Weekend Gold and Silver

Found some nice treasure over the weekend. I had ordered a box of half dollars from the bank last week and they turned out pretty good. I found fifteen 40% silvers (1965-1969). That was a nice surprise, the coin roll hunting has been pretty slow of late.

On Sunday, stopped off at a school to wave the metal detector around for a few minutes while on a trip to Lowe's. The wood chips were pretty bleak, 2 dimes and 4 pennies. So I went across the baseball field for a few minutes. We have had so much rain lately, that the conductivity is good, and the digging is easy. I was lucky enough to dig out a nice little 10k ring from 2" deep! Woo-hoo! I knew it was gold as soon as I saw it, and it has a heart-shaped diamond that wouldn't quit sparkling in the sunlight. Unfortunately it is marked CZ after the 10k mark. Oh well, still a keeper and a nice addition to the collection. Aarghh!

Memorial Day Sweepstakes

Here are a few new Summer - oriented sweepstakes with some good prizes.

--McCormick Grill Mates - Daily entry until July 6. One grand prize of a grill, 120 daily prizes of a box of grilling spices.
--McDonald's McCafe Your Day - Daily entry till August 2, Ten winners each week receive a $1000 Visa Gift Card and a $50 McDonald's arch card.
--Land's End Barbados Getaway - Daily entry till May 31. One winner of a week in Barbados, including air. Wait for the plane to fly over the island for the entry form. Nice prize. Make sure you always read contest rules. In this case, retail value is $20,000, depending where you are flying from, which to me is kind of high. Taxes on that would be several thousand. In this case though, the rules say that they are throwing in $5,000 cash, so you could cover the taxes with that. Since it's structured that way, I'd say to go for it. Oh, and you can buy a swimsuit right on the website for your trip. Convenient!

Good luck!
Twincapes

Woodland Things, My Other New Baby

I decided to start a new blog that talks about my efforts at creating a Japanese-style woodland garden. I've been working on it for a few years, bit by bit using scrounged materials and inspiration I've found on the web. I've started trying to take some better nature photos and figured they would fit well there, so voila! its a new blog.
Woodland Things - Feel free to stop by.

Street Silver

I've always said that treasure is where you find it. And so it is. Yesterday I was passing through a bus stop and saw a chain link caught between the slats of a bench. I managed to pull it up with a pen and was rewarded with a broken silver heart chain bracelet. It's marked .925, which means 92.5% pure silver. Treasure!

I also was searching through a few rolls of half dollars that I picked up at the bank, and was rewarded with a 1993-S proof coin. Nice. The only way that could get there is that someone broke open a Proof set from the US Mint and spent it. I'm sure there's a story there. It hasn't been out in circulation long because its in almost perfect condition. Proofs are special coins that are struck on a polished blank so that the surface is like a mirror, with the head kept in a frosted finish. They are really pretty, but hard to photograph. If you ever find one, you'll know it.

Wednesday Winner!

Woo-hoo, I received an email yesterday afternoon that I won a re-usable eHow shopping bag from the eHow "Going Green" contest that they ran during April. 100 winners were selected from thoses that submitted green articles. I think that's win number 10 for the year, thats more than one every 2 weeks. Can't complain about that.

Are Sweepstakers Just Incredibly Lucky?

I was told recently that I am just so lucky, because I've been able to win many things through sweepstaking over the years. As a matter of fact, I've been told that quite a lot. But I'm not, I just work at something that most people think is out of their reach, that is, winning sweepstakes.

It's really quite a thrill to have the Fedex truck stop at your house and deliver a big envelope from a judging agency that you have to sign for. You never know what it could be! I've signed for trips, electronics, cash, and even had to sign for a T-shirt win once (why?). Or you come home from work and find a box waiting on the front step from Arrowhead Lake, Young America, MN or Melville NY. That's where some of the big sweepstakes judging agencies are located. It's like Christmas any day of the year.

But like anything else, it takes work. There are many, many prizes awarded in sweepstakes each year and someone has to win. I research prize structures, closing dates, and entry limits and pick those that are the most winnable. If they are one -entry per person, I enter them also, because I have the same odds of winning as everyone else.

All sweepstakes are longshots, but not as long as the lottery by far. Sweeps are definitely winnable. I keep a binder with all my winning notices in it to keep me going when dry spells come along. Actually, I am on my second binder now, I filled the first one. The prize list includes a truck (won online), a trip to Cancun, a cruise to the Bahamas, VIP trip to the X games in LA, VIP trip to Champions on Ice in Las Vegas, and a couple of smaller trips. Let me tell you that a VIP pass is definitely the way to travel. You are backstage, mingling with the athletes, open bars, free food and transportation, it's fantastic. Something you'd probably never experience except for sweepstaking. Here are 2 articles on the subject to help you get started.

How to Find Winnable Online Sweepstakes - 5 Easy Ways

How to Win Mail in Sweepstakes

So far 2009's been on the slow side, but you never know when the big win is about to arrive. Keep the faith and keep entering.

Twincapes

1000 Coins

Well, I found my 1000th coin of 2009 yesterday and it was a 1964 Canadian penny, oddly enough. I have slowed down a bit this year from last year when I found 4100 coins. I guess i am on pace for about 3000, which is what I found in 2007. So far this year I have found 2 nice gold rings and 2 silver. 34 of the coins were found when just walking around, the rest came via metal detector. That adds up to around $70 so far. It's fun, you never know when a nice piece of jewelry or a ring will pop out of the ground. And the coins add up. I am convinced that there is more money lost or sitting in drawers than is in circulation. Make money by picking up what has been dropped. An interesting concept.

New Sweepstakes for May

Here are some new sweepstakes that offer a good chance to win.

LeCreuset - 100 prizes of a $100 cooking pan. Enter daily until August 4.

The Amazing Avocado - Win a trip to Acapulco or 10 first prizes of $100 worth of avocados or 15 second prizes of an avocado slicer. Daily entry until June 1. Maybe nobody will enter due to the flu, who knows?