really frustrating, because alot of it is buried, and you have to be careful moving the tin, due to the risk of being bitten by a deadly snake, which may be hiding or living under the tin, and obviously besides being bitten, you are disturbing it’s home, or another animals home, and that’s not the best thing to do.
In an hour of detecting I only found a couple of things worth keeping… enjoy the pics!
I found a 1943 Three Pence and another find to add to my favourites, a kids toy, an old lead Cow or Bull – Made by Timpo Toys England
1943 Australian Three Pence
Metal Detecting Find - Old Lead Cow or Bull - Made by Timpo Toys England
Hidden Treasures Under a House
Under House Metal Detecting Finds
Well not exactly hidden treasure, but I found some nice stuff yesterday at an old house which has no floorboards (eaten away by termites)
I spent around 6 hours detecting yesterday, I went for a long drive as I usually do and love to do, looking for places to go metal detecting and I went to a few old homesteads around the district.
The first one I went to was just basically a very old iron shack, I had no luck there, and did not hang around for long, because the ground was like concrete and impossible to get the shovel in, usually I carry a geologist pick ax, but I keep on forgetting to take with me, as I do with my metal detecting pouch, so at the end of the day my pockets are full of sand.
The Australian Iron Shack
After leaving the old iron shack, I headed East of town to a place where I have been previously hunting for old Australian bottles, feeling alot more confident and excited.
This old place had two old abandoned houses, the first place was very old for Australian standards, probably late 19th Century, it is a mud brick home, very weathered and very damaged by termites and the elements of weather.
The Australian Mud Brick House
Once again that old place had ground like concrete, so I did not really try much detecting, but around 200 metres away was the next old house…. this is the house which gave up some of its hidden treasures.
The house looked pretty good on the outside, but on the inside it was just ball walls, no floorboards due to termites, and as soon as I noticed it had no floorboards, thats when I started feeling a little excited, knowing that there was a good chance to find things that had either been buried under the floorboards, or to find things that may have fallen between the floorboards.
No Floorboards - Treasure Hunters Dream
Mystery Coin in the Sift
So I started detecting and it did not take long to get a strong signal, the soil was beautiful and soft so I had no trouble digging soil into my sift. What I found was a coin of some type which I had never found before, because it was bigger than all the previous Australian Pre-Decimal Coins I had found before, but there was no way I could identify it because it had a big shell of corrosion surrounding it.
I thought the coin would be well and truly damaged from the corrosion, that is only if it was a copper coin, but was it copper?
I leave that surprise to a post tomorrow, because I am still impatiently cleaning this unknown find… so please come back tomorrow and you’ll see my surprise find … (nothing special, but I have never seen one before)
The Mystery Coin Found Under Floorboards
The Mystery Coin above will be revealed on the site soon!
Anyhow, besides that item, this is what I found under the floorboards and around the house:
- 1912 Australian Half Penny
- 1922 Australian Half Penny
- 1925 Australian Half Penny
- 1939 Australian Six Pence
- 1942 Australian Three Pence
The Third House
I did find some other coins, six pence and three pence, but due to my carelessness, I had them in my top pocket and they must have fallen out when I was digging or bending over, but will find them on my return hopefully!
I found other stuff at the house as follows:
- Silver Tea Spoon
- 2 Silver Bangles / Bracelets
- Buttons
- Some Bottles and Jars
- Plenty of Junk!
Will be heading back to that place in the very near future!
Then finally on the way home, I past another old house, and thought, bugger it, I will test my luck there as well!
And I found some more coins.
- 1948 Australian Shilling
- 1950 Australian Shilling
- 1951 Australian Three Pence
- numerous 1 and 2 cent coins
The Last House for the Day!
Yesterdays Church Metal Detecting Coin Finds
Well, here are some close up photos of the coins I found yesterday at an old Metal Detecting at an old Church near my hometown.
Click on the images below to see a good close up photo!
Old Church Metal Detecting Find - 1942 Silver Australian Three Pence
Old Church Metal Detecting Find - 1956 Silver Australian Three Pence
More photos from yesterday:
1955 Silver Australian Three Pence
I would like to say that in 1966 Australia introduced Decimal Currency, so I would say that the above 1966 coins would have been definately sitting under the soil for 43 years.
In 1966, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents. One-dollar coins were introduced in 1984, followed by two-dollar coins in 1988. The one- and two-cent coins were discontinued in 1991 and withdrawn from circulation. Cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents. As with most public changes to currency systems, there has been a great amount of seignorage of the discontinued coins. All coins portray the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, on the obverse, and are produced by the Royal Australian Mint.
Metal Detecting Withdrawal Symptoms Fixed! Silver Ring Found!
Rusty Ring? No - It is Silver and Silver does not Rust! Before after Photos Coming Soon!
Over the last week I have not had any time to go out Metal Detecting, due to the Easter Holidays and spending time with my family, so yesterday it was time for me to go out bush to go and find some stuff before I went crazy as I was seriously having withdrawal symptoms!
Winter is not too far away and the days are getting shorter, so I left around 4pm with a couple of hours to spare until darkness, I decided that I would go out to my towns local Lake, Lake Dumbleyung and to some hunting for possible lost rings!
Anyhow I arrived there, covered myself in some insect repellant, because the flies are really bad out there and off I went.
A friend of mine Tony from Sydney Metal Detector Services gave me a few metal detecting tips for when searching in salt water and very mineralized conditions. I have a Minelab Etrac Metal Detector and I set the detector into the settings he gave me and off I went.
The section of the Lake I went to is the old Water Ski Club, at the moment the Lake is near on dry, but very muddy around 50 metres from the shoreline. I just basically detected around the ski boat ramp area and where people would swim when the Lake is full of water. I found the usual lot of pull tabs, and then a old silver coin, I think it is an Australian Six Pence, so obviously that coin had been sitting in the water for over 40 years.
Then I got my self I nice tone, and dug around, the soil was like brick hard clay, and after around 10 minutes of digging around, I found myself a ring!
I have attached the photos of the Ring, I think it is a Silver Ring, as you can see, the ring is very tarnished, which is to be expected with a Silver Ring laying in Salty conditions for a long period of time. And the same goes with the Silver Six Pence I found.
I also went for a bit of a walk on the salty flats, I was amazed to find a beautiful old glass coca cola bottle just laying half buried on the Lake, so I presume that bottle had been there for at least 25 to 30 years or more, it is obviously a bit weather worn, but other wise in excellent condition, no cracks no chips.
I love finding Old Bottles, that is another hobbie of mine. See my Old Bottle Collection
The Old Australian Glass Coca Cola Bottle I found on the Lake bed
As I mentioned above and you can see in the photos I have attached, both the Silver Ring and the Silver Six Pence are very tarnished, so much so, that you would not know they are silver.
So I have decided to do another Coin Cleaning and Silver Ring Cleaning experiment.
Currently I have both the coin and the ring, soaking in an ice cream container, which I covered the bottom with some foil, placed the ring and the coin on top of the foil, then put around 4 big table spoons of Bicarbonate Soda on top of the ring and the coin. Then I covered the ring and the coin in about 2 litres of boiling hot water.
I will let that soak for 24 hours, then I am going to clean them up in my Lortone Tumbler using some very fine tumbling grit and watch the tumbling very closely so I do not do any damage to the ring and especially the coin, which could be of value.
My Lortone Coin - Rock and Jewellery Tumblers
So I will keep you up to date and post some before and after cleaning photos of the Silver Coin and Silver Ring.
Anyhow, It was great to get out for a couple of hours yesterday, there is nothing better that going metal detecting, it always clears the mind and makes you feel great.
Tarnished Silver Sixpence - You can just see King Edward VII's head! Before - After Cleaning Pics coming soon!
Coins & Silver Ring Found in Salt Laden Mud
I went back out to the local Lake yesterday with the aim of possibly finding another Ring or two. This time I carried out a proper Metal Detecting grid search of a small area where there was likely a lot of human activity when the Lake had water in it, water skiing, swimming, sunbathing etc
The area I searched was not the same area where I did a quick 15 minute search and found the Lost Gold Wedding Ring five days ago, so I decided I would try my luck in a different area, and come back to the “Gold Ring Area” another time.
I came a bit more prepared this time, I brought with me some insect repellent, to stave off the annoying flys that bite, it only helped a little, and these flys are the worse I have encounted, they would even bite through my BeautUtes.com Chesty Bonds Singlet, they must have mosquito like fangs! I ended up rubbing insect repellent all over my singlet and decided next time I will come even more prepared … with a long sleeve shirt!
Anyhow I knew I would find myself some coins, obviously lost out of swimmers pockets, I also knew that the coins I would find would be severely covered in corrosion from the salty environment the coins had been laying in for anywhere up from 5 years to up to 50 years or more.
So I ended up finding around 10 coins, and I have not got a clue what the coins exactly are, such as Pre-Decimal Australian Coins (Pennys, Shillings, Six Pence ) (Prior 1965) or Post-Decimal Australian Coins (5, 10, 20, 50 Cent Coins) (Post 1966) because as you can see in the photos below the coins a surrounded by a shell of corrosion, and no doubt are damaged beyond repair.
I was also happy when I found a nice Silver Ring, possibly another Lost male or female wedding ring, not really that sure, but nethertheless another nice ring to add to my collection of Western Australian lost and found rings to write about on this Metal Detecting Blog!
So after finding this stuff with my metal detector I have decided to do some experimental “Coin Cleaning, and I found this great coin cleaning link and I currently have the coins soaking in Distilled Water as per instructions below:
Distilled Water Coin Cleaning
Technique:
One of the gentlest methods of cleaning coins is using distilled water (DW) soaks. This requires that you soak the coin for 24 hours remove the coin and gently scrub the coin with a soft toothbrush. Change the water and then repeat until the coin is clean.Theory:
Distilled water contains almost no dissolved minerals. When you put a coin in DW the minerals on the coin transfer to the water until the DW is saturated with minerals.
Good Candidates
See other Coin Cleaning Methods
It will be interesting to see what the results are, I will keep you all updated on this.
As I say, it is highly likely that none of the coins will be unidentifiable due to the corrosion.
The 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent coins are made of cupro-nickel (75 per cent copper and 25 per cent nickel). The one and two dollar coins are made of aluminium bronze (92 per cent copper, 6 per cent aluminium and 2 per cent nickel). These coins will corrode slowly in a salt laden environment such as the lake I found them in or in the Ocean.
The Australian Pre-Decimal Penny and Half-Penny is made out of copper and will corrode very quickly in salty enviroments.
The Australian Six Pence, Three Pence, and Shilling are made out of pure silver.
A commonly asked question: Does Silver rust?
Silver will react to salty soil and water and can suffer from sulphide related tarnish. 80% of the lost silver rings I have recovered from the ocean have suffered from tarnish, but a bit of silvo or silver polish will bring the ring back to it’s former glory.
I once found two Australian Silver Six Pence coins in the ocean, those coins were in a shell of rust, and when I cracked open the shell, inside the silver coins were like brand knew.
Read more on Australias’ Salinity Crisis
Stay tuned for before and after photos of the coins and the silver ring!
Here are the photos of the coins and the ring I found yesterday
Billy - Toto - Ginger - Metal Detecting at Lake Dumbleyung Western Australia
Coin suffering from Corrosion - Australian Pre-Decimal Penny?
Australian Coin with major Corrosion
The Silver Ring Found in Salt Lake - Major Tarnish - Nil Corrosion
