Metal Detecting

Hi, Just wondering if anyone else is finding random bits of silver - I think we have found three pieces now over the last few days on beaches local to us in South Wales- they are not identifiable as anything other than bits of metal but we have done the foil test and they all smell like sulphur- we have also tried ringing them and they all have a high pitched ring and they also polish up to a high silver sheen- we aren’t finding much else apart from a few coins and a few bits of copper- As complete newbies we aren’t sure if this is normal? We are using a Garrett Ace 150 and it is pinging as coins- thanks for any help!

I wish I was! So they stink of rotten eggs? Properly stink?

Bits of aliminium and other metals can smell a bit sulphur like if you rub them with foil. But only mildly. It would be a very unusual find on a beach

To be honest my nose isnt that great but Aluminium doesn’t appear to ping as coins on our detector when I bench test it- I’ve also polished a fair amount of aluminium in the past and not got a shine like these- they also aren’t soft as I would expect if they are Aluminium-

Some photos may solve the mystery

I’m useless on forums these days- I don’t have an image hosting account so don’t know if it’s possible- can I pm them?

Tomboanddad wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:39 pm I’m useless on forums these days- I don’t have an image hosting account so don’t know if it’s possible- can I pm them?

I’ve messaged you...

Brilliant- thanks x

Having gone through the same process you have many years ago of finding what I thought was silver on the beach I am 95% certian that it's either molten cast pewter or molten aliminium. It's very unlikely to find silver nuggets on the beach unless old trading tokens, but these you can clearly see are molten


I hope I'm wrong though

I pretty sure these aren’t aluminium but I suppose pewter does polish up quite well so more likely- would a jeweller be able to tell the difference??

Scratch it a little and put a drop of strong bleach on it and see if it tarnishes, or get a acid test kit off amazon or take to a jewellers see if they can do it for you. First bit looks like it might have been a spoon maybe at one point

Hi Tomboanddad,

You could try the following simple density test - it should work well to test between aluminium and silver...
Density Test

Fo info, Silver should be about 10.5g/cubic cm
Aluminium should be about 2.7g/cubic cm.

Kind regards,
Matt

p.s. It does look like aluminium - At beaches around Weston-Super-Mare, we are inundated with bits like this from the pier when it burnt down at the end of July 2008. A nightmare as they are highly conductive and do look like silver!

Density Test? is that like the old 11+ we had at school



BM