Compass
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Well, I have seen some amazing treasure pulled off the California beaches this past week and at first I was thinking maybe I should have tried some different locations. I didn't find as much gold as some others but two that I did may be the best I have found in a long time- in my eyes anyway.
The beach conditions were a total surprise to me and I think not really expected even by the expert forecasters. I did know that the tides were going to be favorable but certainly didn't know that so much sand was going to be moved in such a short amount of time.
Like others out there, I was fortunate to get in a few hunts during this time. The first was a little disappointing because even though I had over $10 in clad and did a ton of digging I had no silver or gold to show for it. However, the next 3 hunts were much better for jewelry. Here is the best of it:
The larger ring to the left of center was the very last target I found on the second hunt. It was still early in the morning so I couldn't really tell if it was good but it had decent weight and I could see that it had a stamp on the inside of the ring so confidence was high. When I got home I read the markings "750 fj SWISS" and put it on my scale- 13.3 grams of 18K white gold! I would have never guessed that it was that heavy.
Even more surprising was that the jeweler was Furrer Jacot (fj), a jeweler in Switzerland since the 1850's and the ring was pretty pricey considering it has no precious stones in it.
On the 3rd hunt I retrieved a target from the wet sand in the morning darkness. It felt like a heavy metal worm in my hand and it took me a second to realize that I had found a bracelet. I turned on my headlight praying that it would be good and my prayer was answered as I saw the rich luster of yellow gold and gemstones in bezel settings! It wasn't until I got home that I verified that this was another quality piece of jewelry, 8.5 grams of 14 K gold with garnets.
Both the bracelet and the ring from the previous hunt were in such pristine conditions they looked they were recently on the jeweler's shelves. Other than rinsing and using a toothbrush to get the sand out of the crevices neither has been cleaned or polished.
Other than the gold I found some nice silver jewelry. Surprisingly, most of the silver was clean. I suppose they could be fresh drops or were up in the dry sand and got washed down from the heavy surf.
These were surreal, magical hunts- mostly with no one else around on a quiet (except for some fireworks),warm, moonlit beach. I've had these types of hunts before and can never get enough. Thanks for reading, GL&HH!
The beach conditions were a total surprise to me and I think not really expected even by the expert forecasters. I did know that the tides were going to be favorable but certainly didn't know that so much sand was going to be moved in such a short amount of time.
Like others out there, I was fortunate to get in a few hunts during this time. The first was a little disappointing because even though I had over $10 in clad and did a ton of digging I had no silver or gold to show for it. However, the next 3 hunts were much better for jewelry. Here is the best of it:
The larger ring to the left of center was the very last target I found on the second hunt. It was still early in the morning so I couldn't really tell if it was good but it had decent weight and I could see that it had a stamp on the inside of the ring so confidence was high. When I got home I read the markings "750 fj SWISS" and put it on my scale- 13.3 grams of 18K white gold! I would have never guessed that it was that heavy.
Even more surprising was that the jeweler was Furrer Jacot (fj), a jeweler in Switzerland since the 1850's and the ring was pretty pricey considering it has no precious stones in it.
On the 3rd hunt I retrieved a target from the wet sand in the morning darkness. It felt like a heavy metal worm in my hand and it took me a second to realize that I had found a bracelet. I turned on my headlight praying that it would be good and my prayer was answered as I saw the rich luster of yellow gold and gemstones in bezel settings! It wasn't until I got home that I verified that this was another quality piece of jewelry, 8.5 grams of 14 K gold with garnets.
Both the bracelet and the ring from the previous hunt were in such pristine conditions they looked they were recently on the jeweler's shelves. Other than rinsing and using a toothbrush to get the sand out of the crevices neither has been cleaned or polished.
Other than the gold I found some nice silver jewelry. Surprisingly, most of the silver was clean. I suppose they could be fresh drops or were up in the dry sand and got washed down from the heavy surf.
These were surreal, magical hunts- mostly with no one else around on a quiet (except for some fireworks),warm, moonlit beach. I've had these types of hunts before and can never get enough. Thanks for reading, GL&HH!
)
Awesome bracelet too!
