4/7/20 Report - Beaches Closed But Some Have Access. In The Field: Points. Calusa Fish Farming. Gold and Tides Up.

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

Beautiful View of Fort Pierce Beach.

As you've seen the past few days, I featured some items that are not metal detector finds, but are still great finds.  In fact they are better than most metal detector finds if you really appreciate old items.

With the beaches closed, some people are hunting elsewhere, even if it is their own yard.  Below is the plowed field where points and other items I recently posted were found.

Newly Plowed Field With Plenty of Space for Social Distancing.

Photo by JamminJack.

And here is another find by JamminJack's buddy.

Another Nice Arrowhead Find.

Photo sumbitted by JamminJack

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Source: See FloridaMuseum link below.

The mighty Calusa ruled South Florida for centuries, wielding military power, trading and collecting tribute along routes that sprawled hundreds of miles, creating shell islands, erecting enormous buildings and dredging canals wider than some highways. Unlike the Aztecs, Maya and Inca, who built their empires with the help of agriculture, the Calusa kingdom was founded on fishing.

But like other expansive cultures, the Calusa would have needed a surplus of food to underwrite their large-scale construction projects. This presented an archaeological puzzle: How could this coastal kingdom keep fish from spoiling in the subtropics?

A new study points to massive structures known as watercourts as the answer. Built on a foundation of oyster shells, these roughly rectangular enclosures walled off portions of estuary and likely served as short-term holding pens for fish before they were eaten, smoked or dried. The largest of these structures is about 36,000 square feet – more than seven times bigger than an NBA basketball court – with a berm of shell and sediment about 3 feet high. Engineering the courts required an intimate understanding of daily and seasonal tides, hydrology and the biology of various species of fish, researchers said...

For more about that see https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/watercourts-stored-live-fish-fueling-floridas-calusa/

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If you remember the post I did not too long ago about what was closed and not closed, some people will still have access to the beaches even if they are closed to the general public.  Here is one sentence from that previous post.

People with private access, such as hotel guests, HOA and condominium residents and community association members can visit the beaches.

I do not know why a person who owns property next to the beach should  have access to a public beach when the general public does not.   I don't think they should.  But there will always be those that have access to the beaches when the general public does not, and it isn't limited to those mentioned above.  Park rangers detect where others are not allowed to.  Parks employees, police and wildlife officers, security guards,  utility workers and construction workers, and others will have access even when the beaches are "closed."
  

Local authorities will close park accesses, even if they do not have any real jurisdiction over the beaches.  The state owns the beaches from the high tide line down.  The problem is that unless you swim or arrive by boat, you have to cross land to get to the beach.  And as we know private homeowners will not permit that and local agencies will not always permit it.

By the way, the state also claims to the other waterways and the beaches or banks up to the mean high tide line.

The public pays for the beaches, most especially those beaches that are constantly renourished using public funds, yet hotels and beach clubs etc. often act as if they own them.

Right now the beaches are closed to fight the coronavirus.  Regardless of the legalities, or even the common sense of it all, people are complying because it seems like the right thing to do.

Still, as always, there will be some that will visit the beaches and get in a little detecting.  As I've said before, there is always a way.  It might not be easy, convenient, or even something you want to do, but there is a way if you really want to.

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Gold is now over $1700 per oz., well above levels of only a month ago.  Gold prices have been very volatile, as has the stock market.

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Funny how they are all claiming with certainty that the mitigation efforts are working, while at the same time claiming they can't say anything about the effectiveness of a drug being used widely for treatment even though it has been studied rather well in other countries and is currently being studied in robust scientific studies in this country.   How can you say the mitigation efforts worked without the same kind of scientific evidence they require for other things, including drugs.  Yes we all want to believe that our extreme efforts payed off, but maybe the pandemic naturally peaked out or slackened off for any of a variety of reasons.

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The high tides are now very high.  We are near a full moon.  As you probably know, Easter occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

The surf is decreasing, today being around 4 - 6 feet.

Happy searching,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/2/17 Report - Art Hartman's Anchor? Tools From the Age of Sail. Fid or Marlinspike. Difficulty of Identifying Some Finds. Big tides.

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

Recovered Rusted Remains of Anchor
Find and photo by Darrel S.

Darrel S. dug this anchor years ago.  One of the all-time top treasure salvage guys of the Treasure Coast got excited when he saw this anchor because he remembered the time when Art Hartman lost an anchor in the same area.

If you know much about Treasure Coast treasure salvage, you probably know something about Art Hartman (deceased Dec. 24, 2015, sorry to say).

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The dating game can be very difficult. I'm not talking about trying to meet a member of the opposite sex.  I don't know how you know what is the opposite sex any more.  According to what I've been hearing, there are a dozen or more other sexes.  You've probably heard about the LGBTXYZ... whatever.   Anyhow.  In the past things weren't thrown away like the are today.  Broken objects were repaired or the parts or materials were reused.  A tea kettle, or example, would be repaired time and time again, and then when it was beyond repair the copper would be used to make other things.  I saw pictures of finds from one old fort site that yielded at least twenty different types of items made from the copper from old kettles.  Items were repaired so many times and were used for such a long time that it could be especially difficult to put a date or age on the item.

I often remind people that old items are being lost everyday.  That is another thing that can be confounding.  I've found coins just after they were lost that were hundreds of years old.  People still wear or carry old stuff at times.

Deciding what a thing is can be difficult too.  Some things could be used for a variety of different purposes.  Just think about a rock.  It could be a building material, a weapon, a weight, a hammer.  How it was actually used, can be a difficult thing to determine.  And some items were used in more ways than one.

How about the item found on the Treasure Coast by Gayle C that I showed yesterday?  John L. thought it might be a fid.  That was one of my first thoughts.  It could certainly be a fid or something very similar.

Brian M. sent this photo of a similar item he once found at a land site.  His is a bit longer and thinner.  Note the eye at the one end of Brian's item.

Find by Brian M.

The fid was the traditional tool of the sailor from the dawn of sailing all the way into the beginning of the last century.  It was used to loosen and tighten knots.  It was used to separate the strands of rope for splicing.  The fid was used as a club and a temporary pull handle.  It was used to shape hand sewn grommets in sails and clothing.  After the knife, it was the sailors most important tool.  The fid was often a handmade affair and was sized according to the size rope that was being worked.  Wood, bone and antler being the predominant choices.  Its an easy tool to make for yourself and can be made from just about anything you have available.   This simple tool had a good long run and is still of use to those who work with traditional ropes and cordage.  As ships began to transition to mechanical power and rigging was replaced with wire cables, the fid fell out of favor.

That text is from the pirateking web site.  Here is the link.

http://www.thepirateking.com/historical/marlin_spikes.htm

It seems that some people use the terms "fid" and "marlinespike" interchangeably, but I think "fid" more often refers to an object made of wood and used to work with ropes, while "marlinespike" more often refers to a metal object which is used to work with wire cables.

Here is a description of a Marlinspike.

Below is a picture of a variety of pointed sail-making tools.

Variety of Sail Making Tools.

I lost the sources for the last two pictures.  If you know where they came from, let me know.  I'll post the sources as soon as I find them.

I once posted a similar find that I made (See following link.).  I thought it could be a fid or an awl.  Hard to tell.  There were a lot of good uses for pointed objects on sailing ships.

http://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2016/08/81216-report-south-hutchinson-island.html

And here is the link to a very good web site that shows a wide variety of old sailing ship tools.

http://www.ageofsail.net/aosbt.asp

I think we have yesterday's mystery find narrowed down as well as we can.  Gaylen now has the job of cleaning and preserving his find.

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I can tolerate cold weather and snow when putting up Christmas decorations, but I find mosquitoes and fire ant bites especially annoying and something one shouldn't have to put up with at this time of year, but that is what I got.


We're getting close to a full moon and the tides are now big.  The surf will only be 2 - 3 feet though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/9/17 Report - Skeletons of Colonists Being Dug Up In St. Augustine. Gold Reaches $1240 Per Oz. Full Moon and Comet This Weekend.

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

I have a broad range of readers.  Some are very inexperienced.  Some haven't even bought their first detector.  And some have fifty years of experience and have made very significant archaeological discoveries.  That is one broad range indeed!  It is not easy to write something that is appropriate and interesting to both groups although it seems that generally speaking, I've managed.  I'd say it has been as much by accident as intent.  I just write what seems interesting or useful to me.  I find the basics useful because I often need to be reminded of some of the things I already knew.  It is easy to get sloppy and repeat the same old mistakes that I made when I just began detecting.

The most common questions I receive are the following.  I'm coming to Florida, so where should I go to find something good?  What detector should I get?  What are the detecting laws in Florida?  What are these things (iron flakes) that I found?  Those aren't my favorite questions but I can understand why they are asked, but I do appreciate all questions, comments and information.  Reader questions and comments help me tremendously.

I'm always trying to figure out how people respond to my posts.  I use two measures beside email comments.  Those are the number of hits and the number of Google Pluses received for each post.

The number of hits can be misleading because if a link gets posted somewhere else, that can really drive the hits up for that post.  For example, CNN posted once posted a link and that post got several thousands of hits.

There are thousands of posts in my blog.  I don't think some people realize that you can go back and read the posts made years ago, and they don't realize that you can do a keyword search.  There is a search box on the first page of the blog where you can enter your search words.

The read post of January was the 1/5/17 post, Cannon Found In River. Gems and Jewels. Wave Data Site.  Inca Emeralds.  7 Foot Surf Coming?

The most Google Plused Post of January was the 1/4/17 report, Miscellaneous Eye-balled Finds From Today.  FUN Conference. Escudo Gift. Bigger Surf Coming?

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Skeletons of early colonissts are being dug up in downtown St. Augustine.  The site could be the site of the first parish church in the United States.

Fiesta Mall on King and Chalotte Streets is the site of this dig.

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/more-early-colonists-bones-discovered-in-st-augustine/404769701

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Gold prices rose to $1240 per ounce in London on Wednesday, regaining almost half of their post-US election slump as Euro stock markets slipped and government bond prices rose amid fresh fears over the currency union's 2017 political outlook...

Here is the link for more about current bullion prices.

https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/gold-price-020820172

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Friday night a partial lumar eclipse will begin.  We will have a full moon this weekend.  Also a comet will be seen some places.

Here is a link if you want to find out more about that.

http://blog.spiritdaily.com/news-links/full-moon-and-comet

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I'm starting to wonder if we'll get any good winter storms this year.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/27/15 Report - Beach Detecting Conditions Rating Increased To Level 2. Coin Clusters Being Found On T. C. Beaches.

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

Full Moon Last Night.

A couple days ago someone said they found clusters of clad coins, a good number of which were on the surface.  They wondered if anyone else was seeing the same thing.

In answer to the reader's question, I saw the same thing Wednesday and Thursday on two different beaches.  One was what I would call a coin line and the other was a coin hole.  It is evidently not uncommon to find shallow coin clusters on the Treasure Coast right now.  If you've been reading this blog very long, you know what I mean by the terms "coin line" and "coin hole."

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There was a nice full moon last night and a good bit of wind.  I went out this morning just after high tide and found that some beaches were slightly better while others looked worse.

The water was high.  At one beach the water was a good ten yards or more behind the berm.

I didn't find the clad coins at the beach where I found them on the slope yesterday.  Conditions at that beach were a little worse.

Six Foot Cliff At One Treasure Coast Beach Today.

As you might expect, there were a lot of detectorists out today.  Some were locals and some were from up north.

I am upgrading my beach detecting conditions rating to a 2.  That is a borderline rating.  It indicates that the beach has improved but is not consistently productive.  I know some shipwreck cobs were found today.  I only know of one beach that is producing cobs for sure.  Although conditions are way better than they were this summer, you will still have to hit the right beaches and even then the cobs will be few and far between.

In the recent past I have been pretty conservative with my ratings, especially the level two rating.  I decided that I should probably be a little more liberal with that rating in the future.  It is a borderline or transition rating.

According to the surfing web sites, the surf is supposed to peak at around 10 feet on the Treasure Coast this evening.

Even though the surf will be decreasing Saturday and Sunday, it looks to me like the wind will be more favorable later Saturday and into Sunday.

The beaches are wobbling.  By that I mean one day they will be a little better and the next a little worse.  We're not getting the consistent improvement that I'd like to see.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.

I enjoyed a couple of the shows about the Pilgrims at Plymouth.  One movie had an excellent replica of the Mayflower in it.  I saw some artifacts on it that I couldn't identify.

It looks like there should be a couple more days of at least level two conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/4/15 Report - $100,000 1715 Fleet Gold Bar. Charles Garrett Gone. More Palm Beach Renourishment.

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

Unique $100,000 1715 Fleet Gold Bar
Photo source: Sedwick online auction catalog.

This Peruvian 2148-gram 20K gold bar from the 1715 Fleet with tax stamp and other markings requires a starting bid of $100,000.

The really neat thing to me about this brick is the incomplete melting of the cobs or whatever it is made of.  You can see some of those in the photo.

It seems to date to the reign of Charles V and the early 1500s.

The item is lot number 252 in the current SedwickCoins auction.

Online bidding has begun.





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Photo Of Beach In Front Of Mar-a-Lago
Photo by Joe D.

Joe said, Yesterday I went on the beach in front of Trumps and the surrounding area, but finding beach access in this area is difficult to the say the least! This is one of the few areas that has not, as of yet, had beach renourishment! Lots of iron due to rotting groins, and the sand is building! There was some previous erosion (see pics), but nothing but some older encrusted clad! Had to be mindful of the "private" beach so I didn't attract unwanted attention from staff!

 Definitely favor beach hunting (less kneeling and bending), but with near eight foot depth by 200 foot width of renurishment sand being place, it looks like beach hunting will be about done here for a while! 

Notice the tops of the old groins showing. 

One of my best hunting spots was between some old rotting groins in South Florida.  They have now been covered up by tons and tons of sand.

That is one good picture Joe!  Thanks.

Renourishment Project
Photo by Joe. D.

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A big name in metal detecting just passed away.   Any serious detectorist knows the name Charles Garrett.  If you don't own a Garrett detector, you've read his books and articles.

Mitch King sent me the following link to his obituary. 

http://www.garrett.com/charles_garrett_obituary.aspx

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There was a beautiful full moon out last night.  Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.

That tells you something.   I suppose man has closely observed nature's cycles as long as he has walked the earth.  There are always some people who observe things more carefully.  Those that observed most carefully often won a special role, maybe as shaman, priest or elder.

Holidays punctuate the year and provide cherished memories.  I have many and you probably do too.

If you don't celebrate Easter at this time of year you probably celebrate something - maybe Passover, which is intimately connected with and foreshadows Easter.  It all ties together.  Even Easter bunnies and eggs hint of new birth. 

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The most read post of February was the 2/22/15 Report - New Authoritative Research On The Gold Pelican-in-Piety Of The 1715 Fleet. 

That one contained the most recent research by author Laura Strolia.  If you missed it you might want to go back and read it.

The most Google Plused posts of Feb were the following.

2/25/15 Report - Florida Coin Shooter's Dream Come True!  Reader Of This Blog Finds 335 Silver Coins On One Small Lot!

2/16/15 Report - Strategically Selecting Discrimination Settings.   Rechargeable Batteries.

There are literally hundreds of posts in this blog now.  They are still available.  You might find the search box on the first page useful.

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\The surf today (Saturday was only one - two feet.  Easter it will be more like three or four feet, and Monday just a touch higher.

Happy Easter,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net