12/11/18 Reports - Favorite Coin Finds Of One Blog Reader. Beaches Around the Treasure Coast.

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

Some of Captain Jonah's Favorite Coin Finds.

I asked my readers to send photos of their favorite coin finds.  Captain Jonah Martinez had a variety to choose from.  Having found some of the biggest Treasure Coast finds ever made, he had a lot of excellent choices.  Here are SOME of his favorites.  Escudo Royals are always hard to beat.

Same Royals.

Jonah sent some other choices that I'll show in the future.  For now, this should be enough to keep you drooling.

It is out there.  And remember, these were right up under the sand in front of the beach.

Thanks for sharing Jonah.

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John Brooks Beach Monday Afternoon.

I went out to take a look at some beaches yesterday.  They didn't look much good.  Above you can see John Brooks, which had some new lighter color sand on the beach front.

John Brooks Beach Looking South.

John Brooks was smoothed out since the last time I was there, but there really hadn't been much change at all.

The surf was small due to the northwest winds.

Walton Rocks Beach Monday Afternoon.

I also took a look at Walton Rocks.  It has not changed much for several weeks.

Jensen Beach Tuesday Afternoon.

Jensen Beach looked better than the others.  I would say it was not bad for hunting modern coins.  You can see some cutting, and there had evidently been more in the not too distant past.

Of the three that I looked at, Jensen would be my top choice.   At least there should be some modern coins there and the possibility of a piece of jewelry.

Jensen Beach Yesterday Afternoon.

In the distance to the north, there were some nicer cuts.  Not too bad for hunting modern items.

Today the cool air moved in.  We've been getting a lot of fronts moving through, but they've been quick, with only one or two days of north/northeast wind, and the surf not being very big.

As I said recently, this is the time of year when we have a good chance of some decent beach conditions.  Nothing real good yet though.

Here are the surf predictions from MagicSeaWeed.com.

As you can see, the wind will be from the northwest and then quickly sift to the south.  That isn't too encouraging.  Yet we are supposed to get up to a five foot surf on Wednesday,

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/28/16 Report - Fairly High Surf. Metal Detecting Favorite Finds Are Usually Surprises. St. Augustine Area.

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

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

We've had a lot of wind, a fairly high surf, and even pretty high tides lately, but the angles haven't been good.  As far as I can tell it hasn't been hitting the right places yet.  The only places that I've seen erosion is by inlets or rocks or other obstacles.  I'm sticking with a 1 (poor) beach conditions rating for now.  I haven't seen a lot of the beaches and there might be a spot or two where you could find something good.  There are certainly some good spots for modern coins right now, but I haven't seen any good spots for cobs.  There might be one or two though.

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A couple days ago I mentioned that I stopped at one beach where there were a lot of modern coins and the tide was already coming in so I tried to skip signals that sounded like clad coins and managed to pick up a gold band.  If you've been reading this blog very long, you know that I often tell people to dig everything.  This was a special case and a strategy that I've seldom used.

Digging everything is highly recommended, especially if you haven't been metal detecting for decades and you don't know the area inside out.  You will learn a lot by digging a lot of targets and it will keep you from making a big mistake.

As I think back, most of my favorite finds were surprises.  Raw gold nuggets found on a treasure wreck beach are some of my favorite finds.  I wasn't targeting gold nuggets.  I didn't expect them on a Treasure Coast beach.  I don't know if I would have passed them over or not if I was discriminating or using target ID, but since I was digging everything, there was absolutely no danger of that.  Would you correctly identify gold nuggets while beach hunting or might you miss them?

Most of my favorite finds would not be easy for any detector to identify.  Take for example the Rolexes and other high-end watches.  Do you really want to take a chance on missing targets like that because you don't feel like digging? I know it doesn't happen often, but it doesn't have to happen often to be very worthwhile.

How about a three hundred year old pistol or rapier blade?  Would you correctly identify them or discriminate them out and pass them over and then complain about finding nothing but clad.

The vast majority of my all-time favorite finds were surprises.  You don't find those kinds of things everyday.  In fact it is to some extent their rarity that makes them so valuable.  You never know what you might find, and how you detect not only determines what you find but it also determines what you don't find.

I've told stories about how I learned those lessons.  It was a long time before I ever found a shipwreck spike.  I should have found one much sooner and surely would have found one much sooner except that in those days I was targeting modern gold and was skipping a lot of things that did not sound like coins or gold jewelry.  That was until I learned that I was missing things that I would really like to find.

The more narrowly you define acceptable targets, the more things you eliminate and skip.  It is a trade-off. There are interesting and valuable targets of all shapes and sizes and made of all types of materials. Be aware of that and realize that your detecting style will determine not only what you get but also what you miss.  Your strategy should take into account your goals and what might or might not be in the area you are working.  You can't be too sure of what might or might not be there.  There is always the possibility of some big surprise.  And isn't that what detecting is all about?  Don't you want to see something appear out of the soil or sand that you never expected?  Maybe you hoped for it, but didn't dare expect it.  Do you really want to eliminate the possibility of such a surprise?

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The damage to the Fort Pierce area was so light that you would never think that Hurricane Matthew passed by so recently.  For all practical purposes Matthew has been forgotten and life moves on.  That is the way life is.  About the only remaining sign of Matthew around Fort Pierce are the piles of limbs along Indian River Drive and perhaps a few other places where Waste Management has not yet finished picking it all up.  Things are not so normal elsewhere along our coast.

Here is what Darrel S. had to say about St. Augustine.

Went over this morning to check on our condo and I really did not see much to remind me a hurricane hit. Downtown St. Augustine was back to normal. So I thought, when I went Vilano, ton of debris out in front of every structure. From Vilano Beach up to Ponte Vedre Beach was not pleasant. I went back through St. Augustine and over the Bridge of Lions. In Davis Shore was same as Vilano. Also, sewage was backed up, and many still without water or power. Drove down to St. Augustine Beach and numerous streets had trash out front. Further down our condo was okay, but Crescent Beach had the largest devestation. Piles of trash and construction debris everywhere. Matanzas Inlet Restaurant no longer. Been eating there for over 45 years! Summerhaven was closed to thru traffic as well as the old A1A gone!! Went down to Marineland, and a new surf spot was created. The beach was now on A1A. Decided to turn around and as I went over 206 bridge could see numerous homes and docks damaged. Yet, as I was headed back to Gainesville there were people heading over for Fla vs Georgia game in Jacksonville this Saturday. GLAD to be back in Gainesville...

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/30/14 Report - Strange Mystery Find. Blog Poll Results on Favorite Finds of 2014.

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

 I often show mystery items.  This one is a real mystery.  I've talked to my smart friend, Fred D., who gave me some good thoughts on the item, but he suggested that I post it and see what you all think of it.  I'm not going to tell you what Fred thought yet because I don't want to influence you.

I've had this item for a while hoping to learn something about it but so far it is still a mystery.

The item is about two inches in diameter.  It is ball shaped with a hole in one side. 

The hole is about an inch and a half across at its widest.  The hole tapers and little and goes down most of the way.

One side of the object appears to have lost some material.



It is composed of small pieces of shell.  The photos don't show it that well, but the grains are definitely small pieces of shells.  I can see that very clearly under magnification.  There is some sand in it too and some small unidentified particles.

Take a look at the last picture of the object, which shows a close-up vies of the outer surface of the object.

The picture just above that shows a close up view looking at the surface inside of the hole.

I think that is all I'll say about it.  Please send any ideas or thoughts about the object.

I'll tell you what I've concluded up to this point after I hear from what you all have to say.















Below are the results for the most recent blog poll about the most favorite finds of the year.  Since the poll was conducted during the busy holiday season, the sample size was smaller than usual.

US coin.	14 (18%)
Foreign coin.	3 (3%)
Old shipwreck cob or coin.	7 (9%)
Other old shipwreck item.	7 (9%)
Modern era Bottle, glass or ceramic.	1 (1%)
Fossil	1 (1%)
Modern era jewelry.	29 (37%)
Native American	2 (2%)
Other.	13 (16%)

As you can see the category of finds that was most often selected is modern jewelry.  We did see some nice pictures of expensive diamond rings and things like that which were found this year. 

The second most selected category of find US coins.  Among those were a good number of silver coins, including some that were "firsts" or "oldest" coin finds.

Modern jewelry and US coins added together accounted for over half of the favorite finds.

And the third most frequent favorite find category was "other."  To some extent that reflects the fact hat I left out some things from the poll.   I should have had a category for relics, or example.  We certainly saw some nice relics that were found this year.

The "other" category also includes some find that you might not think of.   For example, one person wrote to me and told me that their favorite find was information about the location of a sunken ship.  That certainly is a good find, but it is not something that I would ever think of including as a response category.

Only the top three categories were in the double digit percentages. 

Although a lot of people who read this blog target 1715 Fleet items, it was not a big year for those kinds of finds on the beaches.  We had poor conditions a lot of the time.  Still, the favorite find of 9% of those who responded was an old shipwreck cob or coin, with another 9% indicating that their favorite find was some other type of old shipwreck find.  The salvage guys did well this year.  We saw some of their impressive finds.

There were very few respondents who selected the remaining categories, however "foreign coins," "Native American," "modern era glass and ceramics," and "fossils" were all selected by at least on person.

Beach replenishment had a big impact of this year.  There sure has been a lot of it.  Older items are harder to find when sand is dumped on the beaches.  One of the best fossil beaches was ruined by recent replenishment. 

Modern jewelry led the way, followed by US coins and "other," with a smaller number of the highly sought shipwreck coins and artifacts after that.  That pretty much sums it up for the year, which is quickly coming to an end.


On the Treasure Coast we are supposed to have nothing more than about a 2 or 3 foot surf for several days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net