8/19/19 Report - Metal Detecting for Watches and Detector Responses. A Scouting Tool. Memorable Metal Detecting Moments.

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

Man's Watch on Ground

An expensive watch can sound like a piece of junk.  No ID meter is going to tell you when you are detecting a watch, but if you are digging everything, or if you are discriminating but know how a watch is likely to sound, you will still find a fair share of watches.

In the above photo you see a watch. That shows one way a watch can be positioned.  The face and band are standing on edge. Watches can also be positioned so the face of the watch is facing up or down with the band lying flat on the ground.  (See example below.)

Watches are usually made of a variety of materials.  Even if the casing is gold or silver, part of the watch and band will be made of other materials.  That means that you can get some confusing signals.  Not only that, but if you swing your coil over it in different directions you will get different sounding signals and different conductivity ratings.

If you swing left and right over the above watch,  the Equinox will give conductivity ratings of 13 to 16, but if you swing north to south, you will get higher readings - something like 18 - 22.

Your readings won't be consistent, but will depend to some extent upon exactly where the watch is positioned under the coil.

Watches will often give two or more tones because of all the different parts and materials used in the watch.

Watch Lying Flat.

This watch, which is a different than the one at the top of the post, is lying flat on the ground.  The signal will be primarily determined by the casing and face of the watch, but also the band.  This watch, produced a much more complex signal than the watch above.  This one jumped around all over the place between -1 and 35.

Although there are so many kinds of watches and the signals can be very complex and varied, it is still good have an idea of what they might sound like,  You can learn what to expect by experimenting with a variety of watches.

I previously posted three YouTube videos that illustrate the effect of the position of a watch and the sweep direction of the coil on the detector signal you get from a watch.

Here are those links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqZ9XJiKy7o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtIVumXmtyU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYGswg64oWE


I've found a lot of watches in shell-filled dips right in front of the beach.

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Its amazing what is online.  If you want to scout around a little without actually going anywhere, you might try Google Maps street-view.  It is almost like you are there.

Entrance to White City Park as Seen Using Street View on Google Maps.

As you drive down the road using street view you might want to look around for construction areas, like that being done on Midway Road through White City.   I've posted many stories in this blog about old things being exposed by construction projects.

The views you see on street view will be somewhat out of date, but still you might get some good leads.  The construction in this area has been going on for years, so things might be different now, but they are still turning earth.

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We hear so much these days about the massive amount of data being kept on private individuals by both internet companies and the government, but how about your scholastic "permanent record?"

Decades ago when I was in elementary and high school (we didn't have kindergarten or middle school in our rural area), whenever you did something bad enough to warrant it, your teacher or school principal might threatened that IT (whatever it was) could go on your "permanent record."  My wife remembers it too, so it wasn't just a local thing.  I've heard it joked about on TV sitcoms too, so it must have been near universal.

It sounded really ominous when it was referred to by authority figures that were twice your size and as much as 35 or 40 years old.  I don't know where those "permanent records" were kept, but at the time your permanent records sounded just a little less important than the Book of Life.  It sounded like it could determine the rest of your life somehow.  Now I know it was a fake.

Only a few people in the world now know if I even went to first grade, and nobody knows or cares what graduate degrees I completed. That is one of the things about being retired - what you thought was so important and spent so many years on becomes irrelevant.  After spending years of time and lots of money, the degrees did help me get jobs, but now there are only about two people in the world that actually knows anything about that. Time flies and things change.

Despite the sham of the mythical permanent record, there are records that last.  For example, there is your ancestral record encoded in your DNA.

But each and everyone of us keeps a record of our own.  It might be selective and spotty, but it is there.  Some long lasting memories seem to have been indelibly imprinted on our brains.  There are successes, embarrassments, sports moments, and things that someone said that you seem to never forget.  Some of those are metal detecting experiences.

I remember some finds very clearly even though they occurred many years ago.  I remember the location, what the weather was like, etc., etc.  Many of those memories are of what I call first finds.

I remember, for example, the first Rolex watch I found, even though it was drowned.  I also remember the last Rolex I found, but that wasn't so long ago.

I remember the first shipwreck silver I found on a Treasure Coast beach.  I told about that one in this blog before.  It was at John Brooks beach.   It was almost in front of the beach walkover, but a little to the right.  My wife took it out of my scoop, looked at it and was in the process of giving it a toss, when I stopped her.   It was flat and black, and I didn't know for sure it was silver until I got back home and tested it.  But I remember it all very well.

I remember the first silver ring I found, but strangely not the first gold ring.  That silver ring was found on Hollywood beach down near the water in the evening.  My parents were there and I was showing them my new detector.  They were surprised when I came back with the ring in hand.  Their reaction of surprise probably made it more memorable.

I remember one large solitary multi-carat diamond ring find very well.  I was in the water.  The sky was cloudless and blue and the water was crystal clear that day.  I saw the ring sparkle when the sand slid off of it while it was still in the scoop just a few inches off the bottom.  I saw it sparkle through a two or three feet of water.

Those are just a few examples.  Some of my favorite metal detecting memories weren't finds.  They were just beautiful sights.

One of those occurred came just off Fort Lauderdale Beach in and about thee feet of water.  One day I was metal detecting in the water when it started raining.  The water was flat and the rain surrounded me like a shower curtain of rain surrounding me.  I could only see a few feet in every direction.  It seemed like I was alone in the world.  It was eerily quiet and stunningly beautiful.

That is one of the benefits of metal detecting.  You can accumulate an album full memorable moments that can last for decades.

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I'm going to start harping on including some indication of the size of finds submitted for identification.  It is so important.  Often just a coin for comparison or the object shown in hand will do, but the more information you provide, the better chance you will have of getting an answer.



It looks like another week of one foot surf is predicted for the Treasure Coast.

Nothing that will affect us is on the National Hurricane Center map.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/2/16 Report - Three Ways To View Finds and The Significance of Objects. Ghost Towns and Vanishing Florida. Northeast Swell Coming.

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

Finds are more than objects.  They are also information and become a part of our life experience.

When you find a coin, you learn something.  The coin tells a bit of a story.  It tells you that a person was there or nearby at one time and that they carried the coin and was engaged in some activity that caused them to lose it.  The coin will be either U. S. or some type of foreign money.  It will be either relatively old or new, maybe centuries old or very recent.  It will show signs of being in the surf a while or not, etc.

Beside obtaining the object and whatever information you glean from it, you will also have had a new experience - either trivial or not.

Think about your metal detecting experiences.  Those that you think about often and relate to other people are probably those that seem the most significant to you.

Objects are often valued in a special way by the elderly.  My mother, who is over ninety, holds onto special objects in order to hold onto a part of her past.  Younger people hold onto objects in a similar way, but it is different for the elderly.

Much of the past has disappeared for the elderly.  They may have lost many if not all of the important people from their past.  There is no one left that shared their past.  Many of the objects of the past have also been lost in one way or another.

My mother still has a coffee table that she got when they finally finished building our house.  She remembers picking it out and where they got it.  It was a big deal for her.  While the coffee table is special by itself, what makes it more special to me is the drawings that my sister and I drew on the bottom of it when we were very small.  They are still there.

Where I grew up, there were landmarks and buildings that were a big part of our lives.  Across the road at the bottom of our long driveway was a huge oak tree and an old barn.  They were a big part of our lives.  Al almost as important to us as our own house.  The oak tree and barn were there when mother was very young and still when my dad built our house.  And I do mean built - with his own hands, along with my mother's help.

That tree, it seemed, was there forever, but it is no longer there.  Neither is the barn.

When my mother was young, she and a cousin collected chicken eggs they found in the barn.  My mother still mentions that.

Barn owls had a nest in the oak tree.  I hit rocks from the driveway with a broomstick.  Across the road and over the fence that stood in front of the oak tree was a homerun.

Those things were a big part of our lives, but like most things, are no longer there.

Objects tell a story.  People talk about reading beaches, but finds should be read too.

If memory was perfect, we wouldn't need photos, but things disappear and memory fails.  Objects can help keep memories alive.  If you've been detecting a long time and kept some of your finds, you probably know that.

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Here is an interesting philosophical article on ghost towns and vanishing Florida from the Journal of Florida Studies.

http://www.journaloffloridastudies.org/0102ghosttowns.html

Thanks to Dan B. for the link.

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Yesterday I said that I find gold dubloons boring.  That was a shocking statement to me too.  I thought I should explain it a little.  And there is certainly nothing boring about finding gold dubloons. That is exciting enough.

I just don't find the designs on either the obverse or reverse very interesting.  And the nearly constant color and lack of corrosion is not very interesting to me.  I enjoy the process of cleaning cobs and seeing details emerge.

There are many things that are interesting about gold dubloons though.  The more you study them the more interesting they become.  I guess I've just got more involved with studying the monograms.

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Although the recent weeks of wind and surf have not improved beach detecting conditions on the Treasure Coast, they have been moving sand.  Although we haven't seen much erosion, that continual flow could be setting things up for some good conditions if we get the right changes.  Remember that sand is always moving from one place to another.  When it is piling up one place, there will be some place else where it just left.

For the next two or three days we're supposed to have about a three or four foot surf.  It will increase some on Saturday.  Along with that increase in surf will be a change in the direction of the swell, which has been lacking for the past week or two.  I'll be watching to see what happens with that this weekend.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net