Wednesday, October 2, 2013

10/2/13 Report - Medallion Find, Gold Find, Making Contacts & Always Learning


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


Golfing Collector's Medallion.
Find and Photo by Michael E.

First, here is the TBR FOD (Find of the Day). It was found by Michael E.

Michael developed a connection with a maintenance man at a park and has been hunting the soccer fields.

It is always good to develop connections like that.  They can turn into real opportunities.

Getting to know the life guards can often be helpful.

Michael said he detected about one and a half of six soccer fields in two days.  Being sore from all the digging he has found 2 broken sterling chains, 1 10K ring, a couple silver rings, three junk rings, this medallion and $25 in clad. Still looking for something old.

I used to know a fellow who would often give silver finds to a life guard at one good swimming beach and in return the life guard would give him good information on what he saw during the day.
Cultivating contacts like that can be very helpful.

A quick look at eBay showed that similar medallions generally have an asking price of around six to eighteen dollars.

I have no rules for my FODs.   They won't necessarily be the most expensive or oldest finds, but usually something a little bit unusual, and they'll often be something that helps provides a good clue or tip.

There are a couple of things that you can take from this find.  For example the value of making contacts, and it is also an example of how to find new ground to detect.

Neat find.  Thanks Michael.


I didn't mention this yesterday but the Florida Museum of Natural History seems to be under the budget and control of the University of Florida.  They also use volunteers.

It is a funny coincidence that I presented the results for the poll about museums on the same day that the national parks and museums shut down.


This has been a unusually slow year for me.  The big problem has been that I had a foot injury that lasted a long time because walking in sand would aggravate it.   That was the first time I had an injury that slowed down my detecting so much.   It would get a little better and then I would go to the beach and reaggravate it.  As a result I finally gave in and cut down my beach time and it finally healed.  I'll be able to get out there a little more now.

You can easily miss a good opportunity if you aren't getting out to the beach often.  When you go often, there will be a lot of days when conditions are not good, but you'll also have a good chance of being there when conditions do improve.

This year with my reduced beach time, I did miss one good period when the beach improved, and  I was late to discover it.  That happens, especially when you aren't out there a lot.

I have learned a few things this year.  One is the value of genealogy research.  You can find a lot of leads by researching your family history or the history of other old families of an area.

I also learned something about how treasure is distributed on a beach after the water has been unusually high and how you can find things on the beach long after that has happened.  Unusually high water does not necessarily result in cuts but can still cause the beach to produce older items.
Those unusually high waters seem to smooth out a beach more than create cuts.

You might remember the post where I showed an old button that was found up on the flat beach along with modern beer caps and new pennies.  I believe that the button was thrown up there months earlier during extremely high water and remained there undetected for a pretty long time.  I also believe that if it was at one of the more regularly hunted areas it would have disappeared much sooner.

I'll adjust my beach detecting conditions ratings to take into account what I've learned about that this year.  It seems there is always a lot to learn.

There is still a lot of beach replenishment sand around the Treasure Coast.  Some of that has ruined hunting on some of the beaches.

I've been seeing a lot of turtle nests that were in replenishment sand being washed out.  Of course the turtles build in that sand not knowing that it will soon be washed away.


Thin Light Broken 10K Ring.

Here is a cheap thin 10K ring beach find.  Notice the break in the band.

It is light but anything gold has some decent value these days even if it is broken.

The price of gold was down again yesterday, but still not bad.


The weather has turned nice.  It is not nearly as hot and humid as it was for a while.

The snow birds will be coming back before long and we'll be leaving summer beach conditions behind, hopefully.

As I've said, this was supposed to be an unusually active storm season, but instead it was unusually calm.

Tropical Storm Jerry and that other disturbance down by the Yucatan are still out there in roughly the same positions.  No immediate threat.

Expect a two to three foot surf today, decreasing down to around one foot in a couple of days.  Also the low tides are still fairly high.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net