Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
A Few Small Foreign Coins Found Using a Metal Detector on Florida Beaches.
These are a few of the modern era foreign coins that I've found on Florida beaches or in the shallow water. Of course the penny is for comparison.
I got these out to do a metal detector test. I wanted to do a video showing how the detector responded to the different coins. They vary quite a bit in composition.
Starting with the top row going left to right, first is the penny, and then a 1 something (I think maybe Kopek) from the CCCP. Next is a 10 Ore, from Sweden, Then a 1 Pfennig from Germany. And 5 French centimes.
In the other row is 25 centimes from Costa Rica, 5 ore from Denmark, 10 pesos from Columbia, and 10 centavos from Argentina.
Obviously metal detecting is a good idea if you are interested in foreign coins. There are some beaches in Florida where you have a lot of international flavor. What better way to introduce young people to geography and foreign languages that looking for foreign coins. Not to mention other topics such as history, numismatics, or metallurgy.
Speaking of metallurgy, you might be able to guess which of these coins would be the hardest to detect.
Here is a good web site for basic research on old and vintage world coins. Recent dates of little value are not included in this database.
http://www.coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins
I mentioned the other day that some coins would not be detected at all by one very popular detector used on the Treasure Coast using a discrimination setting of 1 (lowest). That coin is one of these. See if you can guess which coin would least likely be detected under low discrimination? I'll have a video in a day or two to show you more about that.
I was having all kinds of trouble making that video. The first eight times I shot the sky, my foot and everything but what I wanted. I think I finally got it right though.
I did a search to see if the CCCP coin is a Kopek and found that is what it is.
The 1924 and 25 1 Kopek coins can be worth over a hundred dollars according to at least one web site.
This one is a 1982.
It's always a good idea to check your finds anyhow.
If you want to join Bernie and some of the gang from the St. Lucie Metal Detecting club for a hunt on Saturday give Bernie a call at 786-246-9335.
This is Fort Pierce Jetty Park this morning. All the snowbirds must be loving beautiful Fort Pierce Beach. It was closed this morning. It appears that they are done with dumping sand and are taking the equipment away. I suspect that it will be open this weekend.Speaking of junk - I've never seen our beaches looking worse. There is a lot of sand and seaweed. You can expect that, but the amount of plastic and trash spread around is disgusting. I don't know why that is or who is leaving their trash all over the beach, but it is bad. Some of it probably washed up, but a lot of it was left recently by I don't know who.
If any of you want to send me a photo of how much trash you picked up, I'd be pleased to post it.
It might be a good idea to take a trash bag along with you when you detect. If the other beach-goers aren't going to respect our beaches, the detectorists can set a good example. It might be a good club project.
I picked up a little this morning, but didn't go equipped to pick up the tons of trash that I saw. I thought it was thoroughly disgusting. I'm sure that people don't realize how much trash detectorists remove from the beaches.
The weather is beautiful, but along with being trashy, beach detecting conditions remain poor. There is a lot of seaweed now too. And a few Portuguese Man-O-War (those blue stinging jelly fish).
The surf is a little rough, but not in a way that would cause erosion or any improvement in detecting conditions.
The seas will be decreasing slowly until about Sunday and then start increasing slowly again.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
