I was eyeing off a very small isolated patch of early reef workings outside Bendigo and each time I drove past had wondered whether they had been detected before, so one day I decided to walk over to the lone mine shafts and detect around them for coins/relics.

I could see a lot of nails and iron rubbish on the surface so I grabbed the minelab E-trac and began detecting around them. Not finding much at all other than iron junk I was about to leave when I got a very strong, high pitch non-ferrous signal. I immediately recognised the signal as potentially a large copper coin and began digging. Within only about 2-3 inches I uncovered the Murray & Christie Castlemaine merchant  penny token in good condition.

I recently found several photos of the original Murray & Christie building in Mostyn Street Castlemaine.

Murray & Christie were ironmongers, and merchants in china and glass ware. I have located several pictures of the store from between 1861 and 1865 and it appears they added a second story to their store in about 1862.

I will update this post shortly with an image of the orginal building.