Most know whatever gets dropped underwater is gone, never to be seen again. Gold and silver get burried in the sand fast, so do large items that get dropped in the muck or out deeper than most people will dive down and try to find.
I use a Fisher CZ-21 and the people that swig Fishers know that a bell tone is an overload signal. That means the target is too big to identify. I LOVE those signals. Sure most of the time it is a can or a piece of rusted sheet metal. However LOTS of times it is something that was lost or dropped and was never to be seen again like the items I have pictured, boat anchors, tools and other interesting things.
This picture is my favorite overload signals from the last two years. Last year was the WW1 Mark 1 bomb in which I actually found three of them. The year before I found one that was destroyed by the State Police Bomb Squad. I found it in about 4' of water and it was completly buried in the clay and sand except for the top of one fin. This was the very first bomb that was dropped from a bi-plane also.
The round item is a magazine from a Lewis Machine gun. Very first machine gun ever put on an airplane. Sometime before WW1. It still has 6 bullets in it and I never took them out to see the dates on them. Most I find are from 1907 - 1918.
The frst lighter is a Chrysler and the second was made in Siam which was remaned Thiland in 1949.
Then you have the Taurus 357 magnum that was tossed in the lake by its owner. He didn't want to sell it because it was unregestered. So he dumped it. This is my second full real gun and my dive partner also got one the year before last.
The old cars are made in USA and still have the origional rubber tires on them. How long they were underwater is unknown but they are probably from the early 1960's.
Actually the Springfield bayonete wasn't a tone at all. I went to my hunting site in the lake and found my detector dead. I was with my friend Kevin and so instead of staying out I dove to find bottles. I was moving my hands around in the muck and hit it. LOL to see his expression was priceless. Finding something from the 1800's with my hands. I am still hoping there is a rifle down there.
My dream this year is to find a Thompson or a Lewis machine gun that was accidently dropped or ditched in a lake. John Dillinger owned a house on a lake I dive in. Did he or his guests ever toss wepons in the water? Who knows. Were the Lewis machine guns that were first mounted on biplanes secure and none fell off? No idea there either.
Its dreams that keep all of us going. What is your next target going to be. A long lost piece of history, a gold coin, a valuable rare coin.
We all have the oppurtunity to dig up some crazy things. Good luck out there and most of all, have a blast and enjoy the hobby.
