Found Possible Silver Clump on Southern California Beach.

[Historybuff1959]

I took my V3i out on the beach yesterday since we had a good low tide. Installed the Detech Ultimate to see how it would react on the salty beach. I got a hard VDi 92, 93 reading showing a Coin symbol with a dollar sign and it would periodically show a half dollar. I took it home and cleaned it up and it buffed nice in a corner. I did the ice trick to see if it as silver. The ice melted almost instantly and it got extremely cold fast. Im sure its most likely Silver but I'm unsure of why its the shape it is. It may have a symbol or two on it. Can anyone give me their opinion?

 

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[gollum]

There are a couple of known but not exploited wreck sites close to SoCal Beaches. What beach did you find that on?

Mike

 

[tamrock]

Looks like it's been tumbling in the surf for some time. I can't tell if it's silver, pewter or melted aluminum cans that were thrown in a campfire.

 

[Icewing]

I find similar pieces here in the Ozark Mountains and I can't find anyone who can identify them, so I toss the in a bucket until I do.
My opinion is you have very nice nails, you must be a talented digger.
Fallen astro car parts

 

[Historybuff1959]

South Orange County. I did take it to a pawn shop to verify. And yes its silver. He did say I did the right thing by putting an ice cube to it. The metallurgy of Silver causes the ice cube to rapidly melt while the silver takes on the coldness. It does happen rather fast. Hope this is good info for someone else as well.

 

[Peyton Manning]

does that ice thing work the same for aluminum?

 

[Historybuff1959]

Not sure. I never had to or thought about it. The pawn shop guy had the kit to verify though so Im satisfied. There are a few ship wreck where Im going off the coast. That's actually the reason I went to that area.

 

[Peyton Manning]

I just know that many times I get a silver signal and it turns out aluminum

 

[chris204]

Not sure if you are near san clemente but there is a geology store there and when i find stuff i dont know about i take it there. I have found somthing like that but smaller but have not taken it in yet

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

does that ice thing work the same for aluminum?

Good one

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

South Orange County. I did take it to a pawn shop to verify. And yes its silver. He did say I did the right thing by putting an ice cube to it. The metallurgy of Silver causes the ice cube to rapidly melt while the silver takes on the coldness. It does happen rather fast. Hope this is good info for someone else as well.

How much did he offer you for 1 ounce of silver?

 

[mcl]

does that ice thing work the same for aluminum?

To answer your question Jeff, this is a quick and dirty method that can be useful for determining what something is not. You need to have two very similarly sized/shaped items placed in the same way on very similar shaped pieces of ice, and you need to be careful about handling them prior to doing the test (the less heat you transfer from your hands to the metal, the better). The degree to which this test is useful from a layman's perspective depends upon what you are trying to rule out -- in a lot of cases there are easier tests to do. For instance, it is very easy to tell if something is not made of steel, because steel has very, very low thermal conductivity. In your kitchen, things like aluminum, copper, and silver will all melt ice much faster than steel. It may be difficult to tell the difference between A) nickel, zinc, or tin, and b) steel or iron as they have less a difference in their thermal conductivity. A magnet may be more useful in some of those cases. Alloys of copper will lose a lot of the thermal conductivity of the copper, and so it can even be difficult to use this test to determine whether something is real brass or a base metal (again, magnet might be more useful).

This test could tell you: copper vs copper alloy; silver vs steel/iron/zinc/tin/nickel/others.

It will be more difficult to tell aluminum vs silver (weight is a better test), brass vs non-pure gold (i.e., jewelry). There are a lot of physics that go into this as I understand, and as soon as the temperature of the metal changes upon touching the ice, the conductivity will decrease. Most of the melting useful for this quick and dirty test happens in less than a minute. So there needs to be a big difference between the thermal conductivity of the metals in order to be able to spot a difference.

Hope all that makes sense. For what it's worth I'm not a scientist, this is just my understanding.

 

[gollum]

MCL,

You're right, but I can think of a MUCH easier test for Aluminum vs Silver:

Hold one in each hand. Difference is easy to tell (1 cubic foot of silver= 655.31 pounds / 1 cubic foot of aluminum= 168.56 pounds). HAHAHA

Historybuff1959,

1. There is one ballast pile just South of Dana Harbor. It is an unknown shipwreck, that hasn't been id'ed yet, but its old because ships stopped using stone ballast a loooooooooooong time ago.

2. Near Trestles Beach, there was a shipwreck that had run aground, then floated downcoast a bit before sinking. That spot where the creek runs into Trestles was a pretty well known spot to the Spanish Sailors. It was a stop off spot (supposedly) for the Manilla Galleons, because you could see where the freshwater creek ran into the Pacific (fresh water was extremely important to Colonial Era Sailors). Where the trail goes from the Carl's Jr Parking Lot down to the beach, a local guy has found a ton of Spanish Coins and jewelry in the brush. It appears to be from a wagon spill. Also the remains of two lookout spots were found on the hilltops on the North and South side of San Mateo Canyon (the South Side is on Camp Pendleton).

3. North side of San Diego County is a beach with a lot of bedrock. A surfer stubbed his toe on something under the water. When he reached down to see what it was, he saw a solid gold crucifix wedged into a crack in the rock. It was Spanish in design.

There is also a Cessna off South OC that is fully loaded with pot in plastic bales. Been there many years. The location is not well know. ......and no, I won't tell. Sorry. Not my find, so not mine to share...even if I did know? HAHAHA

Best of luck - Mike

 

[DIGDIG]

Earth magnets and test acids for silver is really inexpensive on EBay, but please no one use them on coins. I am always surprised how much jewelry marked 925 fails the earth magnet test. I got a 18# one (meaning it will lift 18#) with a rubber cap on a key ring, good to have with you but keep it away from electronics and credit cards. The rubber cap does a good job keeping it tame.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

It will be more difficult to tell aluminum vs silver (weight is a better test), brass vs non-pure gold (i.e., jewelry). There are a lot of physics that go into this as I understand, and as soon as the temperature of the metal changes upon touching the ice, the conductivity will decrease. Most of the melting useful for this quick and dirty test happens in less than a minute. So there needs to be a big difference between the thermal conductivity of the metals in order to be able to spot a difference.

Since its difficult to test between silver and aluminum using the ice method, I would say ice is a worthless test for a beginner and a fire nugget. I dont understand why people insist on ice, spit, tinfoil or chlorox testing of silver when a silver test solution is inexpensive and more reliable.

Historybuff, I notice even pawn shops are often unable to test a melted blob of silver. I would not trust their results unless they offered to buy it. I guess its possible to be melted and/or surf worn silver but I would like to know the test method and how much did they offer you?? What percent silver is it?