Updated a few weeks later:

The ring I at first thought was silver turned out to be platinum… the first I’ve ever found! Platinum used to be worth more than gold, but it isn’t at the moment due to the outlandish gold price spike this past year. And the watch really is half an ounce of 9k gold. So… definitely my biggest $$ detecting day this year.

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I had a good day with the metal detector last week. I got a nice silver ring, a variety of coins, and a big old bullet. The bullets and casings are more common than I’d expect. The fishing lure and costume jewelry are always good for a moment’s excitement, but are actually just junk.

In the little baggie is the carcass of an old watch. Here’s what it looked like when it came out of the ground.

When I popped the back off, the movement and dial basically disintegrated.

But with a little cleanup on the caseback and some Googling I’m now pretty confident that this was a 1930s ladies watch sold by Stewart Dawson’s & Co, which was a pretty big brand back in the day and still has quite a few shops around NZ. I found an online picture of a Rolex that looked really similar, and in those days it was common for the retailer to put their name inside the case, so it’s conceivable that it really was a Rolex, but I’m not going to try and research the serial numbers to find out. In pristine condition, such a watch would sell for a little bit at auction. But now it’s just scrap metal.

I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s real (9-karat) gold. Both the caseback and the bracelet clasp are stamped. If so, it’ll be the most valuable thing I’ve found this year. I will go to the pawn shop to get it tested one day soon.