There were also some diamonds the biggest was just a shade over 1 carat. These totals were from hitting all the beaches we dove in the fall, usually 4 spots. The most we ever recovered was a bit over 15 ounces. Most of it was 14 karat so at todays prices that's $1800.

There were 4 public beaches on Long Island we hit every year for about 6 years running and the least we ever recovered was just under 7 ounces of jewelery. We usually did it after the summer busy season when the beach was empty in october or november. The trick is to do it on a dead calm day when there is no surf to toss the floating dredge around. The sand and small stuff falls back to the bottom and the jewelery and rocks and stones are retained in a screen. By using an underwater metal detector you find the line the pieces lie in and suck them up with the dredge. The surf action on the beach, over time deposits all of the denser materials, jewelery, small stones, and garnet sand, in a line parallel to the beach. Alot of people loose jewelery at the beach, I guess a combination of suntan oil and water helps. The dredge was used to pick up lost jewelery which is in the sand just offshore in the surf line. It's amazing what goes through your mind when you are in a total blackout and you're sticking your arms elbow deep into black ooze! While it did work, it was an intensive project. I had the dredge because I used it to recover lost jewelry from ocean beaches so it didn't cost me to try it.

It worked well for me but I'm a diver and it's not possible to do this from anywhere but directly on the bottom! If you are not a diver and not comfortable working by feel in zero visibility (I dove for 30 years in New york) you should rethink this. The coin dredge is a 4' dredge made to recover lost coins and jewelery and you work it as you swim along using the air supply from the dredge compressor.

The coin dredge is made to float over you while you are dredging and return the silty water back to where it was sucked up from, not good in our case, but you can extend the discharge and use the dredge to pump out a pipe which I hung over the dam. I used a dredge called a coin dredge made by keene. I removed 6' of muck from the bottom of my pond but mine is much smaller.

How much do small dredges cost