1 Baht from Thailand!

[johnj45586]

I have not been hunting much this week so today I had to have a full day of hunting! I decided on Laguna Beach for the hunt - my first for THing, and a great standby. But before I left I took the 4-leaf clover my wife found in the park earlier this week out of the dictionary where I pressed it and put it on some clear plastic and covered it with packing tape. Now I have a good luck charm to carry in my wallet when I hunt.
I parked above Cliff Drive one street where the parking is free. I walked down the hill and decided to try something I have been wondering about for a couple of months. Laguna has an Art festival every summer. There is one main access to Laguna through Laguna Canyon Road. Along the road near the art festival grounds is a long line of parking meters in dirt. From the road the dirt looks very dry and hard packed. There is no rain in the summer when these meters are used so I guessed the yield would be very low.
But you don't know for sure if you don't check. My wife made a little noise about heading away from the beach for a mile or so. I reminded her we were adventurous treasure hunters.
It turned out the dirt was really sandy. There was a crust of about 1/2 to 1 inch on the top. Once your broke through that the digging was easy - in 90% of the cases. The other 10% the "dirt" was almost sandstone.
I got a respectable number of hits, mostly pennies, but some other value coins too. Along the way I found a coin that I recognized the head, but couldn't place it. I have paper currency with this picture. There are no English characters other than the number "1". Once I got home though it was no problem. I pulled out my money collection and remembered Thailand and the Baht. The coin is one Baht.
I also found one Canadian penny under a meter. After reaching the end of the meters I turned around and checked on the way back. There were a few places that I had marked to take another look at.
One of them was an indication of a quarter. I dug a circular hole (this is bar sandy soil) and the Bullseye kept indicating deeper. I went deeper and finally broke through to a very large empty below. It was obvious the coin was in the side of the hole, but I couldn't retrieve it. If I broke it loose it would fall into the void below. I kicked all the loose dirt around into the hole to try to fill it with no luck. It looked like a bottomless pit. I felt more than a little panic! I gotta fill my holes! This area of the canyon has frequent mud and rock slides. There was a large amount of dried mud a few feet away. I started breaking it loose and feeding it to the hole. Much later I finally had the hole filled to the top. It probably took about 3 cubic feet of dirt to fill a little hole about 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep that I had dug.
Along the way I found a small metal disk (about the size of a dime) that said, "Guarantee Void if Removed". I guess someone has something with a voided guarantee - I hope it didn't break.
When I was passed the festival grounds I crossed the street to hit a few parking meters on that side that were in dirt. I had no luck here. On up the street I stopped in a market to pick up a picnic lunch and we headed for the beach.
At the beach I worked mostly along the boardwalk and bumped into several coins and one really good spill. I also found a nice toy car - Toyota RAV4. I think I might like a real car like this one!
There has been an extreme amount of beach erosion since the last time I was here. Normally the aluminum steps out of the white stone lifeguard station has only 2 or 3 steps exposed. There are now about 10. I know there was a lot of treasure that was washed away when this sand eroded. I know of a couple of gold and a platinum ring that was never found.
There was quite a bit of daylight left when I finished looking along the boardwalk. So I went to the grass by the beach. There are lots and lots of pennies in this area. I decided to try to clean out as many as I could. It would be a lot nicer to hunt this area without the pennies, or at least quite a bit fewer.
I found a pendant in the dirt beneath the grass. It looks like it must be pewter, not silver. I found two more Canadian pennies in the dirt. I found some nickels, dimes and quarters in the dirt too. The beach sand was thinning out of beach goers. When I passed one set of steps down from the boardwalk I told my wife to wait and I went out on the dry sand. I walked over to a place, set the detector down and started looking. I found two tokens of a type I have found before, but in very much better condition.
I went back to the grass and continued picking up pennies and a few other coins.
Along the way I must have picked up 6 pounds of trash (heaviest stuff along the Canyon Road) - I didn't count the number of false targets that represented. But it definitely took its toll on my legs - all that up and down for digging targets.
Altogather today I dug 17 quarters, 30 dimes, 12 nickels, 136 pennies, 3 Canadian pennies, 1 Thai Baht, 2 tokens, 1 pendant, one nice piece of sea glass (very light green), a toy car (1/58 scale) and another PDA stylus (I have a fistfull of these now).
It was a nice full day of fun. The weather is fantastic. There were loads of people at the beach. More came after school and work hours, before sunset. And this is only Laguna Beach.
Happy hunting to all!

[mcgyver]

Sounds like you've had a great day and some interesting finds.I have a few coins from other countries,relatives brought back while in the Armed .More luck to ya buddy. Steve

[Kentfb]

Nice hunt and finds. 4 leaf clover did the trick.

[Dixieldy]

Nice hunt John and a great story to go with it, as usual

[ERnurse]

Wow, nice finds. Love the 4 leaf clover!

[EBCIII]

Very good finds John! I really like the Void if removed. Unique to say the least. Congrats on the hunt, Beale.

[Buster]

John, good hunt...the 4 leaf clover might have helped a little, but maybe not....nice to find those...You always find some the good stuff every time you both go out......glad you got to get out hunting..Buster....

[Hank McMauser]

Man your clad count for one day is higher than mine for a month combined way to go John
Hank

['E']

Another good day out, John, now THAT'S the amount of clad I want to be finding at our beaches here this summer.

[Mr. HalfDime]

Those are some cool finds, especially the coin from Thailand. I have only found a few foreign coins and two of them were Reales from spain. Again, cool finds! Take care and HH!

Fox