1/6/18 Report - Metal Detecting A Nicely Shaped Cut: A Case Study. Identifying Patterns and Choosing A Strategy.

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

Cut I Was Talking About Yesterday.

I wanted to talk more about the cut I hunted the other day because even though it didn't produce anything really remarkable, it is a good illustration.  You will never see a  back-beach cut that is more perfectly formed for producing a high concentration of coins.  I won't say it has it all because there is one thing that is missing.

The best back-beach cuts, like this one, have a sizable steep cliff, then below that, a hard packed slant, very often with some black sand, and below that there will be a softer surface that slopes at a less steep angle. You see the first two in the above photo.  I didn't get back far enough to show the third in the photo.  You can expect coins and similar objects to be found very shallow on the hard-packed slope.  You will often see some coins there without detecting or digging.

This particular cut ran maybe fifty yards or a little more.  I thought I took a photo that showed more of it, but can't find it now.

Coins and other things will typically be found running the length of a cut like this.

When I arrived at this beach yesterday, I first looked north, but it didn't look very good.  But then I looked south and saw a more concave beach that had been cut back.  I walked in that direction a short way down and saw the cut at the back of the beach, so I immediately went up to detect in front of the cut.

I was surprised at first.   I didn't find the good concentration of coins that I expected.  In fact there were no coins for maybe the first five or ten yards.  Knowing that there should be a heavy concentration of coins there, I figured that somebody had already detected the cut, which was created probably two or three days before I got there.  There were no foot prints or holes though, so I figured that whoever detected that cut was there before the most recent high tide, which removed their tracks.

One good thing about cuts at the back of the beach is that they will occur when the water is highest and then not fill again right away if the high water slacks off.  They can remain in place for days or more.

After going the first five or ten yards I finally found a nickel, and then another nickel right away, and then shortly after that another nickel.  So now I am sure it had been detected and that the previous person was using discrimination.  When you know what the target distribution should be like, and I did in this case, you can tell if another detectorist had been there and also something about what they did or did not do.

I already made some choices that day.  I passed up one good wreck beach because it didn't look good because I would have had to detect a large area with a small chance of finding anything old.  Conditions there were not great, and I wanted to spend no more than an hour for various reasons that I won't explain now.  I chose the beach where I could dig a number of targets quickly even though they were' probably not going to be real old. 

I said this cut was ideally formed for a high concentration of targets.  I also said that there was something about it that was less than ideal.  The thing that was wrong with it, is that the cut was into recent sand instead of into older layers.  That means that the targets would not be very old, though perhaps with few exceptions.  And that is what I got - modern coins ( and a few other things).

Some of the Coins Dug In Front of The Cut

Notice the nickels.  Those are some of the first targets recovered from this coin line ( Coin line is a term that I "coined" to describe a long narrow distribution of coins as opposed to a coin hole,which refers to a high concentration of coins in more of an oval pattern.)

You can see that after the first three nickels, I started digging other coins.  The area near the beach access was more cleaned out than farther on.  The other detectorist evidently lost interest or got sloppy after a while.

I knew that there should be a high concentration of coin targets as soon as I saw the cut.  I also knew that they would mostly be modern.  I didn't know that someone had detected the area before me but was able to determine that quickly.  I didn't stop when I found that out because when you have so many targets of this kind, people will usually leave some good hunting.  They will usually either cover a small area very carefully or a larger area less carefully.  In one case you can find the areas they missed, and in the other case, you can cover the same area they did but look for the small and deep or otherwise missed targets.

Since I had a very limited amount of time, I decided to go for quantity rather than quality and take a chance on something more interesting being found in with all of the clad coins. If you pick up enough modern targets, you have a good chance of picking up something better.  I found more coins than shown above and a few other things.  Below is one of the targets that was found between the coins.

Thin Gold Chain.

I was lucky to have found such a thin chain because I was skimming pretty fast.

To summarize, this particular cut looked nearly perfect, so I decided to use it as an illustration.  You can often visually identify the best spots on a beach to find concentrations of certain types of targets.  Knowing the likely distribution of targets and comparing that with the actual distribution, you can also often tell if someone has been there before you and make strategy decisions accordingly.  

---

I've received so much good input from readers and had so much to talk about lately that I've been having a hard time deciding what to post and have had to put some things off for days.  That is a good problem.  Thanks to all who have contributed.

We are still having good high and low tides.  That should keep it interesting.  Also expect another increase in the surf next week.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net