4/29/12 Report - Historical Resource, Disappearing Signals & Increasing Seas

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Three Ounces of Panned Alaska Gold.

First, the big news.  Sunday the seas on the Treasure Coast will be increasing from about three to five feet, reaching a peak of around six feet later Monday.  That isn't quite as much as initially predicted.  The wind will be mostly from the east.  I therefore suspect very little in the way of erosion or improvement in beach conditions.  Certainly not enough to result in an upgrade on my beach conditions rating scale.  It will, however, probably result in enough churning on the front beach to freshen up a few beaches and produce some additional finds, but don't expect old shipwreck cobs.  It just isn't going to do enough for that - just some additional modern era stuff or a few iron or other items.

Seas will remain a little rougher than has been the case for the past few days for about a week.


This is way off of the Treasure Coast, but as I often say, it is good to try different types of hunting because it seems you always learn something that you can use. 

Bob K. sent in the above photo of gold he found in Alaska.  There are places you can go around the country to pan for gold or nugget shoot with your detector.

Bob worked at Chicken Gold Camp in Alaska.

Here is a link that will give you information about Chicken Gold Camp.

http://www.chickengold.com/activities.html

Of course there are other similar places.  You might be surprised to learn that you can pan gold in places as close as Alabama or Georgia.   Look into it if you want to try something a bit different this summer.

Clipped Illustration From 1896 Book Showing Scene From a Seminole War Battle.   (See link below.)

The book is now out of copyright.

A couple of days ago I talked a bit about Micanopy and the history of that area.  James F. sent me a link to a google ebook that was written in 1896 that tells a lot of that history.   I think you'll enjoy reading it.   There is a lot of fascinating Florida history to be found in this book.

Here is that link.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DHcpAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Through+Swamp+and+Glade,+A+Tale+of+the+Seminole+War&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tCqYT8yDBYm00AGt3MCMBw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Through%20Swamp%20and%20Glade%2C%20A%20Tale%20of%20the%20Seminole%20War&f=false


The Maryland Historical Trust and the Navy plan to excavate what they believe to be the wreck of the U.S.S. Scorpion, which was scuttled during the War of 1812.  They plan to use a coffer dam rather than a more traditional approach to create a tourist destination of the wreck.

Here is the link.
http://www.gazette.net/article/20120426/NEWS/704269763/1010/historic-warship-excavation-planned-near-upper-marlboro&template=gazette


I was reading where one detectorist was telling about digging deep coins.  He mentioned that sometimes silver coins would seem to disappear after he dug the hole.  He speculated about the cause of that.  I think he was wrong.

Two of the most likely causes of disappearing signals when digging a deep coin are the following. 

One is that the coin that was originally laying flat and presenting a relatively large surface area to the detector coil, was moved so that it is then standing on edge.   A coin standing on edge will give a much less pronounced signal than a coin laying flat.  Sometimes you will find a coin like that sticking against the side of the hole.

Try this for yourself.  Take a regular coin and lay it flat on the ground and pass your coil over it, and observe the signal.   Then stand the coil on edge and pass your coil over it again.  The standing coin will produce a much reduced signal.  Experiment with that a few times until you become familiar with the signal in each case.

A signal will also disappear sometimes when you don't get the coin in your scoop, and it falls deeper into the hole, sometimes then being deeper than you can detect.  That can be avoided a lot of the time if you pin-point the coin or other object accurately to begin with.

That's all for today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide @comcast.net