3/25/18 Report - Piso Old Bottle For Cure Containing Cannabis. Nazi Sub Recovered From Great Lakes. Detectorist Term.

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

Old Cure Bottle Find - Piso Co.

I took a little walk Saturday and found this cure bottle.  The embossing is, PISO CO WARREN PA.

The side is embossed, but the front and back evidently had a paper label, which might have been like the one below.  Notice the ingredients.

Cannabis, choloroform and other valuable ingredients!  Alcohol was another ingredient, but not listed.  Opium was ingredient at one time.

Originally named after one of the founders Ezra T. Hazeltine, the Hazeltine Corp., of Warren Pennsylvania, was founded in 1869, and soon became famous for its cough medicine, "Piso's Cure for Consumption". In fact, the product became so popular that in time, the company actually changed its name to "The Piso Company."

Unfortunately, Piso's has the distinction of being the only brand name cannabis medicine named in Samuel Adam's (now classic) book on quackery "The Great American Fraud."

Now in all fairness it should be pointed out that the company has its defenders, who point out that the company itself voluntarily gave up the use of opium and opium by-products before the 1880's...

Here is the link for more about that.

http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap15/QPiso.htm

The company came to end end before WW II, perhaps caused by the Marijuana Tax Act and the barring of marijuana from medicines.  I'd put the particular bottle as early 20th century.

Here is a very good document on the company and its medicines.

https://www.fohbc.org/PDF_Files/PisoTrior_JSullivan.pdf

I haven't had a chance to do any detecting this month, but continue to find a little time for surface hunting.

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Fake news story on Nazi sub was removed after it was determined to be fake.

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I once read where someone said they preferred the term "coin shooter" rather than "detectorst."  Coin shooter works for me when it describes someone that is actually hunting coins, but for someone that uses a detector to hunt other things, such as meteorites, gold nuggets, or artifacts and has little or no interest in hunting coins, I can't imagine why you would use such a misleading term as "coin shooter."  When I first started detecting I hunted coins.  My records at that time showed how many and what type of coins I found, but that changed.  Later I hunted jewelry and didn't care much coins.  At that time I kept track of my jewelry finds but not my coin finds.  If I wanted to describe myself at that point, I would not call myself a coin shooter, and if I did, it would give a very misleading impression of what I was actually doing.  Detectorist, to me, is a more general term than coin shooter.

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I have a post for you that will likely help you answer some big questions.  If you ever wondered if you got it all or if you are missing something, I'll help you answer those questions tomorrow.  I have the numbers.  One reader not only detected a lot multiple times, but also sifted the lot to determine what he missed.  The results are amazing.  I'll post this in the next day or two.  You won't get this anywhere else.

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The Treasure Coast surf will build to 4 - 7 feet Tuesday and maybe more Wednesday.  That is something to watch.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/25/17 Report - Finding Barber Quarters in Florida. An Extensive Shipwreck Project Report Worth Reading.

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

Six Barber Quarters Found By One Detectorist In Last Seven Months.

How would you coinshooters like to hit a Barber Quarter every month?  It might be more possible than you think.  One fellow sent the above picture with the following email message.

I thought you might want to use this picture to illustrate that there is still a lot out there!  These are my Barber quarter finds from the last seven months from five different sites on mainland Florida.  

I started detecting in 2011.  In my first two years, I found one Barber dime among thirty or so total silver coins.  That was so exciting!  I was not sure if I'd ever find another.  I definitely lamented getting a late start in detecting and felt that most of the good finds had been found.  Now I feel the opposite.  I target old coins.  Many of the oldest coins were out of detecting range or protected in other ways...

The best Barber quarter, the one to the far left in the picture, is an 1898O, a better date.

Like I mentioned, feel free to use the photo and any of the above text, but please keep my name off of it.  Your blog has become very popular!

Thanks much for the photo and email!

Notice the good tip in the message.  He targets old coins, and assumes those will likely be out of range or protected in some way.  

You can't just go around skimming the easy finds if you want to find the older coins.  

By being specific about what you want to find, you can adjust your technique and strategies to meet your goals.  Your research will be more specific too.

According to cointrackers.com an 1898 O Barber quarter in mint state would be worth around $800.  Of course dug quarters are never in mint condition.  In average condition an 1898 O would be worth something more like $17.

The O mint mark indicates it was made in the New Orleans mint, which made just %13 of the Barber quarters ever minted.

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Here is an email I received from Peter H.

Hi,

Here's a great story you may not have seen in so much depth , very interesting and I hope you enjoy !!!!

http://www.patrimoniocultural.gov.pt/media/uploads/dans/TheOranjemundShipwreck.pdf

I always appreciate your research links which I often use and bookmark ,Knowledge is wealth !!! I always learn something from your posts and although I am in Wales I read them every day !! .

Thanks much,
Peter.


Here is a brief excerpt from that document describing the wreck and its discovery.

On 1 April 2008, open-air mining for diamonds was underway in Mining Area 1 (MA1) in dry marine basin known as “U-60”, which lies approximately twenty kilometers north of Oranjemund, a peaceful mining town about 12 miles north of the Orange River estuary in the extreme southwest corner of Namibia and is part of the Sperrgebiet (“forbidden zone”)3 . On that day, two much damaged bronze tubes were found4 which were later identified as breech-loading cannons. These were followed in short order by other artifacts, including copper ingots in the form of half-spheres, elephant tusks, chunks of timber and gold coins, which suggested they were from an old shipwreck.

I think everyone will find something of interest in this 77 page report.  First off, the coast state and the flag state decided that the wreck was shared heritage and worked cooperatively to "rescue" the wreck.

The report is very complete and addresses construction of the ship, treasure, and archaeological procedures.  You'll find a lot of photos and illustrations.

Thanks Peter!

I'm also glad you find the blog so helpful.  

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I've been looking at an archaeological study that surveys a large number of shore-stranded shipwrecks of diverse ages and periods.  Those are shipwrecks that ended up in the dunes or on the beach.  I'll report on that more in the future.

The surf today is to be 3 - 5 feet. The tide will be fairly high too.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/25/14 Report - Florida Coin Shooter's Dream Come True! Reader Of This Blog Finds 335 Silver Coins On One Small Lot!

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



Silver Coins Dug By One Reader At One Small Site.
Look at that parade of Walking Halves!
Photo rights reserved.

Finally!  I've been itching to tell you about this for months now.  Finally I can do it. Remember, you got it here first, right here on the Treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.

Back in April of 2014 a small run-down condemned bungalow built in Florida in the early 1900s was condemned and demolished. Old silver coins spilled out of the walls - 60 pounds of them. But that is not what I'm going to tell you about today.  I'm going to tell you about what happened when one of this blog's readers, who will remain anonymous, followed up on the story.

Here is what he had to say.

 

When I read the news of the hoard and the method it was discovered, I thought some of the silver coins might have made it into the ground.  I was cautiously optimistic, but when I heard that the demo work had occurred months before I thought surely the area had been scoured since it was an open secret amongst the city workers, as there were multiple workers on site when the coins were initially discovered.  I worked out a deal with the current owner to split my finds 50/50.  I found one coin in the first half hour (a 1906 Barber dime unrelated to the hoard) before finding a large concentration of coins.  In about 3 hours I found 125 silver coins, many of them halves.  In one expanding hole I found 30 silver coins!

Silver Coins Found First Day On The Site.
Photo rights reserved.

 

The search was made much more difficult because 6-8 inches of fill had been spread on top of the site after demolition.  Many of the coins were deep and gave marginal signals.  There was also a huge amount of trash.   After searching the area over eight visits using every method that I could muster, including different swing directions, different coils, trash removal, digging all questionable signals, searching after hard rain, and even blind digging in spots, I found thirty more coins after having 4-6 inches removed with a Bobcat (I have a family connection and how I wish I had access to that Bobcat all the time!).

Silver Coins Found Second Day On Site.
Photo rights reserved..

I searched carefully for buried jars, but no luck with further caches.

My total silver count for the site was 335 coins.

One other quick note.  A city worker who was on-site the day the coins were discovered during demolition said that their project manager was impatient and did not want to delay the demo job for long while the coins were collected.  They carefully picked up all they saw, but scoops of dirt and debris had already been loaded in the dumpster prior to discovery.  The worker pulled out a few handfuls of dirt…and found silver coins.  The site manager did not want to search that dirt so it was hauled to the dump!  After hearing this story, I made some effort to find out the exact location the debris was dumped but, since it occurred several months prior, the search was fruitless.  I guess silver coins are still being lost!

 

Congratulations!!  And thanks or sharing.  It is always good to see people do so well. 

 

Back when the project started the detectorist commented to me on how going back over the same ground in different ways was productive.

 

There are some good hints in that story.

 

In that number of coins, and they look to be in very nice condition, there have to be some good dates and maybe even some error coins.

 

I was invited to be in on the project from the beginning, but tried to give what advice and assistance I could via email.  I missed a lot of fun, but I'm happy about the outcome nonetheless.

 

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net