10/11/16 Report - One Of The Oldest Hurricane Matthew Finds and A Couple Others. Matthew Erosion.

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

My Oldest Find From Hurricane Matthew

This item is thousands of years old, perhaps tens of thousands.  I hope Fred Dengler will tell me for sure.  His email didn't seem to work the last time I tried it.

It is definitely a fossil tooth.  I believe it is that of an extinct horse.

Did you know that horses migrated from America to Asia and Europe and then died out in America before they were brought to America by the conquistadors and explorers?  

I did find other fossils.  They are definitely the oldest finds I made in the past few days.

Piece of Copper Sheathing Find.

Finds that were not so old were made as well.  Above is a piece of copper sheathing, for example.

I need to clean up some other things before making pictures.

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It seemed to me that the water hit and eroded the dunes.  In most places it was only eroding renourishment sand rather than getting into the old sand.

There was one place. as I already said in a previous post, where the sand that was uncovered was old sand.  In fact, I don't believe that sand had been exposed since the 1970s.  It had been buried under tons of renourishment sand.

After the dunes eroded that sand scattered onto the beach.  Either before or after that, the beach front eroded, however after that new sand washed up onto the beach front.  That washed up sand only covered the front of the beach.

Just in front of the dunes, several inches of light-colored renourishment sand covered older brown/red sand.

A similar thing seemed to happen along much of the Treasure Coast and most of the beaches.

Areas of erosion could happen at any time this week with the higher surf and northeast winds.  There is a good northeast wind this morning.  All it takes is for the waves to hit an area at the right angle under the right conditions,  Erosion can be limited to certain beaches and small areas.

I'm maintaining my 2 beach conditions rating, which I think will remain in effect for a few days.

I haven't heard of may finds yet, but will do a poll, maybe after this week.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/3/14 Report - 1853 Coin and Other Finds, Cookout Report and Beach Conditions.

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

1853 Coin Found by Dan B.
Photo by Dan B.

Here is a really nice old coin found by Dan B., It is his oldest coin find, and a find that would make any coin shooter jump for joy.

Take a look at that date.   1853!

Congratulations Dan! 


I received a report from Chuck G. on the Treasure Hunter's Cookout that was held last week.  Robert Marx and Pat Clyne were there.  Most of you undoubtedly know those names.

Chuck said,  A few of us went detecting on some area beaches Sunday around low tide, the water/surf was near flat and very clear......i don't think I've ever seen it that clear! I found a nice shell pile that was very low on the beach with a lot of material being washed up the slope from the near 1 foot step/trough to around 10 - 15 feet up the slope.  I  hunted an east-west grid and found a couple interesting items including a very cool horse tooth?, fairly modern sea glass, and few yet  to be identified metallic items. I was using a pulse induction machine.

In the pics you will see a nice round object that appears to be iron but reads as pull tab on my cz6a, the pull tab reading really surprised me since the item seems to have that rusty look and has some weight to it, and that's why all items come home with me and are checked before throwing them away!!!

 

It is always good to keep unidentified items until they can be identified.  The round piece could turn out to be interesting.

Fossil Horse Tooth, Sea Glass, and Other Finds
by Chuck G.

Thanks for the report Chuck.


Here is a good web site on seated quarters.

http://www.usacoinbook.com/coins/quarters/seated-liberty/



Seated Quarter Illustration
From above web site.

 

And here is a really great web site that gives you everything you need to know about seated dimes, including all the major varieties and details.

http://www.seateddimevarieties.com/MajorDesignGroups.htm



1854 Seated Dime
Illustration from the web site linked immediately above.

 

Here is what that web site says.

The Mint Act of February 21, 1853 reduced the weight of the dime from 2.673 to 2.48 grams. Weight reduction was a reaction to elevated price of silver with respect to gold during the California Gold Rush. Arrows at date were selected to distinguish older standard dimes from the new lighter coins. Arrows remained in use through 1855. The Arrows At Date variety was produced at the Philadelphia mint from 1853 through 1855 and in New Orleans in 1853 and 1854.

 

 If you have any Seated Dimes you'll want to visit that web site.



Mercury Dime, Seated Quarter and Other Finds
by Dan B.
 

The beaches on the Treasure Coast are sandy.  The wind is from the South and the waves are hitting almost directly from the East.

Here is a quick video showing a typical sandy wreck beach on the Treasure Coast

And here is a photo looking south towards Jensen beach.  Both the video and photo were taken yesterday afternoon.



Jensen Beach Yesterday Afternoon Near Low Tide.

 I planned to post some more amazing stuff form Clint L. today but I'll hold that for some other day now.  You won't want to miss what Clint has to say.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/18/14 Report - Story Behind Fabulous 1715 Fleet Finds - Gold and Diamond Brooch, Ear Rings, and Tooth Picks

Written by the TreasureGuide for the treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.




1715 Fleet Treasures
Picture submitted by Bruce Beck.
 

In my 4/9 post I had some information about some big finds made on the Treasure Coast.  It started after I mentioned the 1715 Fleet diamond ring that is the current Sedwick auction.  Bruce Beck was kind enough to help set the record straight. 

Christopher James, Bruce's dive partner, added the following.

 Hey there you are correct about the butterfly brooch but not correct about the rest. I did indeed find the butterfly on my own but also went back and found the large brooch containing 170 diamonds in it and the gold snowflake toothpick before the boat was pulled over to the spot. And Bob found the earing containing 54 diamonds and I found the other one three days later. They started blowing with the boat after that. I do believe that the large stone to the center of the round brooch is still out there and is about 10 carats, according to Captain John Wilson.

Did you get that?  It sounds like the 10 carat diamond is still out there to be found.  Maybe it will wash up on the beach some day.  Keep your eyes open!

Bruce provided the picture above that was in the magazine article about the find.

Note the toothpicks as well as the diamond studded brooch and ear rings.  Those are some really neat finds.

Thanks much Bruce.


Every year Mel Fisher Days is held in Key West.  This year it will be from July 10 - 13.  You can get more information at www.MeFisherDays.com.

You undoubtedly know that it took 16 years to find the Atocha and the $450 million dollars of treasure.

 

Horse Tooth in Jaw Bone.

It is always good to check your equipment out before you need it.  Don't forget to check your backup detector if you have one.  Make sure the batteries are still good and that you have fresh batteries on hand. 

Also, it is a good idea to check your detectors and batteries before you put them in the car.  It is a real bummer to get there, and when you are all ready to get started, find that your detector isn't working.    That is a real pain.


Here is a different type of find.  It was found in shallow water.   It isn't fossilized and still has part of the jaw bone.  It's about three inches high.


On the Treasure Coast today the surf is up to about five or six feet.  The wind was strong last night a time or two.  It could have moved some sand, but I don't expect much due to the fact that the wind was out of the East and is going to be out of the Southeast the rest of the day while the surf decreases.

The surf is predicted to decrease for a couple of days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

 



1/21/14 Report - 14K Coin Mount, Thin Gold Chain, and Thin Gold Ring & Horse Tooth Fossil

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

14k Beach Find.

Here is an unusual beach find.  Obviously something is missing.  I don't know exactly what it is, but it looks like it once held a mounted coin.  That is the approximate size and shape of the mounting anyhow.

Too bad it, whatever it was, is missing.


Dan B. who sent in a photo of the ring he found in a yard that I posed yesterday was metal detecting a shell pile yesterday and found his largest tooth ever, even though he had been hunting sharks teeth all of his life.

I always say, keep your eyes open while detecting.

His fossil find is shown below.


\
California has been having a bad drought and water levels are at a historic low in places such as Folsom Lake.

Boat docks are sitting on dry land.  When I see something like that I always think about the good new exposed ground for easy metal detecting.

Fifty years ago there was a plane that wrecked in the Folsom Lake and the wreck and people were never found.  One private individual has volunteered his boat and sonar equipment to hunt for the airplane wreck and bodies.

Here is the link ot that story.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/01/18/low-folsom-lake-water-levels-help-narrow-search-areas-for-50-year-old-plane-crash/

Very Thin Beach Found 14K Gold Chain.

It isn't easy to find small gold, especially very thin gold chains unless they have a medallion on them.  Here is a VERY tiny thin gold chain.

The small units above the chain are 1/16 inch, so you can see that the thickness of the wire must be something like 1/64 inch.

Something like that can difficult to detect with a detector unless you are doing a lot right.


If you have a similarly thin chain, try it out with the detector and settings that you use the most.



While on the subject of skinnies, here is a very thin gold ring.  The setting has a colored gem stone and small diamonds.

Although the ring size is large (some lady had chubby fingers) the band is very thin.

Thin Band on14K Beach Found Ring

Hard to believe this is actually the band to an adult's ring.

As I look at it the band is only about 1/20 centimeter thick.

No wonder it is bent.

Again, the ring size if fairly large.








And here is Dan's horse tooth fossil that was found while detecting a shell pile.

On the Treasure Coast the ocean remains pretty smooth (around two feet).

The tides are pretty flat too.

I still don't see anything in the next week or so that will improve detecting conditions.

If your tired of the beach, it might be a good time to try something else, or try a little water hunting wherever you are allowed to do that.  Maybe a day trip could be a good idea, or hunt some yards or old home sites, or look through any shell piles.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net