4/14/20 Report - Coal Miners Dig Up Roman Era Ships. Demand for Gold and Silver Coins. Counterfeiter Warning. Hiding In Plain Sight.

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

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Coal miners in Serbia recently dug up an unexpected surprise: three probable Roman-era ships, buried in the mud of an ancient riverbed for at least 1,300 years. The largest is a flat-bottomed river vessel 15 meters (49 feet) long, which seems to have been built with Roman techniques. Two smaller boats, each carved out from a single tree trunk, match ancient descriptions of dugout boats used by Slavic groups to row across the Danube River and attack the Roman frontier.

The Kostolac surface mine lies near the ancient Roman city of Viminacium, once a provincial capital and the base for a squadron of Roman warships on the Danube River. When the Roman Empire ruled most of Southern Europe, the Danube or one of its larger branches flowed across the land now occupied by the mine. The three ships lay atop a 15-meter- (49-foot-) deep layer of gravel, buried under seven meters (23 feet) of silt and clay, which preserved them for centuries in remarkably good condition—or did until the miners' earthmoving equipment dug into the steep slope to excavate for the mine...

Although elements of the largest ship's construction are Roman, Korac says those same shipbuilding techniques may also have been used by later Byzantine or medieval shipwrights. Without radiocarbon dating or geological analysis of the sediment layers at the site, it's impossible to be entirely sure when the ships were built. Korac and his colleagues have sent wood samples from preserved oak trees buried nearby to a lab for analysis, but the COVID-19 pandemic has held everything up...

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://medium.com/@yinonweiss/lets-visualize-state-by-state-shutdown-effectiveness-on-covid-19-e13a5cdb50ad

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The price of gold has been increasing daily lately.


The demand for gold and silver composition coins has gone ballistic. Demand is outstripping supply...

Precious metal coins are selling at a premium above their intrinsic value spot price regardless of the collectability of these coins. Truly rare coins are selling for surprisingly strong prices at auctions despite the decline in discretionary money and the consideration that all lot viewing and bidding must be done online. The times are changing for collectors just as much as they are for the general public. It’s a strong market, but be wary of speculation.

Here is that link.

https://www.numismaticnews.net/article/demand-for-gold-and-silver-ballistic

I'm sure you noticed that both of those articles mentioned coronavirus.

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Chinese counterfeiting operations today have the ability to produce hundreds of thousands of various types of U.S. coins per month, and as technology improves so do the counterfeits. In many instances, the quality of the counterfeits has even fooled dealers and seasoned collectors. Counterfeiters have leveraged the web and online marketplaces to sell their wares such as Alibaba.com, Wish, Amazon, and eBay. The ease of access has allowed black marketers and individuals with criminal intent to buy counterfeit coins in bulk quantities at a fraction of the true market value of genuine examples. The counterfeits are then marketed and sold to unsuspecting victims who think they are getting “a good deal.” ...

A “slabbed” (encapsulated) coin has long been the standard-bearer of authentication and certified grading of a coin. A coin slab is simply a hard plastic, tamper-proof case that protects a coin that has been authenticated and graded by a certified professional grading service. Counterfeiters have taken their craft to a new level and are now slabbing their own fakes, along with inserts that include barcodes and certification numbers. Counterfeiters utilize pictures of real slabbed coins from webpages and auction sites to produce exact replicas of key date coins and bullion coins that again can fool a dealer or advanced collector...

Here is that link.

https://www.numismaticnews.net/article/demand-for-gold-and-silver-ballistic

Interesting how things are connected.  Sometimes you don't see the connection.  Sometimes the connection is not obvious.  But in the words of an old song, "One thing leads to another."

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Yesterday I mentioned a little about my background to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.  My academic and research background affects how I look at almost everything - most certainly my hobbies.  So does my nature.

The reason I mention something might not always be obvious, and sometimes I don't point out the connection, but there is usually a reason relevant to metal detecting or treasure hunting that I post something.  There are also times when I just really want to share something that might be funny, touching or important, but those times are relatively rare.  Most of the time there will be a very relevant point.

I don't always point out the connections because I believe that treasure hunters will see the clues and be able to put it together for themselves.

I do want to share one secret with you today.  It is one of those secrets that has been hiding in plain sight.

While everybody is talking about the country being shutdown and opening it up, did you notice that the country is NOT really shutdown - a large part of it is open now.  That includes government, federal, state and local, including large organizations, such as the postal service, but also the military, airlines, railroads, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, construction companies, pawn shops banks, utilities, internet providers, hospitals, nursing homes and healthcare providers to some extent, and others that I've personally observed such as car dealerships, lawn services and home painting and pressure washing, pest exterminators, etc. etc.  Most of those that are for remaining shutdown.  Maybe they made a few adjustments, but hey are going about their work.  If you realize that only a part of the country is shut down, that makes a huge difference.  Only a segment of the population bears the weight of the "shutdown."  And it is not like a light switch must be turned on.  It is more like a dimmer switch that will be adjusted.

There has been heart-breaking illness and death, and I express my deepest sympathies, but there is some small amount of good news too.  Breakthroughs are being made.  Stockpiles have been built up, and vaccines are being developed.

There are also smart creative businesses and people that are adapting and will come out of this better than ever.  Some businesses are seeing what is going on and doing what they need to do.  In some cases it takes only a number of relatively small changes, such as building plastic barriers for store clerks and modifying customer traffic patterns.  Increased remote working and shopping is obvious.  The world will be changed, much of it for the better.  Some people will benefit immensely, while others, unfortunately, will be left behind.

Here is the point.  Like many things, it applies to metal detecting and treasure hunting, but also has a wider application.  The world will not return to how it was before this happened.  It will affect you.  The world will be changed.  How will you change?  What is your vision of what is going on, and how can be you thrive in this changed and changing world?

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I hope you are not developing comorbidities from a new sedentary lifestyle.  But how could you not?

I saw a huge field being plowed up today.  It begged to be searched.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/1/17 Report - Pelican of Piety. Two Finds. Effect of Changing Shoreline and Shifting Sand. High Surf This Week.

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

Source: usedchurchitems.com

Some of the greatest and most meaningful 1715 Fleet finds have been religious items. I found the web site of a company that they are "devoted to preserving Catholic 'Traditional Latin Mass' church items, and invite you to experience the passion and quality of liturgical antiquities from our past."
Here is that link.

http://www.usedchurchitems.com/

One of the items I saw pictured on their web site was the lectern shown at the top of this post.  Look familiar?  It looks very much like the gold pelican of piety found by Bonnie Schubert on the Nieves site.

If you aren't familiar with the pelican of piety you should take a look at my  11/4/12 post in which researcher and author Laura Strolia described the significance of the item.

http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Wabasso/forecasts/latest/six_day

See also the following article describing the original find.

http://archive.tcpalm.com/news/vero-beach-mother-daughter-team-find-solid-gold-bird-statue-from-1715-treasure-fleet-off-fort-pierc--345668992.html

And here is a link that will give you more about the meaning of the pelican in heraldry.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/lcr/fsca/fsca41.htm

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Civil War Bullet and 18K Ring
Find and photo by Duane C.

Duane C. sent the above picture of two finds that he found on the same recent hunt.  That is quite an unusual combination of finds.

Congratulations Duane!

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Brian B. send this link to a good site that gives good surfing and weather information.  Take a look.

http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Wabasso/forecasts/latest/six_day

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I've been talking a lot about the changing shoreline in recent posts.  The movement of sand and other items is something that I've talked about a lot in the past.  It is one of  the most important things for a beach hunter to understand.

As the shoreline changes items will be brought into metal detector range or covered and put out of detector range.  There are some places where you have a more-or-less progressive loss of sand or a progressive accumulation of sand.  Where there is a long-term progressive erosion, you'll have a good shot at finding older items.  These days they do so much beach renourishment that it is not easy to find areas that are continually eroding and uncovering newer materials.

When you get erosion of the back dunes, old items can easily wash out and down onto the beach.  That mostly happens on the narrow beaches with cliffs on the face of the back dunes.

Sometimes coins and things wash up and onto the beach.  I've described how that happens in the past.  However before items can wash up onto the beach, they have to be uncovered.  That might sound obvious enough, but it is important.  As long as items are covered by sand, they aren't going to wash up.  Therefore, when the shoreline is moving east (on the East Coast), more items are being more deeply covered.  That covering of sand will have to be moved before those items can wash up.

One of the things I see on many of the Treasure Coast beaches now is a lot of sand in front of the beach in the shallow water.  Not only does that sand cut the force of the waves before they hit the beach, but it also covers and protects buried items.  If sand is eroded from a beach, it can end up directly in front of the beach and more deeply cover old items there.  You can therefore see a beach that is eroded but find no old coins on the beach because they are deeply buried in the shallow water and also not being washed out of the dunes.  Those are the two main sources of old coins on a beach: those washed up from in front of the beach, and those washed out from the dunes.  A third source includes old coins that were originally deposited when the beach was eroded or previously washed up onto the beach and then subsequently got uncovered before either being dragged out into the water again or getting covered again.

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

This should be an interesting week.  If the predictions are correct, the surf starts to build Sunday then stays high for a few days.  Even if we don't get favorable winds or swells, the surf might be high enough to do some good.

Please add your response to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/14/17 Report - Happy Mother's Day! Fisher Distribution Week. Digital Technology and Treasure Hunting.

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

Happy Mother's Day!  

You can take that lightly, and I suppose that most of us do for a good part of our life, but there is no one else that carried you and gave birth to you or has the same type of feelings for you.  More than likely there is no one that has cared for you or worried for you any more than your mother.  

Time comes and time goes.  In my life, that person that cared for me now needs my help and care.  That person that held my hand when I tried to walk, now needs a hand.   In my later years, I can  look back and see the years and stages in life a little differently, knowing that probably some day not too far away I'll never have a chance to talk to her in this life again.  The person that I depended upon, now depends upon me.  Some things I can't do that I'd like to.  Some I'd like to fix, but can't.  I know she had the same type of wishes for me,  I hope I made her feel that through it all, it turned out pretty good.

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May 2 - 5 was Division Week for investors in the Mel Fisher organization in Key West.  Division Week is when investors received thei split of the previous year's finds.  

The Fisher crews made a few recent finds.  A cannon ball was found on the Margarita site.  An eight reale was also chiseled out of bottom rock.

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After posting a bit about the information war yesterday, I read an article from the New York Times under the headline  Hackers Hit Dozens of Countries Exploiting Stolen N.S.A. Tools

...By late Friday the attacks had spread to more than 74 countries, according to security firms tracking the spread...  Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm, said Russia was the worst-hit, followed by Ukraine, India and Taiwan. Reports of attacks also came from Latin America and Africa.

Elsewhere I read that one Los Angeles hospital paid thousands of dollars o ransom. More from the same article follows.

...Security experts described the attacks as the digital equivalent of a perfect storm. They began with a simple phishing email, similar to the one Russian hackers used in the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other targets last year. They then quickly spread through victims’ systems using a hacking method that the N.S.A. is believed to have developed as part of its arsenal of cyberweapons. And finally they encrypted the computer systems of the victims, locking them out of critical data, including patient records in Britain...

...The attacks on Friday appeared to be the first time a cyberweapon developed by the N.S.A., funded by American taxpayers and stolen by an adversary had been unleashed by cybercriminals against patients, hospitals, businesses, governments and ordinary citizens...

...They also showed how easily a cyberweapon can wreak havoc, even without shutting off a country’s power grid or its cellphone network...

Here is the link to the article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/europe/uk-national-health-service-cyberattack.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

We are all computer users and vulnerable.  You need to be aware of the dangers.  Digital technologies are becoming a bigger part of our lives.  We all need to know something about the new technologies. The very nature of treasure and treasure hunting is changing.

You probably know about Bitcoin.  It is a monetary system in which payments are made and received by transfering units of digital money outside of the national monetary systems.  I can't really explain it well without taking more time so you'll have to look into it yourself if you want to know more about it.  There are no physical coins or bills aassociated with Bitcoin.  It is entirely digital.

As you know, the economy is becoming increasingly digital.  That has a direct impact on how much change you'll find on the beaches.  People carry less cash.  They rely more and more on plastic and other forms of payment.   That affects metal detecting directly and immediately.  In the future it will transform treasure hunting in a variety of ways. Some are predicting that in the not too distant future, coins and cash will not be used at all.

Some detectorists have told me that they find fewer coins on the beach these days because people are carrying less cash.  Some attribute at least part of that to the increase in the number of people detecting.

I mentioned not long ago one place where a lot of old coins were found, and I think it is because that is where parking fees were collected in the old days.  If there were parking meters that required change or if an admission or parking fee required change, you would find more change at that beach.  Also beach snack shops, businesses or concessions would also result in more change being lost on the beach. Less money is being exchanged at places like that now too.

It used to be possible to go out and pick up a couple of dollars of change almost any day on any busy beach.  It seems that is not the case anymore.

Information can be a type of treasure. Computer code can be treasure. Personal information can be treasure.  Pirates sail the web looking to hijack personal information that they can sell.

I feel like talking more about computer security and our nation, but won't do that right now, but treasure hunters do need to be aware of the big picture and what is going on.  It is good to know something about new technologies, including both the benefits and the potential problems.  It is also good to know something about the changes occurring in our culture and lives.

I once did a post about how different cultures wear more or less gold and how that affects the distribution of lost gold jewelry on Florida beaches.  Some groups wear more gold than others, and some groups tend to wear a higher karat gold than others.  I've talked about that in the past.  You can tell a lot about who visits a beach, by what type of jewelry you find there.

Many different types of knowledge are relevant to and can help you with treasure hunting, and treasure hunting can help you learn about a lot of different types of things.  I guess that is what keeps it so interesting for me.

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Next week on the Treasure Coast we're supposed to have a gradual increase to a surf of up to five feet.

Again, Happy Mother's Day.
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/16/15 Report - U. S. Mint Tests Coins Made Of Alternate Materials. Nonsense Pattern Coins. How To Build A Coin Counter & Identifier.

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

Table From U. S. Mint Study Showing Some Of The Metals Tested.
See link below.

The U. S. mint has been conducting studies to decide if U. S. coins could be made more cost-effectively.  After spending money on studies, they concluded that no change should be made now but that more studies should be conducted.

Most studies conclude that there should be more studies.  Why shut down the milk cow?

One of the big obstacles to changing our U. S. coins is the vending business, which would have to change all of their machines if the coins are changed.

Vending machines use both mechanical and electromagnetic methods for identifying coins.

Below is a link giving the results of one of the U. S. mint studies.  Despite the recommendation for no immediate change, it is interesting.  See the above table.

If coins were changed it would also mean that your discrimination settings would be off.  Some metals might make discriminating much more difficult. One metal that was tested but not shown in this table is aluminum.  Also steel and iron.

Here is one link to read about that.

http://www.coinnews.net/2014/12/15/us-mint-not-recommending-new-coin-compositions/

Here is a link to another report on one of the mint's studies.  This one discusses production costs of various alternatives and shows the results of some of their corrosion testing.

Nonsense patterns were used on test coins.  The test coins were made using the standard die striking process.  I wonder if any of the test coins got out of the mint.  One type featured Martha Washington.

I actually found catalog values for a 1759 Martha Washington test coin, which was actually made recently.  I was surprised that they have catalog values since they weren't supposed to leave the mint.  The values weren't extraordinarily high either for something that I would think should be very rare.

Here is a link showing one Martha Washington test coin and some test results.

http://news.coinupdate.com/us-mint-reports-findings-of-alternative-coin-materials-research-1765/

The total number of coins in circulation in the US is estimated as follows.

One-Cent: 240 billion 5-Cent: 29 billion Dime: 44 billion Quarter Dollar: 43 billion Half Dollar: 0.3 billion (from Method # 1 above) Dollar: 9 billion.  Total: 366 billion .


They speculated that of the estimated 366 billion coins in circulation 84% are being hoarded or in some type of storage.  They based their estimates upon data collected by other countries.  

I don't know exactly how  "hoarded" is defined.  I've never seen estimates of the number lost or destroyed by corrosion or whatever.  I bet that number is bigger than they think.  It has to be huge, and detectorists should be thanked for returning many lost coins to circulation.

Here are a number of recommendations offered by the mint.

• Maintain coin dimensions (thickness and diameter) for all future coins regardless of materials of composition since the conversion coins for coin processing equipment would be too large to justify any changes.
• Maintain the current materials of construction for the cent. After accounting for metal and production cost, copper plated steel one-cent coins would offer no cost savings compared to the current composition of copper-plated zinc. Aluminum alloys were fond to jam or destroy coin acceptance or coin handing equipment, removing this composition from consideration.
• Further develop copper based alloys for the composition of the nickel. Although these alloys would not bring costs to parity with face value, they would produce material cost savings. The alloys considered have a yellow cast color or golden hue color. The US Mint would achieve an annual cost savings of up to $16.7 million based on March 2012 metals pricing and 2011 production rates. There would be conversion costs for private sector coin acceptance equipment ranging from an estimated $11.3 million to $56.4 million depending on the alloy selected.
• Consider copper based alloys for use in the dime, quarter dollar, and half dollar coins. The US Mint would achieve an annual cost savings of approximately $2.2 million annually for the quarter dollar and $3.9 million annually for the dime based on March 2012 metal pricing and 2011 production rates. There would be conversion costs for private sector coin acceptance equipment estimated at $9.20 million for the quarter and $6.92 million for the dime. It was noted that one of the copper alloys had a slight yellow cast, which might cause confusion between the quarter and $1 coin.
• Maintain the current composition for the $1 coin, as none of the alternative material costs showed an improvement in cost.
• Continue long range research of surface engineering of zinc or steel for one-cent coin as a useful technology to reduce costs associated with copper plating. The report mentions the example of inexpensive paints or colored particles on bare zinc covered with a wear resistant coating.
• Continue research and development on stainless steel as a potential alternative for lower denomination coins. Also continue development of stainless steel alloys clad to copper alloy for higher denomination coinage to mimic the current electromagnetic signature of the dime, quarter, and half dollar.

My guess is that before we see many changes in our coins they'll go out of use.  I'd say digital.  Something like BitCoin.   There are now vending machines that will let you pay via smartphone.

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I thought you might find the following interesting.  Here is a diagram for a coin identifier and counter such as would be used in one of those coins-for-cash machines you see.

Basic Schematic For Coin Identifier and Counter.
Source: Following link.

The following article explains the diagram and shows you how to build your own coin counter and identifier.

http://www.best-microcontroller-projects.com/coin-detector-and-counter.html

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On the Treasure Coast we'll have a calm surf.  The wind will be changing.  Tomorrow it will becoming from the south.  The low tide is around 11:30 today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net