Australian Centenary $1

[johnj45586]

Today I planned on searching various grassy areas in Laguna. After parking I walked up Cliff Drive towards the beach. Along the way I realized there were some parking meters in dirt. Not many, but enough to make it interesting. Most of the finds were pennies, but there were a few other coins.
Of interest to those that live in Orange County, CA. A motorcycle cop (that also lives in Laguna Hills, by coincidence) was setting on Cliff Drive looking on the "Y" where Cliff Drive joins the Coast Highway. He watched me digging coins up under the meters for a while, then got bored and left. No hassles.
I next went to the grassy area just north of the lawn bowling facility. This is one of the few grassy areas on the cliff tops that is not fenced off and torn up. Having the little knife that I found at Salt Creek made the hunting much easier. I would find a target with the ACE and if the target showed under 4 inches I would probe the area with the Bullseye pinpointer. This limited how deep I would be digging. I use the knife and fingers to part the grass and many times just pick up or pry out the target. With the target in hand (and no signal in the "hole") I pushed the grass back together and tamped with my knuckles. I finished with a fluff of the grass with my fingers. You cannot detect where I have dug.
This area yielded several pennies, a few coins of other denominations and a small gold band ring. One of the coin finds was a dime that has been hit by a lawnmower. It is going to end up in my dead coin can.
I went on down to Diver's Cove and checked the parking meters - and found a few quarters. I checked other areas around the top of the cliff with not much luck.
I headed back toward Main Beach to hunt the grass area next to the beach. On the way I noticed something ominous! Regular parking meters that take only quarters are being replaced by CREDIT CARD READER meters. This could be a major bummer if it is extended to all the meters in Laguna. I can't tell what the plan is. Meter poles have two meters per pole. In some cases both meters were replaced by card readers, in other cases only one and finally most cases are the old quarter machines.
I also stopped by the change machine. There is a change machine and a pay telephone on a concrete pad with dirt all around. I figured this was going to be a bonanza. Not so. All I found was one penny and one dime.
At main beach I went back to the grassy area close to the lifeguard offices. There is a good sized shade tree there (where I found the ring from India a couple of days ago). I sat my wife down in the shade and went across to coast highway to pick up a picnic for us.
I spent the rest of the hunting day looking around the shade tree. I wasn't able to move very far from it.
One find showed up as a penny, but not very deep. I have been cleaning out pennies near the surface with the hope that deeper pennies will sink away before summer. When I looked I found a thick coin about the size of a quarter. It was about the same size as a Mexican 50 peso coin, but a different color. When I finally got enough dirt wiped off I was looking at an Australian centenary of federation one dollar (2001). It turns out these are 92% copper, which is why the ACE thought it was a BIG penny. At the current exchange rate it is worth about 90 cents.
A little later I had another penny hit that turned out to be a California Adventure flattened penny (it is a Disney Amusement park next door to Disneyland in Anaheim).
I also found a nice metal button and a 3/8 inch drill bit (5 inches long). That was a real puzzler to detect and dig.
I also found 2 circular gold links from something. They are a little over 1/10 inch in diameter. They are really tiny, but they registered loud on the ACE and drove the Bullseye crazy. They were in the grass, not down to the dirt level. It was really tough to find them. With all that noise I was sure it was a big ring. If I wasn't wearing bifocals I probably wouldn't have found them. I looked all around and couldn't find anything that might have hooked to them.
Just before calling it quits for the day I decided to walk the length of the boardwalk and random walk back in the dry sand. I didn't find much of interest. I did find a Super Bowl XLII ring. Sounds good don't it? It is a big red plastic ring with a paper sticker that says Super Bowl XLII.
The majority of the hunt today was in the grass within 20 feet of the shade tree. There are 4 or 5 more grassy areas. One surrounds a couple of basketball courts. I have done a quick scan of this area, hoping for some silver rings and found only pennies.
While hunting on the beach a Laguna Beach policeman came by and expressed little interest. Several lifeguard trucks passed, also without comment. Obviously it is quite alright to hunt and dig in this area. This may be because of the way I dig and replace the grass. The only time I go more than the 2 inches my Bullseye can detect is when I have a definite quarter target or a nickel/pull-tab signal that could be a ring.
Digging the grass is a great supplement to the beach, especially now that the beach has so few good targets.
The clad count for the day was 13 quarters, 19 dimes, 7 nickels and 79 pennies. The small gold band and Australian dollar really put icing on the cake. It is sunny and warm this week - absolutely great for hunting.
Happy hunting to all

[schoser]

good to see you got out there. these new parking meters tell me someday we wont have real money at all...just a number on a screen. hope not! nice finds...well done. cory

[EBCIII]

Hey John it sounds like a good day of hunting! That is a cool looking dollar coin. Congrats on the ring, Beale.

[Lt1stone]

Nice finds John!

[gordiesgirl]

Great finds, Sounds like a great hunt. LOL on the supe bowl ring.

[bdahunter]

Nice Find, always great to see somebody posting gold finds. Is it 10k or 14k, I can't tell from the pic.

Cheers,

BDA

[Dixieldy]

Great finds John. Sounds like you had a wonderful time. Very good clad count as well. I really like the ring and I'm wondering myself what the K is on the ring?

[JCWhite]

Looking forward to see what you find in those next grassy areas. Thanx

[SandSkimmer]

great finds as always HH

jT

['E']

You really picked up a load of goodies there, nice ring & love the coin!!