New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

haha bugger on the last comment bout ya dredge Lammerlaw!! Hate those days!

Absolutely brilliant reading and info so far and man do i love those old history pieces and the fact you have them documented so well...

bout time you shared some of your finds with us all and a few more yarns wouldn't go astray either lol

keep it coming man...great stuff!

fantastic pis graham..good to see some of your stuff on here....LOVE the guns/riffles...keep em coming mate.

I never kept much of a photographic record but the underwater dredge I used this last weekend is the one shown under the water in the photo

http://img.photobucket.c...he1960s.jpg?t=1222727247

You can see the dredge between the two men in the water - it is the one I still use so its around upward of fifty years old. I do have some but dont know how to use this scanner so will try to take photos of the photos...if that makes sense. It was rare of me to take a camera as I was too rough on gear for the survival rate of a camera to be more than the first half hour of a trip - I left photos to others. I did borrow my wifes new Pentax once - it went swimming and died the New Zealand death - drowning.

Bugger I would have loved to go!!! I had one of those yearly cycle things where people give you presents and cake - We were out all day.
No church for me. I don't believe that you need to go to a particular place to worship, I would like to think that a belief in a greater power and what I believe to be a good set of morals should be enough in this day and age but just in case I'll ask my brother (He's a Pastor) to put in a few good words for us, maybe a few words for your dredge as well.

If you decide to go again please let me know even if it's during the week. I'm more than happy to carry gear and I'm pretty handy with cable ties if anything should break *8^)

Another couple of items

The first gun - the one in the case is an Otago goldfield gun - it would have been carried by a well to do miner, a fellow who had money and came from a family who was not short of cash. In all possibility a latter son, not the first - the reason being that the older son would in all likelihood take over the family property while the others would be assisted to find a future elsewhere. Many became adventurures, travelled, went to the gold fields. This gun is an expensive one and not only that but is also in a presentation case with the escutcheon on the case marked with the initials of the perosn who presented it and the person to whom it was presented - a corresponding silver shield is set into the butt.
It is an 1854 Adams .44 revolver - much superior to the Colts - it comes with all accessories.
The larger gun was found in the Canadian outback and would have likewise been carried by someone with money as it is also an expensive top quality gun. It is a Tranter but in .50 calibre - a hand cannon. Tranter and Adams were very much similar and their was a working relationship between them.

Both guns were the best available without question and were popular on the gold fields.
It is a matter of interest that the British made .50 Dragoon pistols because they found that natives who got worked up into an adrenaline rush frenzy often didnt go down to the standard light calibre guns like the .44 so the British made .50 calibre to counter act that - .44s for white men and .50s adrenaline junkies.

The smaller gun has a scarce Braziers Patent ramrod - this ramrod is number just over 1000 and is the only four figured ramrod I have ever heard of - they are very scarce. The gun came from an old Otago collection predating the time when guns were imported to satisfy collector demand so it is indeed a pioneer gun.

Edited by user Sunday, 22 January 2012 8:10:14 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Lammerlaw,

I really liked your photos as I enjoy collecting gold relics also. I started by collecting minerals and got interested in gold by collecting quartz from the old Martha mine dump long before they turned it into a big hole (not that you could see any gold in the quartz but very unusual stuff) and then turned to gold related items-though nothing like what you have-just scales etc.

If you are ever passing through Wellington you might be interested in the BNZ museum on Waterloo Quay -the museum itself is not that great but there is a small gold exhibit including a colt revolver -model 1862 police colt engraved BNZ with a case and all associated equipment and from Thames-made me want one.
Was up in Coromandel at the weekend and also felt I needed a small gold stamper battery like the one in front of the Coromandel museum!!!!wouldnt be popular with my better half.

According to the dragon I have a house load of junk - I do have a fair bit of stuff floating about I suppose - I like having toys - when I was a kid I played with things and I still do.
I daresay they would be OK on pigs - the big one anyway. Funny you ask that as I was in Waimate about fifteen years ago talking to a friend of mine and he brought out a cased revolver that looked as though it had been tormented a bit during its long life...the accessories were all gone but it still had a couple of paper cartridges plus a lot of conical projectiles and a lot of scrap paper from old paper cartridges. When I asked my cobber where he got it he said that an old pig hunter down south - Tuatapere way - used it on Pigs - he pulled two paper cartridges apart and emptied the powder from both into one chamber then placed in one of the projectiles and bang! Awfully expensive pigs because those old original Eley paper cartridges are highly collectible - the sale of two paper cartridges would have got him a bullet mould and a can of black powder and tin of percussion caps!

I have always wanted to blast a pig with a Snider - maybe one day...I also want to get one with the Sharps but have to get shells for it first.

Edited by user Friday, 2 December 2011 10:59:25 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Sorry about that-i know what it is like missing out on Trade me items. I suppose a special licence is needed to keep one as I am very tempted myself if one turns up?

The old Martha mine was, from very failing memory, level with where the pump house has been moved to. It is amazing when you look down now and see the old shafts at different levels all the way to the bottom-must have been hardy breed those old miners. i have collected some of the long drill core samples again no visible gold.

The Chinese were great gamblers and the evidence of their interest in gambling has been found over the years around the Chinese camps

The right hand tin contains gambling counters made of glass, half black and the remainder white. It also contains a set of card Chinese dominoes which are more nuerous than the European equivalent and more 'complex' It also contians Chinese coins - many years ago I showed these coins to a Chinese woman whohad just immigrated to New Zealand and she stated that they were far too old to have ever been used in New Zealand but that is simply not correct as they came with Chinese goldfield items from an old Chinese estate I understand. There are also three standard dice made of bone.

The tin on the left is very interesting as it contains a pill bottle - most collectors will tell you that these are opium bottles but that is not correct - a Chinese Doctor friend of mine and leading authority on the Chinese miners of New Zealand has informed me that they are pill and not opium bottles

There is also a piece of red seal material for sealing documents

The two items with Chinese character are however most unusual and very scarce as they are seals from a wealthy Chinese family and it would have been very unusual for wealthy Chinese to be here on the gold fields.

Edited by user Friday, 2 December 2011 8:40:27 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Bought it at auctions and from people - old estates, family stuff and the old name plates and some of the other stuff were gathered by J.A.White the son of the Sandhills dredgemaster and grandson of Aspinal of Skippers canyon. Old Jack gave me all his stuff. I have also found stuff over the years - I have found two caches of miners gear which had been placed under rock overhangs many, many years ago by miners who never retrieved by them.

Edited by user Saturday, 3 December 2011 9:49:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified