6/22/20 Report - Metal Detecting Clues On Old Postcards. Good Article on Fenn Treasure. Couple Other Things.

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

Newly Found Cream Bottle.

This is a one pint cream bottle.  It would have been nicer if it had the dairy name on it.

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Here is the beginning of a good long article on the Fenn treasure hunt.

Sacha Dent, 39, checked the weather before packing up her bag, preparing for a treasure hunt that could end in a prize of an estimated $2 million. Looking at the radar, checking wind direction, precipitation levels and humidity, Dent took it all into account for her 300 trips into New Mexico's wilderness. After following the temperatures in the mountains for weeks, making sure the ground had thawed out but that the snowmelt wasn't flooding the creeks, she went out to investigate her theory of needing a sunny day to cast her shadow on the hidden treasure.

For more than a decade, treasure estimated to be worth at least $2 million sat tucked away in a crevice of the Rocky Mountains, its location known only to one man until a new pair of eyes glanced quickly down.

Forrest Fenn, an art collector and millionaire, had been diagnosed with kidney cancer in the late 1980s, and doctors' prognosis gave him little chance of beating it. Fenn loaded some of his antiquities on hand into an ornate, antique bronze lockbox of Romanesque design, locking gold, jewels and other artifacts inside. He had originally planned to have his remains interred with the treasure, to be hidden until someone stumbled upon them both...,

And here is the link for the rest of the article.  It is a pretty long article - and interesting.

https://news.yahoo.com/treasure-hunter-used-weather-clues-115957869.html

As I said yesterday, some people are skeptical about the finding of the Fenn treasure.  Hoax or not, a lot of people had a good long treasure hunt out of it.

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Here are a couple mid-20th century postcards showing views of Daytona Beach.  Notice where the cars are parked, the big hotels and sites are, and how wide the beach is.  Those things can all be clues for metal detecting the beach.

The amphitheatre shown below is near the top of the above photo.  In the bottom photo there are it looks like way more cars are parking to the north.  You can also see some nice rips in the beach in the second photo.

Not long ago I received an email from somebody suggesting postcards as a research tool.  You can find pictures of old beaches or locations that were tourists spots in years gone by.  It isn't easy to find a Florida beach that is abandoned today, but there are a few, and there are also beaches that are definitely different today than they were in the past.  Some Florida beaches had casinos in the early 20th century.  Those beaches, when conditions are right, can still turn up some nice old coins and tokens.  When I was detecting Virginia Key it was very much run down. . In the days of segregation is was a colored beach, like John Brooks.  I found a lot of 1940s and 1950s silver coins there along a stretch that was overgrown and abandoned at the time.  Virginia Key has been renovated since then though.  By the way, Virginia Key produced some nice shipwreck items.

On Key Biscayne there was an area that was overgrown and almost nobody detected that part of the beach, yet when it eroded it produced tons of old coins and jewelry.  From old maps and other evidence, I believe that great detecting spot was once a prime area for visitors.

Beaches do change, you can sometimes find coins and things from earlier days where not many people would bother to detect.  Some old areas are not used as much any more, and some busy areas become less favored for one reason or another.  Postcards can show you what was going on at such locations at a given time in the past.  You can sometimes see where snack bars, water sport concessions or volleyball courts were in the past.  You will be able to see where the beach was in the old days.  Both nature and man can change beaches dramatically.

Here is an 1950s  linen postcard that provides some metal detecting clues.  It shows the bridge over the Peace River at Arcadia.  As you know, the Peace River produces a lot of fossils, and as I recently posted, some old Spanish coins as well.  Arcadia is an old town.

The focal point is the bridge, but that isn't the only clue.  A lot of things probably got dropped off the bridge over the years.  Not only can you fossil hunt below the bridge, but you might also magnet fish or look for old bottles and other things under the bridge.  But that there is another clue.

Notice where the person is.  I'd check out that spot too.  It is probably easily accessible and could be an interesting spot to metal detect.  If one person found it attractive, so probably did many others.

There are a lot of ways you might find old postcards useful.  I'll show some other examples in the coming days.

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Sherman W., who did a lot of bottle digging in California, since he came to Florida has been into postcards and recommended Cherryland auctions for that sort of thing, but he'd also like to know if anyone could help him install a part that he received for a Whites metal detector.

Here is what he said.

Well the reason I am sending this note is I have a Whites detector that had a bad connection, i got the part about 2 years ago. i need help putting the thing back togather. do you know anyone here in PSL that can help me? 

If you can help Sherman, please contact him at the following email address.

TheWalners@comcast.net


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There is now a disturbance off of Virginia that has a 40% chance of developing into a cyclone in the next 48 hours.  Tropical disturbances are starting to pop up more frequently these days.

On the Treasure Coast we have a good small summer surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/8/17 Report - Erosion at One Renourished Beach. Ole Timer Talk: Crate of Dishes. Benefit of Reading Broadly.

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

Fort Pierce South Jetty Beach Erosion
Photo by Gaylen C.

You might remember Gaylen's find that looked something like a Marlinespike or maybe an engraving tool.  Galen sent a message and some photos from his hunt yesterday.  Here is what he had to say.

Went back to the same area as my relic find. Found another nail or spike, but it may prove to be fairly modern. Lots of signals. Picked up a few things. The dunes look like this from the south jetty for a long way and then gets a little more slope. High tide was within a foot or so of dune. Really undercut in some places, with lots of sand falling to the foot. Several different layers showing. The piece I got was among larger rocks at the base.

The following photo shows how high the cliff is and the various layers.  Note the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

Thanks for the report and photos Gaylen.

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Brain M. sent the following Ole Timer Talk.

Here is a quick little treasure story that happened to an old friend of mine 20 + years ago on the treasure coast. He was out metal detecting after a storm . Big cut on the beach and if I remember correctly it was at night. He noticed something that stood out as strange. There partially exposed in the wall of the cut was a stack of dishes. He told me when he saw it he figured that someone had a pic-nick back in the 1930’s   and must have left them on the beach. He didn’t mess with them he was looking for coins and metal. Days later he was talking to another treasure hunter and was told of Chinese porcelain dishes were cargo. I don’t remember what dynasty he said it was from. He told me they looked like they were stacked and the crate must have rotted away and left the stack of dishes in the wall of the cut. From what he told me they were worth a fortune had he only known what he was looking at. When he went back the sand was in and the cut was gone. We wonder if they are still there waiting to be found intact or did the incoming sand and surf knock them out and smash them to bits.

We most likely will never know.

Thanks Brian.

A stack of well preserved Kang Hsi porcelain would indeed be worth a lot.

I've been very much surprised by how often I already know something about these accounts that go back twenty years or more or the people involved.

I knew the fellow who found the eight escudo in Clint's account, for example, and I also heard about these plates.  I don't remember now when or where I heard about the plates, but I think I might have even posted something about them in this blog years ago.

The lesson Brian's account provides is that you should get to know as much as you can about various types of treasure so you will recognize them and their possible significance when you see them in the field. There have been a lot of times when I failed to recognize something good.  I regret some of those failures to this day.

One example that came to mind yesterday was the time when I was on Pigeon Island at a battle site from right around 1800 when I dug a rusted twisted piece of metal that I later realized was the hammer from a flintlock.  Right beside that piece was a squared piece of flint.  I can see it in my mind's eye today.  I was hanging on the side of a steep cliff, with an old Tesoro detector, which I fitted out with a short board as a rod stem.  ( The short stem helped since the face of the cliff was right in front of my face.)  I was using a screw driver as a dig tool.

I didn't pay much attention to either the rusted metal item or the flint when I dug them.  I wish I had realized their significance and kept them.  If I found the same items today, I know I would have kept them, and better realizing their significance, I also would have hunted the immediate area more thoroughly to find other pieces of the musket or other items.

It is easy to get so focused on coins or some other particular kind of target that you miss other types of items that can actually be more valuable, not to mention being significant clues.

Those dishes, as Brian pointed out, could have been worth a lot, but they were ignored because of a lack of that realization.  They could have also been a clue that other good things might have been buried in the area.

I didn't know what my first fossil find was, but I kept it.  I just kept it out of curiosity.  I didn't find out what it was until probably at least ten years later.  I undoubtedly passed up other fossil finds before that one, not knowing what they were.

I also failed to recognize the first enameled ring I found from a 1715 Fleet wreck site.  I thought it was modern because I incorrectly thought that enameling was a modern process.  Even though it was gold and very attractive, I didn't pay very much attention to it when I dug it.  I just slipped it into my pocket not thinking much of it because I was targeting shipwreck items.  How wrong I was!

Enameling is actually a very old process.  In fact it is believed to go back to at least the 13th century BC. (See https://www.ganoksin.com/article/earliest-cloisonne-enamels/)

I used to hear people say that if something is plated, it is not hundreds of years old because plating is a fairly modern process.  That might be true of some types of plating, but gold and silver gilding is a very old process.

I think you get the point.  Knowing something about a wide variety of types of objects can be very helpful.  The failure to recognize items you see in the field can be a big mistake.

I'm sure I sometimes talk about items that a lot of people are not interested in.  You might not have any interest in iron artifacts, for example, but those rusted old items might provide important clues to a site and other types of treasure.  They might also hold more economic value than you think. 

You might not be interested in sea glass, but a piece of black glass washed up on a beach might be a good clue to the presence of other historic items nearby.  If you do a lot of reading, you might be better prepared to recognize various kinds of treasure when you see them and be better able to interpret what the item is telling you about the site.

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We're going to be getting a cold front.  The wind will be coming from the north for a couple of days, but the surf will be small.  The tides are pretty good yet.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

8/2/17 Report - New Distrubance Forms In The Gulf. Using Patterns and Technologies for Finding Detecting Sites. Device You Will Want To Have.

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

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

It looks like the Gulf is starting to produce a lot of weather.  We now have a new disturbance in about the same area that Emily formed.  At this point it only has a small chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours, but that is the way Emily started too, and Emily formed very rapidly.  Emily is no longer a tropical storm and is headed out to sea.

There is another disturbance out in the Atlantic, but it is too early to be too concerned about that one.

Expect another week of one and two-foot surf.  The tides aren't big now.

AFTERNOON UPDATE:  Emily and both of the other disturbances have now disappeared.

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When I post links, they usually provide some type of clue or lesson.  That is definitely the case with the next article.  Here is a brief excerpt.


...So Stirn set out to develop a model to predict the location of more, similar villages.

He first determined all of the main traits that the newfound villages had in common — namely, that they were positioned on south-facing, sunny slopes near whitebark pine stands above 3,200 meters in elevation....

I often talk about patterns: weather patterns, beach dynamics, coin distributions, etc.  There are signs or clues to the location of treasures.  It is all about increasing the probability of success by understanding patterns.  

You might occasionally find something by wandering around randomly ( the blind hog occasionally picks up an acorn ), but you'll be much more successful if you recognize the signs or clues and patterns.  Treasure doesn't just fall out of the sky, it ends up where it is found as the result of human behavior and the laws of nature.  People are somewhat predictable, as is nature.  

Patterns can be complex, especially when it comes to treasure, and we seldom get the whole picture, but the more you understand the patterns, the better you will do.

In the article that I am referring to, several signs predicted the location of Native American villages that were previously unknown.  The newly located villages were located on south-facing slopes that were sunny, above 3200 meters of elevation near stands of whitebark pine.

There are signs or patterns that will help you located all kinds of things, such as metal detecting sites, shipwreck sites, coin holes, good jewelry beaches, etc.  I've talked about all of those things in the past.

The particular pattern that you will be looking for depends upon the kinds of sites you want to find and the types of treasures you are hunting.

The article was talking about Native American sites, but there are more general lessons that you can take from it.  Here is another excerpt.

Then, using Landsat satellite imagery, Stirn and his colleagues identified whitebark pine stands in the northern Winds that best fit their model’s description.

Ancient village sites were discovered in Wyoming after scientists predicted where the would be found based upon site characteristics...

They used Landsat satellite imagery to locate the village sites after they knew what to look for.  As I mentioned in a recent post, you can use webcam images to survey beaches, and you can use other internet tools such as Google Earth to locate good detecting sites.

When you make a find, observe where it was found.  Ask yourself why the item was there, how it ended up where it was found, and what are the clues or signs that might have led you to believe that it might be there.

Here is the link to the article I've been talking about.

http://westerndigs.org/thirteen-prehistoric-villages-discovered-in-wyoming-mountains-may-redraw-map-of-tribal-migrations/

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This is an inexpensive device that I've used for a lot of years.  It still works and is very handy.

It is a battery tester and works on batteries of various sizes.  If this one ever quit working I'd get another right away.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/30/16 Report - Why A Thorough Systematic Visual Site Survey Is Recommended For Any Serious Treasure Hunt.

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

I was watching a TV program about a very big treasure and the extensive hunt that has been and is being made to find the treasure.  Sometimes the method used on that extensive long term heavily funded search astounds me.

This is not the kind of treasure hunt that I usually write about, but a discussion of the approach should be useful whether you are hunting a Treasure Coast beach or some other completely different type of place.

First of all, the search I am talking about, although extensive and employing a multitude of "experts" and technologies, has not been very systematic.  It amazes me.

If it was me, the first thing I would do would be a comprehensive visual site survey.  I'd walk the entire area that is accessible and might be of possible relevance.   I would walk the entire area in a purposeful and predetermined pattern or grid  looking for any visual clues or features that could possibly be helpful.  That includes both visible objects and characteristics of the land.  Any possible clues and features would not only be noted but also mapped.  That would be the first step.

It is amazing what you can find by sight.  Ceramics or glass will often be the among the first and most obvious "sight clues" to past human activity.  Shards can often be seen on or near the surface after hundreds of years.  They can be very easy to see and can provide more useful information than you might think.

Detectorists can develop selective blindness.  They are interested in certain types of metal objects and are so determined to avoid what they call "junk" that they can ignore many potentially useful clues.

I've talked about Pigeon Island, for example.  Hundreds of 200-year-old shards littered the island. They weren't evenly spread about.  There were concentrations at certain locations, which is what you would expect, but the point is that they were laying on the surface after hundreds of years and screamed out to anyone that might pay attention that a lot happened there a long time ago.

When you see ceramics, or other surface items, get whatever information you can from them.  Take a good look and see what you can learn from them.  Look for marks.  Look at what they are made of.  Look at the designs.  They can tell you a lot if you study them.

Look for any patterns in how they are distributed.  That can tell you where certain types of things took place.  It can also tell you something about the ground.  Where have things stayed on the surface and where have things piled up or washed away, for example.  It is important to know something about the evolution of the ground.  Where things are found on the surface can tell you something about that.  Has the ground been packed down from usage, such as on a path or other heavily used area?

There are some areas where even light things get deeply buried in a hurry.  In the W. Va. woods that I hunt from time to time, there are areas where the leaves fall and deteriorate every year.  Even light things such as aluminum foil gets buried there.  And old objects of interest are deeply buried so quickly that they are mostly out of detector range there.  You need to know those types of variations and whether it is an area where you'll see near surface items or not.

I get to know the sites that I hunt.  I know where the soil is hard packed from either human activity or nature and where they are not.  That is important and useful information.

An extensive and systematic survey is too useful to be neglected whenever a specific area is going to be seriously hunted, yet the visual site survey would only be my first step. It would guide much of what I would do next.

I always do something of a sitr survey when I visit a beach too.  What does it look like?  What clues are there?  Where is the loose sand and where is the firm sand?  All of those things help determine what I'll do next.

On the TV program that I was watching I was amused as a detectorist walked out and started wandering around like a wild monkey.  And some of the observations were hilarious.  I really enjoyed watching it.  I guess that is what it is all about.  At that rate they'll be able to pick up random finds for several more years.  Makes a good TV program, and it won't come to an end any time soon if that is how they approach it.

You can find something old or interesting almost anywhere.  Most areas are heavily littered.  Some places the items might not be visual and they might not be in detector range, but if you are around area that have been inhabited or used at all, there are plenty of items out there to tell the story.

One of the good things about the Archeaeology of Pensacola book is that it presents a number of tables giving detailed lists of items and features found at various sites.  It gives you a baseline for comparison.  If you archaeologically dig a site, you'll find virtually everything in a well defined area - not just metal, but all kinds of things.  If you are not finding a good representation of the variety of types of objects, there is a reason whether it is selective blindness on the part of the searcher, or the forces of nature shifting and moving things, or the result of human activity.

Just as an example, I was taking a long hike in the Rockies one day and found an old abandoned cabin site.  There was no cabin there anymore.  No boards or anything like that.  The first sign, as is often the case, was surface glass and ceramics.  Then I found a man made depression, about the size of a small cabin.  Then not far off, the remains of an old stove.  I think I mentioned that in this blog at one time.

You'll be able to find things almost anywhere - in the mountains of Colorado, the hills of W. Va., beaches of Florida or islands of the Caribbean.  Even when you don't see them or can't detect them they are probably there.

Finds might or might not be related, but there is a story to be found if you systematically gather the information and analyze it.  A systematic site survey is the best first step.  If you didn't do it first, at least do it.  It will provide a lot of information that will help you develop a conceptual framework for the search.  It will save a lot of time and guide your next steps.

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I might follow up with a description of subsequent steps in future posts.  I think I will go out and take some pictures to illustrate my point.

A cold front came through and it is actually a little chilly this morning.   We'll have some north winds, but not much surf today.  We'll get a little negative tide.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/17/16 - Using Junk And Other Finds As Clues: A Simple Example. Talk To Local Old-Timers. Surf Increasing.

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

Elementary School As Viewed On Google Earth.

Yesterday I said that artifacts are more than objects, and I attempted to illustrate that with an example from my own life.  With that example I wanted to illustrate how personal, meaningful and complex the story of an artifact could be even if it wasn't part of a big event in history.

Today I'll use something very different.  The diagnostic artifacts today are common.  It might be difficult to imagine that there could even be a story connected to these items.

Yesterday I suggested but did not elaborate on the idea that as you attempt to find the story behind an artifact, thinking about the possible story can lead you to more and better finds.  Today's example is very simple and clear, yet in my opinion, instructive.

Take a look at the Google Earth image at the top of the post.  The bottom one fifth of the image is a hill with the higher part at the very bottom of the screen, The hill gets higher as you to from left to right towards the very bottom of the image.  Sorry that isn't more clear.

Lets say I see the school shown above and decide to do a little detecting there.  First of all, I would be ahead of the game if I had done a little research, which would tell me that this school (the main building had only four rooms for eight grades) was in operation back in the 1930s.

If you just wandered around for a while without using too much discrimination, one of the most prominent things you would most likely find would be a very small dense area with a heavy concentration of soda bottle caps.  Not the more modern screw type.

The concentration of bottle caps are indicated by the orange dot on the image below.  Your first reaction, instead of cursing the darned things and turning up your discrimination, might be to wonder what if anything that might tell you.

Same View of Same School Yard With Additional Indicators Added.

What is the age range?  Why are there so many in that one small area?

The light blue line indicates the path of a small stream.  I just wanted to highlight that.

Notice how flat and even that area to the right of the buildings and just below the stream looks.  I'm sorry you can't see the lay of the land better in this illustration.

You keep detecting and run into two areas that are turning up almost exclusively silver coins from the 1950s and a little scattered junk.  The yellow lines indicate where the silver coins were found.

Now you have a heavy concentration of soda bottle caps and two areas where silver coins were located.  Have you figured it out yet?

That flat area was once a baseball field.  There is no longer any obvious sign of the baseball field, and trees have grown in what was once left field.

Below I've outlined in white where the baseball field and the infield was.  There were benches and a backstop, both of which are now gone.

Same View But Now Showing Outline of Baseball Field.

I actually detected this site and found the bottle caps and silver coins in the indicated areas, but I had an advantage and knew about the baseball field long before I detected there.  In fact I played Little League baseball there.  

Once I found the bottle caps, outlining the baseball field and locating the bench areas was easy. Where the baseball caps were found they had an ice cooler with a bottle opener on the side where they sold soda and a few candy bars.

The cooler looked something like this one, as I recall. 

Vintage Soda Cooler
Source: Ebay.

When I arrived to detect, it wasn't easy to align exactly where the baseball field had been,  Nearly fifty years had elapsed, and it looked very different.

The main point, once again, is to try to figure out the story behind finds, even if they are junk finds such as bottle caps.  They still have a story to tell and can provide good clues.

If you talked to some of the local old-timers they might also tell you about the arrow heads found on the hill to the right of the little brown roofed buildings just below the school buildings.  They might tell you about the path leading up the hill where the kids always went for sled riding. or the shade trees close to the building where people ate lunch on hot days.  They might tell you about the older one room school building that is now disguised by the facade of a pizza shop.  (That one room school building is barely out of this picture, arrow heads were routinely found behind that building near the creek when there was a potato field there.)  And they might tell you about the old out-buildings that are no longer there, one of which was filled with cork-top bottles with paper labels, and the nearby bottle dumps and other buildings that have disappeared, including the old wash house that has been rebuilt and modified many times.  You say there is no place left to hunt?  Think again.

And the same principles apply on a beach, even though it is a more dynamic environment.  

I don't think anyone really knows an area like the old-timers that grew up there.  They can be the best source of good leads, They can give you local information that can't be found anywhere else.

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In the future I plan to talk about other types of artifacts that can point you to additional finds.  It doesn't matter what the age or type of find is if you can figure out the story behind it.  And when you figure out the story, that can be a reward by itself.  Remember, it is more than an object.  It was a part, however large or small, of some one's life.

I have a lot of different types of things to post.  It will take a while to get around to them all.

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Have you ever heard of biomimetics?  I once found a box fish skeleton that I thought was so intricate and interesting that I posted a picture of it in this blog.  Who would have ever guessed that the picture is going to be used in a book on biomimetics for design engineers?  The more I look at that picture the more remarkable it seems to me.  Anyhow, biomimetics is the use of biological materials to inspire new designs for materials and things like Velcro, which, if I correctly recall, was inspired by the structure of sand spurs.  It is nice to contribute to science in small and unexpected ways.

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We've been having a surf of bout 3 - 4 feet.  Late Thursdays it will bump up to 4 - 6 feet.  The wind is supposed to be more from the north too.  It could get interesting.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/15/15 Report - Seven Foot Surf Predicted For Next Week. Screws As Clues. Religious Medallion. Uprooted Skeleton.

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

Sixth Century Christian Medallion.
Source: See link below.

Here is a sixth century religious medallion that was recently found.

It can be difficult to identify items.  We all know that.  But that is part of the fun of it.

Context can help a lot.  As do any markings.  But when you have neither, that is a real challenge.

Beach found items have no real context that you can rely upon.  Even well known shipwreck sites can be mingled with other shipwrecks and items from other times and centuries.

One problem with beach found items is that the corrosion and heavy wear can remove markings and other important features.  Encrustation can also disguise things.  An encrusted religious medallion can look just like a coin until it is cleaned off.  I've made that mistake before.  One old religious medallion was in a bucket of old encrusted coins that were going to be tumbled.  After tumbling, I could see that it was a religious medallion.  An old one at that.  I was sorry I tumbled it.

Make a good effort to identify items before starting with a cleaning method that might do damage.

I personally often have trouble identifying items from the 19th Century.    We don't have big collections of artifacts from the 19th Century sites locally for comparison.  There are definitely some - mostly from old home sites, but we also have some 19th century wrecks along the coast.

Sometimes it is the little things such as the fasteners that can provide an important clue.  For a long time I thought that screws were a modern invention and didn't pay much attention to them.  It turns out that screws have been used longer than I knew.

...screws were widely used in putting firearms together in the early 16th century.  The threads provided a snugger fit that could survive the vibrations from the firing gun.  Screws were also widely used in assembly armor.  When screws are inserted into metal their threads must be fairly accurate in order to fit properly into the receiving threads.  These screws were created by first hammering out a head and shank and then cutting the thread using a die called a screw plate...

Although screws were in use as fasteners by the mid-fifteenth century, factory production of screws didn’t start until the mid-1700’s. 

Here is a link for more about that.

http://info.craftechind.com/blog/bid/301958/8-Little-Known-Facts-about-the-History-of-the-Screw

You can learn to tell the difference between the older screws and modern screws.  The old screws can be a bit irregular, even to the eye.  Although you might not be interested in things like old screws, they can provide a good clue to the possible presence of other older items.

Concerning the medallion at the top of this post.  You don't see any hole or provision for hanging. There are traces of wood on the other side that suggests that  it was attached to something rather than hung. 

“One of the mosaics in the Basilica of San Vitale shows a church altar in a time of service. The altar table’s cover features round medalliions in which the central images are equal-arm crosses just like that of the medallion from Cape Foros."  


Here is the link that that will tell you more about that.  The link also provides the source of the photo and above quote.

http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2015/09/11/archaeologists-discover-early-christian-medallion-in-burgos-poros-fortress-in-bulgarias-black-sea-city-burgas/

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An uprooted tree brought up more than roots.  In the roots was the top half of a medieval skeleton.  The bottom half of the skeleton was still in the ground.

Here is the link for that story.

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/medieval-bones-burst-from-ground-when-tree-topples-150914.htm

I normally check uprooted trees to see if anything was exposed.

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nhc.noaa.gov

Things have been popping up and then disappearing in the Atlantic.  There are two disturbances out there now, both with a 60% chance of becoming a hurricane in the next forty eight hours.

We'll have a bump up in the surf to around three feet on Thursday then it will decrease again.  If the predictions are correct, we'll have a six or seven foot surf next week.

You know how that goes.  Sometimes it doesn't pan out.  If it happens it will be the first surf of that size we've had for a long time.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/1/14 Report - Mel Fisher Days, Hidden Cash Craze Spreads, Best Target Recovery Techniques & Valuable Secret

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

5/30/14 Report - Quality Finds, Cash Hidden in Orlando and Saddle Ridge Hoard of Gold Coins Being Sold

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

Find and photo submitted by Robert H.

On June 1 clues will go out via Tweet for envelopes of cash hidden in the Orlando area. 

I previously told about the same thing happening in San Francisco, but those in the Orlando area have the chance to go on a hunt for cash Saturday.




Yesterday I showed a photo of a pile of trash picked up by Robert H.   People don't generally show that type of thing, but it is important. 

I often recommend picking up the trash.  Trash on a beach can tell you a lot.   It can tell you something about what other detectorists have been there before you and what they did or didn't do.   It can tell you how things are distributed.  In the wet sand it can tell you which way to go to find treasure.

From his picture of the trash he had picked up, I could tell that Robert had found some treasure.   If you are picking up trash like that you will find treasure.  Show me a man's trash and I can tell you something about how he hunts, where he hunts, and most importantly something about what treasure he has found.

I was right when I said that Robert had probably found some nice treasures.  He just sent me some pictures of his treasures.

Another find photo submitted by Robert H.

Robert said,  I have been looking at it  [ this blog ]  everyday for the last year and a half. Pretty much from when I started detecting.  

Robert has done exceptionally well for the short time he has been detecting. 

From the trash photo I could tell that Robert has taken my advice concerning picking up the trash, and he has some really great finds to show for it.  I'm just showing two of them today.

Robert has made some real quality finds.  You don't find those everywhere.  To find quality, you have to be hunting where quality is.

Trash usually comes before treasure no matter where you are.

Congratulations on the great finds Robert!  And thanks for sharing.

When it comes to rings, simple solitaire diamonds can be among the most valuable, often more valuable than bigger or more flashy rings.   They can hold expensive quality diamonds, but are not the easiest to detect, especially when deep.

I've told before about how when I started detecting I didn't think women lost as many rings as men.  That is because I was using discrimination and missing the smaller rings.  Women lose a lot of rings too.  I found that out when I learned to turn my discrimination off.

Analyze what you are finding or not finding.   That can tell you if you should make adjustments to your detector settings, especially if you are missing one type of desirable item.

Another type of mistake is focusing too much on one type of target.  If you are finding a lot of rings but never find watches, there is probably a good reason that you missed the watches - maybe discrimination.  Maybe you aren't picking up the watches because even some good ones can sound like junk instead of sounding like a coin or ring, which, of course, are smaller.

You should get an idea of what type and amount of different types of items you should be finding.  I once knew what proportion of rings to coins should be found on the dry sand, wet sand and water.   I was keeping good records and figured out the numbers.  Unfortunately I don't have those numbers now, but still know roughly in my mind what the proportions should be like at different types of beaches and know when I'm about due or overdue to find one particular type of item under different conditions. 


You might remember the headlines from back in April about the $11 million gold coin cache (the Saddle Ridge Hoard) found in California.  It is now being sold off.

 One 1874 $20 Double Eagle, which typically sells for around $4,250, sold for $15,000.

Here is the link for more of that story.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/05/28/first-rare-gold-coin-to-sell-from-great-buried-treasure-ever-nets-for-15000/


After today the surf on the Treasure Coast will be increasing a little daily until it peaks at about three to five feet on Tuesday.   This is a good day to get in some water hunting before the surf increases.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net