mind you, it’s good to have the story in both languages… 
Not quite on thread, and there are only 4 posts, but this reminded me of the ‘treasures’ I found on the beaches of Charente Maritime with my trusty old metal detector.
I found hundreds of buried bottle caps, rings pulls and other such metal junk which I deposited in waste bins – proper thing to do. And you fill up the holes you dig as well!
I also found rings, bracelets, necklaces, medallions, thimbles, spectacles, old fishing knives, fishing weights, wrist watches, metal toy cars, knives-forks-spoons, war-time bullets, a WW2 prisoner’s ID tag, belt buckles, a heavy metal boule (very deep down!), and coins of many denominations and dates.
My one regret was not being able to return anything to an owner – no one came up to me to ask if I’d found a lost treasure, a wedding ring! No one! But then owners are probably holiday makers and long gone.
There was one consolation. A little French girl aged about 10 came rushing up to me – she had lost one of her silver earrings and asked if I could help her find it. She said she’d lost it while swimming!
My detector was waterproof, so went down under where she thought she’d lost it. Couldn’t find it, but had found earlier, another silver earring, and gave that to her. Might have placated her parents a little!
Jewellery shouldn’t be worn on beaches where you may get wet – throw a beachball and away goes that ID bracelet or ring without you knowing about it. Coins in your trouser pockets – don’t sit down.
Photos of just a few ‘treasures’ found.
Wow! What have you done with them? Kept or sold?
Three years after I stopped metal detecting, I decided to sell the gold rings at auction in La Rochelle. Those in the photo sold for 300 euros, when the price of gold was low!
I felt a bit dismayed when I found one of those gold rings because it was a wedding ring dated the year I found it - might have been lost on honeymoon the day I found it! Knowing more now than I did then I would have taken it to the prefecture. Didn’t trust the gendarmerie in those days.
Most of the silver rings, and all sorts of other rings I found, I gave away to visiting friends or to neighbours.
The rest of the jewellery is still around, somewhere, covered with dust probably!
I also found about £100 pounds worth of French francs, which I took to a bank to hand in soon before the euro took over, but the cashier glared at me saying they were dirty and very rudely walked away! It was also a few minutes before closing time!
I have a couple of big glass jars full of low denomination new francs, old francs, copper napoleon coins, aluminium wartime francs and a few foreign coins. Don’t know what to do with them.