Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Each year a celebration is held to commemorate Mel Fisher’s famous 16 year search for the Spanish galleon Atocha which led to a $450 million dollar treasure discovery in the waters just off Key West. Events are scheduled from July 10-13 in Key West.
You can find more information and register for all events at www.MelFisherDays.com
The hidden cash craze has spread to cities across the United States. It seemed to begin in San Francisco where one real estate millionaire hid cash filled envelopes and then provided clues by way of tweets from @HiddenCash. Other cities are now involved, and it now seems that others have taken to hiding cash too.
It might have been started by one person who wanted nothing more than to share some wealth, but I'm sure that it will become a method of advertising or promotion. Below are links to some of the stories on this new craze.
http://article.wn.com/view/2014/05/30/Hidden_Cash_craze_on_Twitter_hits_Tampa/
It was rumored that one place to find hidden cash yesterday (Saturday) was Orlando. Another Florida city was Tampa.
Check out @HiddenCash, as well as @Moolah Mystery.
Here are more links.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Hidden-Cash-Phenomenon-Twitter-Clues-Lead-to-Envelopes-Stuffed-with-Money-444641.shtml
http://globalnews.ca/news/1365351/vancouver-the-latest-city-to-catch-on-to-the-twitter-cashscavenger-hunt/
http://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/05-30-14-company-hides-envelopes-of-cash-in-random-downtown-locales/
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-get-thee-to-hermosa-beach-hiddencash-seekers-20140531-story.html
In the US, credit cards carry a magnetic strip that is easy for criminals to duplicate. Other countries, I understand, use cards that use microchips instead of the magnetic strips The microchips are safer.
Unlike magnetic strip cards that transfer a credit card number when they are swiped at a point-of-sale terminal, chip cards use a one-time code that moves between the chip and the retailer's register. The result is a transfer of data that is useless to anyone except the parties involved. Chip cards, say experts, are also nearly impossible to copy.
I said before that cash is becoming a thing of the past. It might happen sooner than you or I expect.
The other day I said that I don't dig holes in parks or lawns but instead plug or probe and pop the item out of the ground.
Detectorists should never leave a public area leaving signs that they were there - other than the fact the area should be cleaner. And I'd say that real detectorists are pretty good about that. Most of the trouble comes from beginners or people that are just giving treasure hunting a try thinking that they are going to dig up a treasure chest or something and can't tell the difference in signals between a coin and a cannon.
Well, plugging can be abused too. Just yesterday I was watching the TV show Diggers, and one of the fellas on the shows was doing what he called plugging, but the problem was that his "plug" was about a foot square. That is not what I call plugging. When you plug, the objective is to take out a whole plug, about the circumference of the target and not much bigger.
Here is a good article on proper recovery techniques.
http://goldpanprospectors.com/files/METAL_DETECTING_RECOVERY_METHOD11.pdf
Another technique taught in that article is "slitting."
It is important to be very careful about how you recover items. You hear people say that you shouldn't take a knife to a gun fight, well with detecting it is the opposite. Don't take anything bigger than you absolutely need. Take a screw driver instead of a shovel.
I'll tell you a secret here. You don't need a detector to recover an item. It is not necessary to have a detector with you when you remove an item. AND, it is not necessary to have a recovery tool with you when you detect.
I don't know if you realize the value of that statement. I'm sure you didn't hear it before this. If you get what I am saying, it is worth big bucks. I'll give you detailed instructions on that some other time.
The one thing I want to leave you with now is this, leave a site looking better than you found it.
And also don't carry around a shovel or anything larger than necessary in a public place such as a park.
Keep a low profile when detecting.
Today the surf on the Treasure Coast will be up a little, close to four feet. By Tuesday the predictions are saying that we might get something closer to six feet. That is getting in close to a surf that could, depending upon other factors, result in improved detecting conditions. There is a lot of sand that has to be moved though.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net