5/19/19 Report - 1800-Year-Old Roman Ring Found by Detectorist. T. C. Trinitite Collector. Ink Bottle Finds.

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

1800-Year-Old Roman Victory Ring Found by Detetectorist.

Source: See Bukisa.com link below.

The ring was found at the site where a Roman villa once stood, and was owned by a high-ranking Roman, who has not yet been identified, but the search is on.  The ring will make its home in the British Museum.

John Massey, the detectorist who found this ring, detects with a group know as Detecting for Veterans.  They have made numerous significant finds.  Shown below is one such Roman hoard.

Roman Hoard Found by Veterans for Detecting Group.

Source: Bakisa.com web site.

Here is the link.

https://bukisa.com/articles/1087606_man-uncovers-1800-year-old-roman-ring-but-when-he-looks-closer/

There is more to read and finds to see in that article.

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I received emails in response to both the cannon ball and Atomic melted glass finds that I posted yesterday.  Whether you hunt a lot in the heat of summer or not, it is a good time to keep on learning.  One thing I've learned the hard way is that you should study, catalog and properly store finds as soon as you can.  If you put it off and let the years roll by, you can forget important details.

Scott C., who avidly detects the treasure beaches and often shares with this blog, collects Trinitite.  He sent the following email that elaborates on Trinitite.

Wasn't expecting to see that post, The Hiroshima atomic bomb post with the photos of the melted glass and other melted particles found along the beach. There is so much history held in those glass balls. The Hiroshima atomic bomb was the second of such atomic devices, the first being the Trinity Atomic Test July 16th, 1945 which was developed during the top-secret program called (The Manhattan Project.) Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the program, and worked along side of some of the most brilliant minds of our time. We had to develop these devices before the Germans did as history may well have been re- written if we didn't do so. 


It's a sore subject to many, but the Atomic age did change the world forever and the day it did was July 16th, 1945.

The "Trinitite" which you mentioned in your post was named because of this first atomic bomb test, the bomb itself was named the Gadget, and from this test came "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" and the rest is history.

When the first atomic bomb detonated the blast area instantly vaporized everything within a large radius and sucked everything including sand, iron, copper, instruments, the tower, everything that was in the blast area was sucked up and pulled into an enormous fire-ball, it melted everything including millions of tons of desert sand within a few seconds...this melted sand rained back down to earth as liquid glass landing on the dessert floor and surrounding the entire blast area with a sheet of green glass later to be named Trinitite. This glass still is radioactive to this day...almost 75 years later.

I have been fortunate and one of a few who collects this man-made radioactive mineral/glass, it is a oddity, I have one of the largest collections of a rare variety in the world...it is known as Red Trinitite. Very near ground zero this Red was created by the mix of the copper cabling that held the actual tower and the cables of the actual device itself, this copper was vaporized into molecular form and mixed within the fiery liquid within the fireball and turning and it into a blood red glass, this glass still has the particles of the actual atomic bomb held within it. (Did I say it's still radioactive even after almost 75 years.) (it is safe to handle but use common sense when handling, it it legal to own, sell, but forbidden and against the law to collect today from the actual Trinity site itself, which is open to the public only twice a year, most all the Trinitite was bulldozed and buried back in 1952 at the actual test site and buried by the army.

My Trinitite was collected in 1945 and 46' by one of the scientists who worked for what is now called Sandia National Laboratory.

As a collector I look at the beauty of this glass, it is actually amazing to look at under a microscope, and to photograph. Trinitite glass holds so many interesting visuals and is quite beautiful...the history on how it came to be might be controversial but we cannot ignore many of the benefits that came about from entering the Atomic age. I hope we never repeat a Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or Chernobyl, Fukushima. We must never forget.

After the first atomic test Robert Oppenheimer said this famous quote and I hope it never come true. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac

I guess I can say with all honesty that Trinitite is much unknown and misunderstood by many, it is a man made mineral with an incredible history behind it.

I have a twitter page if you want to see a few examples look under Trinitite Man or @TrinititeMan

PS, I love that cannon ball find, those shell mounds hold some pretty good artifacts.

Keep up the great posts TreasureGuide.

Scott aka Trez

Thanks much Scott!

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I'll have more on the cannon ball tomorrow and other finds down around Jensen.  Today I'll just end by posting some common Treasure Coast glass finds.  Included are three Waterman's ink bottles that I've found.  Similar bottles are still made today even though ink is not used nearly as much, but my impression without really conducting the research is that these ones are from the 40s or 50s.

Waterman's Pen Company was founded by Lewis Edson Waterman in New York City in 1884.  I've found a lot of other ink bottles including an older barrel shaped Waterman's.  I photographed these to add to my Bottle Barn site.

Three Waterman's 2 Oz. Ink Bottles 

of the Same Type Shown From Different Angles.

Bottoms of Same Three Bottles.

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I've noticed that the people that really find a lot never quit reading.  Others come and go with the seasons.

The surf will remain around two feet for a few more days, but the low tides are good and low.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/20/16 Report - More Of The Story of the Handful of Eight Reales. Fiona Still On Track. 9 to 14 Foot Surf Predicted For Treasure Coast.

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

On 8/16/16 I posted the picture below and told about the truly exceptional reales found by Bob M. You just don't find cobs in that kind of condition on a beach very often, and high denomination cobs are very unusual at the beach were they were found.

As great as the find was, I got even more of the story from somebody else that was on the same beach that day when these reales were found.  This additional information made the story even better.

Superior Reales Found by Bob M. After 2003 Storms

Photo submitted by Darrel Strickland

Scott (aka Trez) is the other person that was there that day.  Scott sent me the story as he saw it in an email.  The email follows immediately below.

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I love the photo of all the cobs in Bob's hand.  Here is the story as I remember.   I know Bob would remember it, thats for sure.

I was with him on the beach that day when he found all those cobs.  All came out of a very small area right at the base of a freshly cut dune. That particular day we both were working/walking South along this particular stretch of beach.

We were both be-bopping along for sometime and no one else was there yet just us.  We didn't even know each other.  We may have said hello as we both took off in the same direction along the dune line.  We were just walking/detecting and both trying to get out of each others way I guess.

I would have to stop and dig a target then he would pass by me, then he would stop and dig a target and I would pass by him and so forth and so forth all the way down this stretch of beach. I guess he was the luckier out of the two that day as I stopped to dig a target he passed me and his next target was all those PERFECT FRESHLY MINTED pieces of 8 (if not mistaken they were all 8). I passed him not looking or being nosey as he dug them.  I just moved along thinking to myself damn that guy just scored something good, but at the time didn't know how good...

It wasn't until the high tide started coming back in until we saw each other again.  I had jumped up into the dunes for a break and to keep my Sovereign XS from getting soaked and wave washed.

As I sat, here came Bob, he saw me and I saw him, he stopped and came up into the dune with me,  We finally introduced ourselves to each other and sat and talked about the day.  I brought up the part where he passed me and stopped and dug for awhile.  I had to ask him ok what did you find??? He was super nice, and you could see the surprise and happiness on his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out 8 reales by the handfuls.  These were/are not your typical beach/water reales.  These were FULLY weighted pieces as if they just pulled from the burlap sack and buried in the dune until they would be found again.
They were and still are the finest examples of beach found 8 reales that I (personally) have ever seen come from any of the wreck-site beaches (they are pristine 8s).

Even as I think about them now as I write this, they were incredible coins.
Thank you Bob for letting me hold them, examine them and drool over them.  I have to admit that find still haunts me.

I saw Bob a few times since then but never at the beach, usually unloading his bread truck at a store, but we always said hello to each other.

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Thanks Scott.   You weren't the lucky one to hit those reales. but you had a great experience and helped us all by filling in the details and giving more of the story.

The story I'm talking about isn't just about a find.  It isn't only about coins.  It is about a lot more than that.

I'll start with the coins.  They were forgotten - buried under sand for centuries.  Nobody knew about them after being lost for such a long time.

Those who manufactured them, transported them, valued and expected them, protected them and lost them, saw them differently.  They meant something different to all of those people.

To some, those coins were a heavy burden.  To some they were a curse.  To others they were a highly coveted.  That was the part of the story that happened long ago before the cobs were lost and forgotten.

Then they were found.  The light of human consciousness shined upon them once again, and once again they became something important to somebody again.  They became a part of another story as experienced by Bob and Trez.  In a way, Bob M. brought those coins back to life as they became a part of Bob's and Scott's life.  History was uncovered, and at the same time, history was made.

Unlike the countless grains of sand around him that day, those cobs became very meaningful again.
A coin or artifact has no meaning by itself.

Meaning is a matter of relationships - how an object relates to other objects and to people.  A part of history was recovered and restored.  But just as important, those three hundred year old cobs entered powerfully into the present.

The coins didn't give meaning to Bob.  Bob gave meaning to the coins. Bob M. brought those forgotten coins back to life, but that wasn't the only magic that took place that day.

They became a part of Scott's life too.  He wondered about and then saw the cobs that he missed finding by just a few feet. They became a part of his story.  Because of the story we now know, they have become a part of each of us.

Some of us assimilate it more completely than others.  The story will be more meaningful to some. Some of us will note the extra fine condition of the cobs, and we know how unusual it is to find cobs like that at that particular location because we've hunted there before - some of us many times, so we know the location, the dunes, the sights and normal slope of the beach.  Some readers will carefully note how they were found "right at the base of a freshly cut dune."  Some of us will immediately relate to leap-frogging with another detectorist on a lonely beach, wondering what we missed and then discussing the day standing or sitting at the top of a dune as the water comes in.

I have no doubt that when Bob sat down with Trez, Bob was as eager to show his find as Trez was to see what he might have missed. Maybe you've been there before.

We've all been there. The difference between finding and not finding is very thin.  One step one way or another can make all the difference.  It can be a matter of a foot or even an inch.

Trez didn't lose.  He took a lot away from that day.  And he shared it with us.

There is more than one person in any good story.  No man is an island, just like no object is an island. People have no meaning without relationships, and as the archaeologists always say, objects have no meaning without relationships.

Bob felt the magic when he recovered those cobs, and maybe you felt the magic when you read the story Scott shared with us.  Maybe the picture of those coins excited something in you.  Maybe you could relate to the experiences that Bob and Scott shared.  Maybe it brought back memories for you.

Hundreds of readers have now shared in their story to some extent. They read, looked, wondered, remembered, thought, and felt.  The magic was passed on through the sharing of their story.

Not the end.

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Predicted Track of Fiona
Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Fiona is still heading towards Bermuda.  There is another distubance behind Fiona that has a 10% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours.

We'll have some nice negative tides today.  The surf will remain small for at least a few days.

They are predicting a surf of nine to fourteen feet about nine days from now.  That would be something, but as I've said many times, their longer range surf predictions aren't really that good.  We'll just have to keep watching for a while to see if that is really going to happen.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/30/15 Report - Amazing 1715 Fleet Artifact Found In 1994. July 2015 1715 Fleet Finds by Trez. Steamship George L. Olson.

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

Remains Of Steamship George L. Olson
Source: see scribol.com link.

The Steamship George L. Olson, launched in 1917, collided with another ship and was thrown off course and onto the rocks in 1944. Nobody was injured and the vessel later pulled into the harbour to salvage whatever possible. Some of the ship’s load – lumber – built the Baptist Church in Charleston. Though grounded in late 1944, the George L. Olson had a tendency to pop up over the decades. Storms moved sand off it and uncovered the ship in the ‘60s but once covered again, it was quickly forgotten. When it surfaced again in February 2008, though, it attracted quite a bit of attention.

http://scribol.com/anthropology-and-history/25-objects-devoured-by-sand

This Olson is a part of a list of 25 items devoured by sand.  There are other shipwrecks.  You might enjoy looking at it.

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Aritfact Picture From July 5 Treasure Coast Newspapers.

Yesterday I showed some recent finds made on the Treasure Coast.   On July 5 the Treasure Coast newspapers did an article on the 1715 Fleet and why the Treasure Coast is named the Treasure Coast.  In that article they showed pictures of a few finds, including the "vessel" shown above.

Above is the description the newspaper gave with the item.

 I think you can see it on display at the Mel Fisher Museum in Sebastian.

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You won't want to miss the treasure I'll post tomorrow.

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I've been doing this blog for about seven years now.  That is hard to believe.  When I started, there weren't many others.  Now there are tons of others.

I started with the intention of letting people know when beach conditions were good for finding old shipwreck coins on the Treasure Coast beaches.

I thought that would be helpful, because I used to live down in South Florida and when I got interested in the Treasure Coast shipwrecks, I had to drive up here and the first times I did that I had absolutely no luck.  I thought people would like to know when they had a decent chance of finding cobs and when the chances were poor.

I haven't been posting my conditions ratings very often lately because the conditions have not changed or months and it gets boring posting the same rating day after day after day.

When I started I didn't imagine that so many people would read the blog, but it became popular right away.  I was really surprised.  I had tried a blog on a completely different topic and never got more than a handful of readers, so the success of this blog, blew me away.

I've never done any promotion.  I have no facebook page, twitter, ads or anything to promote the blog.  It has all been done by the readers of this blog via word of mouth.  (Thanks to all of you.)

After a short while I began to post more than my conditions ratings.  And as you know, the blog contains a lot more than the condition ratings, which lately have faded into the background.

Briefly, my Treasure Coast Beach Metal Conditions Rating Scale, as some of you will know, is a five point scale, with 1 indicating poor detecting conditions for finding old shipwreck coins, and 5 indicating excellent conditions.

Just to make it clear, my rating is for beach detecting, not salvage efforts with blowers that produces the kind of thing I posted in my last post.

I haven't had a five rating that I can remember in the seven years, maybe I did have one or two, but a five rating would be something like what you get after a hurricane, which we haven't had for ten years now.

I used to often repeat that I started the five-point scale with a 1 instead of a 0 because there is always some chance, even if it is very small.

Well, Trez proved proved this month that there is always some chance.  His high level of skill and local knowledge increased the chances though.  That is always the case.

Before I get into that, let me thank Trez for correcting an error that I made in my last post,  He pointed out that Potosi did not mint gold coins during the period that would be included in the group of coins that were recently found and that I posted in a photo.  I did see some Lima mint marks.

Here is what Trez said to me in an email.

So far my count for the month 3-1 reales, 5 pieces of lead sheathing w burlap imprint, 1 pot shard w some glaze, 1 small porcelain frag. (my 1715 celebration hunt will cont until the end of the month.) Hope to see you out there sometime. I have always believed and still do, no storm is needed to find 1715 material. It takes 40 plus days of this weather and you will find it, if you are patient.

Again, there is always some chance no matter how poor conditions are.  The chances though, can be very slim.  If you don't have the knowledge, skill and, as Trez points out, patience, you'll be out there for days and scan miles and miles without success.

He has a couple more days of the month to add to his finds too.

I always say those who hunt the most find the most.  Even when pickings are slim, if you stick at it long enough, you'll find something, and you can't tell what it might be.

Trez knows a lot about how to improve his chances.  That is the definition of skill.

Even though old things can be found anytime, even when overall conditions are poor, if beach conditions were better, you would have a much better chance.  To find anything like that now, local knowledge helps a lot.  There are also some things that have been going on lately that open up unique opportunities.  Sometimes those special opportunities have nothing to do with the general beach conditions.

Congratulations Trez, great finds!  A tip of the hat to your skill and patience.

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Talking about the unexpected, my first escudo find was made in the eighties in Dade County.

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Tomorrow I'll talk about "classification" or the sifting and sorting of targets.

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One day remaining on the blog poll.  Your responses are appreciated.

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The surf on the Treasure Coast will be increasing by about a foot for the next few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net