3/23/20 - Tokens and Conductivity Numbers. More on Cleaning Coins.

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

Selection of Tokens Used in Experiment.

As I mentioned not too long ago, I took my Equinox detector down to a very trashy spot along the Indian River Lagoon and started picking through the trash.  There is so much trash that it is very difficult to metal detect there at all.  If I was conducting a serious hunt there, I would do some site preparation and remove a lot of the trash, but picking through the trash provided a couple of benefits.  I learned more about the detector and especially the conductivity numbers by going over so many different types of targets and so much trash.

The conductivity numbers aren't of much use when you have a great hot spot -  you just dig every target.  But if you are trying to pick through trash and don't have much time, or you have some type of physical problem or limitation, you might want to do whatever you can to make the best use of your time and energy.  You probably know that I generally recommend digging everything (I won't get into all of that again now), but there can be times when it pays to discriminate.

I know the common conductivity numbers for most common coins as well as silver cobs, so I decided to experiment with a category of targets that are similar to coins, but not exactly the same.  I selected the tokens shown above from a bag of found tokens for the experiment.  The sample included (left to right and top to bottom) the following tokens: Time Out, Cloverleaf, Ice Machine, Say No To Drugs, Chuckie Cheese, Parking, Race O Rama, Cine Mark, Zone, Metro Transit, Garden State Turnpike, and Broad Causeway.

Here are the conductivity numbers I got for the test targets listed in the same order - 26, 22, 22, 22, 24, 24, 22, 23, 22, 21, 14 and 19.  Of course there was some variability.  Not all the numbers were rock solid.  But that is a fairly small range considering the differences in size and metallic composition of the tokens.  The largest token gave the highest number, but it also seemed to be made of a lighter metal.  The smallest token did not give the smallest conductivity number, although it did give the second lowest conductivity number.  Nearly eight percent of the tokens fell within the range of 21 - 24, which is a small range, and all of the tokens resulted in numbers ranging from 14 to 26.

I can think of a larger token that I could have and perhaps should have have tested.  I bet it would have produced a higher number.  Maybe I'll do that.

The range of good targets that you can encounter in the field is huge.  Gold rings can produce anything from single digits to very high numbers.  The gold ring numbers overlap with the numbers produced for coins, silver cobs and tokens.  Overall, I find the conductivity numbers somewhat useful in some situations, but when I want to make sure I don't miss anything that might be good, they are of little use.  If you are searching for a specific item or specific category of items, the conductivity numbers can be helpful.

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I didn't know the silver coin cleaning topic would run on for so long.  I've personally used the procedure described by Bill P. for a long time with excellent results, but there are some little tweaks that people sometimes make.

A Coin Cleaned By The Muriatic Acid

Photo by JamminJack.

JamminJack said electrolysis wasn't working well on the coin shown above, but the Muriatic acid did the job.

Like with electrolysis there are a lot of  little differences in how people use the Muriatic acid .  Containers are one thing that people play with.

JamminJack said The best way I found was getting a wood clothespin and clip on edge of coin. Lay it in container so you can retrieve and stir the coin.

I often use the top of a spray paint container, as shown below.

Top of Spray Paint Can 

For Cleaning Coins With Muriatic Acid.

There are some things I like about using a spray paint can top.  One is the small inner cup.  If you have one or two half reales, just fill the small inner compartment.  You normally don't need any more acid than is necessary to cover the coin - at least to start.  No sense using a lot of it when you don't need it.

The inner cup also allows you to separate items if you are doing more than one.  That can be important if you are not absolutely certain of the metallic composition of one of the items and want to keep it separate.

But the thing I like most is you can lean the coins against the walls so that every surface of the coin is exposed to the acid.   I've just always found that type of container available, disposable and convenient.  I have a pair of needle nose pliers with rubber coated tips that I sometime use to remove the coins, but it is just as easy to pour the acid into another cup, and then rinse the coins before removing them.  The same acid can be poured right back into the cap if you want to continue the acid immersion and don't need to change the acid.

JamminJack said, The best way I found was getting a wood clothespin and clip on edge of coin. Lay it in container so you can retrieve and stir the coin.  

Good idea.

I'll just add one or two more thoughts on this topic today.

Below is a closeup view of an acid-cleaned four-reale.  I just began use of a baking soda paste but hadn't done much of it, maybe rubbing just a very few times before taking the photo.

If you look at the high (shiny) surfaces you can actually see the direction of my last swipe.  It is most clear on the finger just below center pointing right.  The stroke was top to bottom or bottom to top.  You can see the streaks of some of the soda paste that I hadn't wiped off.

Closeup of Surface Of Silver Reale After Acid Cleaning and A Little Rubbing With Baking Soda Paste.

You might think of it as a good thing or a bad thing, depending upon how you want your coin to look, but when you rub the coin with a baking soda paste, the most pressure will obviously be applied to the raised areas.  You might like that because it creates a shinier surface on the high spots and brings out the details more.

One thing I very recently discovered is that by covering the coin in a baking soda paste wrapped in aluminum foil and leaving it overnight (which I did by accident), the brightening was more uniform than when it was rubbed.  I was impressed by how well that worked, but it is up to you if you like that better or not.

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I've been looking for pictures of centuries old screws.  Anyone know where I can find some photos?

Have you noticed that on the Yes To The Dress program that the popular mermaid style dresses often look more like manatee style dresses when they try them on?

It looks like nothing but 2 - 3 foot surf on the Treasure Coast beaches for a few more days.

Be well,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/20/20 Report - More Experiences Cleaning Found Silver Cobs. Sneezing Into The Infosphere. More Beaches Closed.

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

Eight Reale Found About a Year Ago.

Find and photo by Terry S.

One of the main points I want to make today is that all encrustation is not the same.

Another thing I want to mention before I really get started is that Bill P's method of cleaning silver coins first appeared in this blog about ten years ago.  It somehow got deleted and so I was glad he wrote it up again for posting this year.

I have used Muriatic acid for cleaning coins for I'd guess at least thirty years.  The first instance I recall, I ruined an upholstered dining room chair, which is what made it so memorable, I guess.  Although Muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) will ruin things like that, I have never done damage to a silver coin or medallion using that acid.  Bill assured me it was safe on silver before I was sure of that.  It has proven out like Bill said, but you have to make sure the object is silver, because other metals will be affected differently.  For example, Muriatic acid will eat away at the surface of a bronze item, but my experience has proven Bill right and I have left silver items in Muriatic acid for days with no bad result.  However, just to make absolutely sure nothing bad is happening, I still monitor progress.  It is possible, for example, to have an object made of some other metal or alloy and not know it.

Terry took this encrusted eight-reale that had been sitting around for a year of so and "dipped" the coin in a 50/50 solution of Muriatic acid, followed by a water rinse and then used a baking soda paste.  Below are the results.

Same Eight-Reale Shown Above But After Cleaning.

Photos by Terry S. 

With a quick dip producing such good results, Terry was ready to try the acid treatment on his more recent find.

Terry said, Here is the early 1500’s coin after we dipped in the muriatic acid. When we put the first coin in the solution it bubbled like mad and the solution even changed color. When we put this coin in there was very little action and very few bubbles. I even tried the saliva and tin foil and didn’t see much improvement and finally resorted to a baking soda paste and a tooth brush with some results but no where near the results we got with the 8 reale.

Some more of the encrustation came off but no where near what needs to be removed...

A Recent Find Uncleaned.

Photo by Terry S.

Some coins will require a longer immersion than others.  Many, if not most, will require more than a dip.  I've had some that required days.  It depends upon the type and amount of encrustation.

I've also had coins that were not affected at all by immersion in Muriatic acid.  They had a dense clay crust that the acid would not penetrate.  But that is unusual.  When the crust was broken, it fell off nicely and showed the impression of the features of the coin as if the crust had been a plaster cast.  To repeat the point I started with, all encrustations are not the same.

I personally feel very confident about immersing coins known to be silver in Muriatic acid for long periods, but just to be sure I didn't make some kind of mistake or something, I still check the progress occasionally.

The coin shown immediately above would probably benefit from a longer soaking.  Assuming the coin is really silver, I'd be more concerned about a toothbrush than the acid.

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Just to give credit where it is due, Bill P. is the one that wrote the detailed instructions I posted for using Muriatic acid to clean silver coins.  I originally posted those instructions about ten years ago but lost the post, so republished the instructions again in this blog not long ago.   When I was still occasionally using other methods, including electrolysis, Bill encouraged me to use Muriatic acid instead of electrolysis.  After years of additional experience, I can say Bill was right all along and deserves much credit.

Thanks Bill!

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Social media sneezes words, images and ideas into the infosphere.  Some catch on and get retransmitted and become part of the common vernacular.  Some are used only in smaller specialized communities.

I've always been interested in psycholinguistics and trends in language patterns and usage.  I've mentioned my distaste for ambiguous over-used terms such as "existential threat," for example.

I remember using the equivalent of what we now call email and forums back in the late 1970s, when I was working for a company that had a very advanced international computer network.  I remember  thinking about conducting studies on how computer networks affect how people communicate.  Unfortunately I didn't do those studies.

Since I've been doing this blog I've seen the language used by the metal detecting community evolve.  It is natural for language patterns to evolve, but I believe this blog has played a significant roll in that evolution.

I remember when I was interviewed by a reporter from CNN and used the word detectorist.  She stopped and said, "Did I hear you use the term "detectorist.""  At that time the word was not as commonly used as it is today, and I believe some of that has to do with this blog.

As I recall, most people used the word "real" instead of "reale."  I thought "real" could be confusing, and I also thought the Spanish word seemed more authentic, so I always wrote the word with the final e.  It seems that spelling is now much more common than it was ten or twelve years ago.

I also never saw terms such as "coin line" used in the earlier metal detecting literature.  It certainly was not defined in the detailed way that I defined it. I've tried to find that term used in the detecting literature before I defined it in this blog and have not found any earlier instances.

Even if I could not claim that this blog has introduced new terms and ideas, I can definitely say that it has advanced the discussion in numerous ways.

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The Washington Post is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre and loving it!

If you listen to the media reports - and it's hard not to - it is beginning to sound more like an unbelievable horror movie.  A recent Washington Post story, Coronavirus Will Radically Alter the U.S., describes an overwhelmed healthcare system and 1.1 million American deaths.  No matter what you think of the Post, the story stokes fear while the subtle rewording in the headline suggests a thinly veiled satisfaction that President O'Bama's promise to fundamentally transform America will finally be ushered in by a catastrophe too good to waste.

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Every thing seems new to people who haven't seen anything like it before, which is why studying history adds important context.

The Spanish Flu (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus with the second being the swine flu of 2009.  The Spanish flu infected 500 million people around the world, or about 27% of the world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. Historical and epidemiologic data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin.

The world was very different then.  A much larger part of the population lived in rural areas, and the medical profession was much less advanced.  My grandparents survived that one.  They mostly took whiskey and sugar, and put a sign in their window or on their door saying they were quarantined.

Then the swine flu, 2009 - 2010, killed nearly 12,500 in the U.S., but we heard almost nothing about it compared to Coronavirus.

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Many beaches have been closed.  Unfortunately I can't provide an updated list, but  I heard more were closed last night.

This might be a good time to explore new areas, do some testing or research finds.

Be blessed,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/1/20 Report - Acid Cleaning and Electrolysis. Silver Nuggets and Other Small Finds. Mystery Object.

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

Two Eight-Reales RECLEANED by Jammin Jack

Photos by Jammin Jack.

If you are wondering if it is better to use electrolysis or muriatic acid to clean your old silver finds, you might consider what Jammin Jack concluded.

I previously showed some eight-reale coins that Jack cleaned with Muriatic acid.   He then decided to go back and reclean some coins that were previously cleaned by electrolysis.

Here is how he put it.


I recleaned a few coins that I were done with electrolysis process.

I usually do not like cleaning patina, but this group were heavily corroded. The coins came out better and with more visible detail. 

I cannot go back in time, but regret choosing electrolysis over bathing with a diluted muriatic solution. 

Above and below are the tree coins that he recleaned.

Third Coin RECLEANED by Jammin Jack.

Thanks for sharing Jack.
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Bits of Silver Found On A Treasure Coast Beach Last Week.

These bits of silver look like they were melted.  I cleaned them up before having them tested, and they are a high purity of silver.  They were found in a relatively small area of a few yard or two.

I cleaned them using acid, baking soda paste in aluminum foil, and then buffed them.

The small silver pieces were just a few of numerous small objects found in January and February on days when the beach was producing cobs.

Here are some of the other small bits found the same day in February when I found the silver bits.  They include lead, copper, and maybe brass or bronze.

Group of Various Small Metal Pieces Found On A Treasure Coast Beach Last Week.

I previously posted the following similar group of small items found back in January near the same location.

Previously Posted Group of Small Finds From January Hunt.

I found no silver bits on that day in January, other than a four reales and three half reales, but no small melted silver pieces like those shown at the top of the post.

If you read Douglas R. Armstrong's The Winter Beach Salvage Camp, you'll see that lead scrap and copper are perhaps the most commonly found metals from the test pits, but also reported from multiple pits are small pieces of scrap silver.  The small bits and pieces found in the past two months seem to closely mirror the finds from Armstrong's salvage camp explorations.

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John Ellmore found the following item and wondered what it is.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Mystery Object Found by John E.

Photo by John E.

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The surf is around two feet and the tides are small.

Sourec: MagicSeaWeed.com

It looks like an increase in the surf is expected for next weekend.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/28/20 Report - Low Surf Now. Eight Reales Cleaned and Uncleaned. FKNMS Blueprint Petition.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of TreasureBeachesReport.

New Brown Sand Built Up on Front of John Brooks Beach Thursday.

Before I get into other things today, I wanted to show a few photos.  John Brooks has a new pile of sand on the front beach.  

New Sand on Beach Front at John Brooks Thursday.

It might not be easy to see in the photos, but it is like a new sand bar on the front beach.   That sand will continually shift in and out and work its way slowly south with the littoral currents.

Turtle Trail Thursday Morning.

Photo by Tyler C.

Turtle Trail actually lost an inch or two of sand over the bags since the last photo that I showed.

Tyler C. sent these photos of Turtle Trail that were taken Thursday morning.   Thanks Tyler.

Turtle Trail Thursday Morning

Photo by Tyler C.

The stairs at Seagrape are taped off.  If the access isn't closed now, I suspect it will be soon.

Stairs at Seagrape Trail

Photo by DJ

The surf will remain only one or two feet for a few days.  The wind is off-shore.

I've been intending to study the effect of wave periods, but really haven't gotten around to that in any kind of systematic thorough way yet.

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Not long ago I posted Bill P's directions for cleaning cobs with Muriatic acid.  I've received emails thanking me for posting that information.  

Jammin Jack gave it a try.  Here is what he said.

After reading your responses to using muriatic acid on coins, I took a chance on my last 3 coins. I diluted as mentioned, and used a soft nylon brush. A lot faster, but still needed scrubbing. I think they came out okay.

We always dumped our EOs in similar solution, but coins were either left as found or electrolysis. I always had someone clean my coins. Learning experience for a salty dog! Thank you for doing a section on cleaning coins...

Below are some of the coins Jack cleaned.

Eight Reale From the Bruce Ward Estate.
Photo by Jammin Jack.

Above is an eight reale from the Bruce Ward estate that was cleaned by Jammin Jack using the Muriatic acid method described by Bill P. as previously posted in this blog. Below is the same coin in its uncleaned state.

Same Eight-Reale Before Cleaning.

Photo submitted by Jammin Jack.

Here is another example from Jack.  First the uncleaned coin.

Uncleaned Eight Reale

Photo by Jammin Jack.

Same Eight Reale After Cleaning.

Photo by Jammin Jack.

Looks great, Jack.   Thanks for sharing the results.

Auggie Garcia of Sedwick Coins once told me that most people who buy treasure coins like them bright and shiny.

For your convenience, I added the post on cleaning coins to the reference site link list that you'll find on the first page of the blog.  It is the second link listed.

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Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Blueprint.

I received the following email concerning the FKNMS blueprint from the Mel Fisher organization as well as from another reader of this blog.  

PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION:

The proposed expansion and new regulations of the “FKNMS blueprint” would discourage and quite possibly outlaw future explorers, researchers, historians, and salvagers from working other shipwrecks in the FKNMS. It will not stop Mel Fisher’s Expeditions on the Atocha and Margarita sites because they are grandfathered in due to “Pre-Existing Federal Admiralty Claims”.

Please help us protect the shipwrecks and the rights of future generations by signing the petition below.  The proposed regulations support leaving artifacts on the bottom ‘in-situ’ to rot. In-situ preservation is a total fallacy, a fact admitted to even by NOAA’s archaeologist. The expansion and new regulations would also negatively impact our locals, our visitors and a variety of businesses by limiting access to backcountry channels and sandbars, adding new no-motor zones, adding new no-access zones and imposing many other new overreaching regulations.

The expansion and new regulations would also have a severe negative impact on our commercial fishing, charter boat fishing, snorkeling, diving industries and just about all water related tourist activities. The damage to these industries will hurt tourism and create a negative "trickle down effect" on the entire economy in the Florida Keys.  

You don’t have to be a Florida resident to sign this petition.

Please SHARE or Forward this so we can get as many signatures as possible and show massive support to stop the expansion and over regulation of the Federal Government in our beautiful Florida Keys.

Please help us help our community and future generations by signing the petition at: SayNoToNOAA.org

==============================================  

Our mailing address is:

Mel Fisher's Treasures

1322 US Highway 1

Sebastian, FL 32958

USA

Our telephone:

772-589-9875

Forward this email to a friend:

http://us4.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=5e970e179d5f6020d8b1f2f63&id=7ca440e703&e=5cc0e990c1

FKNMS is the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Use this link to sign the petition.

https://www.saynotonoaa.org/

To learn more about the FKNMS Blueprint see https://floridakeys.noaa.gov/blueprint/

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I have a lot of information back-logged waiting to be posted.   There has been so much going on this winter.

I plan to continue my discussion of beach dynamics, which people have told me they found very helpful.  I also plan to talk about the Winter Beach salvage camps, finds, including mystery finds, "big scoopin," and many other topics.

A lot of snowbirds have been detecting along the Treasure Coast lately.  I've heard from quite a few of them.   The Treasure Coast seems to be getting a lot of Sprint Break metal detecting action.

That's all for now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net