5/11/19 Report - Pre-Columbian(?) Coin Found in Utah. WWII and Bullet Finds. Neat Sight Find.

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

Source: DailyMail - See Dailymail.com link below.

A visitor to Glen Canyon Recreational Area in Utah found two coins: one dated to around 1660 and the other is now thought to date to the 13th century, but that has not been confirmed.

The article ponders how the old coins, seemingly from a period prior to the earliest known Spanish presence in the area and Columbus' arrival in the Americas, could have been lost there. Here is a little of the discussion.

'It would be very strange, in a genuine early modern deposit, to have coins from such widely separated periods,' he said.

'These would not have been in circulation at the same time in Spain. With no further context, it is more likely that they are a modern loss: Basically dropped by a coin collector.

'This is not necessarily as unlikely as it sounds. A 19th-century shipwreck off the south coast of England was found to be full of ancient and medieval coins from the Mediterranean..

You can't assume that every time an old item is found that it was lost a long time ago.

One thing that is often forgotten is that, people did not dispose of things as quickly as we do today. Items were repaired or repurposed for decades or centuries. They didn't just discard old items and run out to the store and buy a new one that would last for only a short time.

The article leaves our a lot but is well worth reading (critically).  The article at one point suggests that the "coins" are Pre-Columbian, but only one of the two are.

Here is the link that was submitted by Dean R.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7009641/Mystery-Spanish-coins-Utah-desert-predate-Columbus-200-years.html

Thanks Dean.

---

Variety of Bullets Found on the Treasure Coast Beaches.

A few days I posted some pictures of small copper finds that could be bullets or shells. I discussed some of the helpful ideas about the identify of those items, and just received another email on the subject.

Steve M, said, These are 50 caliber machine gun bullets from 1943 (See photo below.). We find a fair amount of these on the West Coast as there was a lot of training going on here then. These were both found same day about 50’ apart in the deep sand in the water. The outer casing or jacket is copper the inside is cast iron. It usually looks like the crusty one. You can see on the one that has just a tiny bit of corrosion that there is a hole at the back. That is why the crusty ones have that big glob of rust there. Those could’ve bullets. Just the copper parts and they could have actually hit something solid. 

50 Caliber Bullets.

Photo by Steve M.

Steve sent a couple other photos of these types of bullets, but you can see the hole in the back of the copper shell of the bullet shown above. It does look a lot like the melted or exploded ones that I posted (below).

Previously Posted Copper Finds.

These were found in the same areas as some of the black powder gun parts that I found.  It looks like another example of the intermingling of items from different periods.

Thanks to Steve and all the others who provided help in identifying the exploded copper finds.

---

Here is a really neat find.  It is a sight-find made by Dustin L.

Bird Band.

Find and Photo by Dustin L.

Dustin L. said, Pretty neat find I thought I'd share. It was a sight find I found walking in a burnt field. It's a bird band with tag number. I contacted the federal government and was able to find out the type of bird and when and where it was tagged.

This belonged to a Cormorant that was tagged in 1984 in Canada. Anyhow, I thought it was neat. 

Very cool find Dustin.  Really good that you were able to get the information.

I once found a bird tag with my metal detector that was still on the leg bone.  It was on Key Biscayne.  As I recall I had a lot of trouble tracking down the information, but finally got it.  And again, if I correctly recall, it was from an egret that was tagged in North Carolina.  

---

Bruce B. said, My parents had a couple of deer skin coats made by the Sioux in the 1940s, and it looks like the same material in the photo. 

Thanks Bruce.  I think that could be right.  It looks and feels like it to me, now that you mention it.

---

It looks like we'll have nothing more than a two foot surf for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/22/15 Report - One Hunt: Strategy And Results. Two Gold Rings In Two Hours On A Poor Beach.

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.



Two Gold Bands Found
On The Treasure Coast Yesterday

I often talk about having more than one detector and selecting the one to use based upon your strategy.   Yesterday, like every other day that I hunt, I did that.

First came an assessment of conditions.  Here is what I considered.    On the Treasure Coast beach conditions have been poor lately.  The surf has usually been not big but not smooth either.   There have been many tourists in the area as well as locals enjoying spring break on the beaches.

The day before yesterday I went by some of the beaches but didn't detect.  I had other things to do, but I noticed where the people were.  I noticed one beach that was particularly jammed. 

Even though water hunting generally produces more gold per hour and wet sand can be very productive when conditions are right, I decided to hunt the dry sand where the people were.

My first consideration was beach conditions.  Another consideration was that I didn't have a lot of time and didn't feel like driving to a more promising beach where the conditions might be better and the finds might be higher quality.   So I narrowed it down to a few beaches that were close by, and selected one that I haven't hunted very often but where I saw a lot of beach goers the day before.

Then it was time to decide on a strategy and select a detector.   Just to give a couple of examples, I could select a simple target ID detector or a deeper seeking detector.   Of course you can have various combinations other than these two extremes, but I want to keep it simple here.

So one strategy would be to quickly skim a large area for recent drops.  Another would be to go for deep small gold that might have been missed by others.

Due to the fact that there have been so many detectorists on the popular and easy beaches lately, I didn't expect a large number of good targets.   I expected most targets to be recent drops, but there might also be a few small and deep targets remaining.

I decided to go with the deep-seeking PI detector.   Many people say they would never do that in the dry sand due to the amount of trash you will have to deal with.  Some beaches are pretty clean now.  Not even much trash remaining.

I was right about one thing.  The beach had been heavily worked- even more than I expected.  The area in front of the parking lot was pretty much cleaned out.  Somebody must have been there yesterday evening or early in the morning.   There was little trash, though some, and the surface clad had been removed.

There were however some recently dropped coins to the South of the area in front of the parking lot.

It takes a while to clean out an area of that size and when it is very clean there is usually at least one person that detects the area daily plus a few more detectorists that hit it once in a while.

I did a loose pattern scan to see if the area was clean and to identify how far the cleaned area might extend.  During my analysis, I considered what kinds of things, including trash, remained.  In this case the cleaned out area did have some foil remaining, a few pieces of small iron, and a few bottle caps.

One thing that I especially noticed is that there was foil down several inches.  Most junk foil will be near the surface.  But that also told me there might be deep gold that was missed.

As quickly as possible I did my analysis and identified the boundaries of the area that was cleaned out.   The really clean area, not surprisingly, was the area right in front of the parking lot.  That is very often the case.

I went just south of that and started to find a few scattered bright shiny recently dropped coins.  That area had been hunted some, but not as recently, and it was not completely cleaned out.

After hitting a few shiny clad, a small signal turned out to be a 14K ring down several inches.   I continued hunting south and hit another similar looking band, only this time it was 10K.  I soon called it quits. 

What I wanted to illustrate today is how you might analyze a situation and select a strategy for a particular hunt.  I hope that gives you some ideas about how to approach different situations.  There are a number of factors to take into account. 

In this case, it appeared that most good surface targets had been removed.  My strategy of going deep paid off in this case.

------

Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide.

The beach above isn't as bad as many you'll see on the Treasure Coast right now. 

The surf should be small enough to do some water hunting -  only one or two feet Sunday.  The trouble is that in many areas there is too much sand.  It is not easy to find a good water hunting area now with all the sand near shore.

At least one beach had some shells and a good number of fossil pieces recently.  Also a little seas glass.

With the vernal equinox and the negative low tides, you'd think you could find some decent dips in the water somewhere, but the best dips that I've seen are still sandy.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net