1/27/17 Report - Finding That Fine Line of Good Judgement To Minimize Metal Detecting Mistakes.

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

Yesterday I mentioned several different kinds of mistakes that I've made.  They included (1) not paying enough attention to a dug item in the field to get the significance of the item,  (2) not keeping an item when it isn't known for sure what it is, (3) not digging carefully enough, (4) not being careful enough when you clean an item, and (5) not storing an item properly, and then I added another, (6) leaving good targets in the ground.

So what is the solution?  How do you keep from making those kinds of mistakes?

There are always trade-offs.  Take the first type of mistake - not paying enough attention to a dug item in the field.  You can carefully inspect every item you dig and try to figure out what it tells you about the site, or you can quickly pocket every dug item so you can spend as much time as possible detecting. Those are the two extremes, and either one could be a big mistake.  The optimal solution is somewhere in between.  You will want to analyze finds but not waste too much time especially on less significant items.

Research and experience will help you more quickly analyze finds and make good decisions.  If you do your research, you'll have some familiarity with the most likely targets, and you'll have a good idea of the significance of those finds and what you should do if you find a particular type of object.

Consider the musket hammer and flint that I mentioned.  If that wasn't my very first hunt in a target rich colonial battleground site, I would have been better prepared to quickly identify the find and its significance.  If I had read more and studied relevant pictures before the hunt, I probably would have correctly identified the musket flint as soon as I saw it.  If I found the same hammer and flint under the same conditions today,  I would have stayed in the same spot for a while and looked for other related items, perhaps more of the same musket.  I would have adjusted my hunt as the result of the find instead passing them over as two isolated insignificant objects.  The fact is that I wasn't well prepared for that hunt and made some mistakes.

On the same hunt I also made the mistake I have listed above as number three.  I was not careful enough about digging an item that was found just a few yards from the musket hammer and flint.  I damaged a very nice find.  The musket and flint, had I realized their significance, should have told me that there could be some very nice old items in the area.

The solution for that kind of mistake also involves trade-offs.  You can dig everything with great care, or you can try to recover every item as quickly as possible.  Again, there is another option.  If you analyze the signal and the situation, you will know when it would be wise to exercise extreme caution. You can't be right every time.  It is a matter of probabilities and using the information you gather to make adjustments.  You will be wrong at times, but you can definitely cut down on the number and seriousness of the mistakes that you make.

If I had correctly identified the hammer and flint, I should have known to be more careful with my digging.  If I was finding nothing but pull tabs and clad coins, and there was little indication of anything very nice being in the area, I could be a little more careless and not be in too much danger of making a really big mistake.   A lot of factors can affect how carefully you dig.  If you have all the time in the world to explore a site, you can dig as if every target is precious.  I prefer to adjust as I go.

I'll jump now to the mistake of leaving exceptionally good targets in the ground.  There is always that possibility if you don't dig everything.  As I explained the other day, the very best finds, such as Rolex watches or gold bars, won't be identified by a metal detector's readout and they are rare enough that you probably won't identify them accurately from the signal.  The very best finds are like that.  They are rare and usually come as big surprises.

This type of mistake is very dangerous.  You will probably never know that you made it.  The treasure remains silent in the ground and you go on your merry way happy that you did not have to dig another piece of junk.

One way to avoid leaving the very best targets in the ground is to really learn how to use your detector and how to interpret the signals.  That will help, but I recommend the utmost caution in passing up targets that you don't recognize.  Analyzing the site and the situation will help.

I encourage people to dig everything, but that is not always possible, and it is not always wise. A lot of the time I just sample a site and make a decision knowing that I might miss something good.  Skill and experience can help you minimize mistakes, but  there is still some amount of luck or chance involved. That is part of the fun and what makes it so interesting.  It is a game that you can never completely perfect.

---

Darrel S. says he has been having trouble with a SeriousDetecting store.  Here is what he said.

I have been going through a horrible 2 months with this company. I ordered a coil last year. Was defective and they paid for return shipping (sent a label.) Sent back and they rejected the package. They claim never delivered. Local PO said they refused it. It is on the way back and I have to pay return shipping. I will probably contact CORS in Ukraine and go from there.

---

I don't generally comment on companies much, but will repeat that I was not at all happy with Tesoro, who advertised a lifetime guarantee, but they don't honor it if they decide the detector is obsolete.  That is not what I call a lifetime guarantee.  I have two old Tesoro detectors that they determined were obsolete even though they were purchased with a lifetime guarantee.

---

One person wrote mentioning that mangroves are protected.  That is true.  Don't cut or damage them.

---

Nothing new to report about beach conditions.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/17/17 Report - Florida More Than 50% Chance of Hurricane in 2017. How Metal Detecting Is Something Like Battleship Game.

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

Predictions for 2017.
Source: See link below.

According to predictions, the state of Florida has a 51% chance of a hurricane hitting in 2017, and a 21% chance of a major hurricane.

Here is the link.

http://weatherplus.blog.mypalmbeachpost.com/2017/01/15/what-are-the-chances-a-hurricane-will-hit-florida/

---

Some people say there is no way to tell where things are going to be found when salvaging shipwreck treasure.  They talk as if the shipwreck remains are distributed randomly.  That isn't the case.  You might where you will find any each and every item, but it is not random either.  And you might not know how things ended up being where they were found, but there is a reason they ended up where they did.

The people who salvage shipwrecks as a business try to understand things like how a ship came apart, where it hit the reef and which direction the wind was blowing when it wrecked.  They study charts like the one shown below to see where holes have been blown and what was found at each location. They wouldn't study such things if they didn't think it would help.

It reminds me of the game Battleship.  That is a game where one player places his ships on a grid, and the other player selects grid locations attempting to hit the other player's ships.

When you try to hit the other fellow's ships, you might start out with a random selection, but when you finally make a hit, you have some information and your next selection won't be random - at least not if you make use of the information you gained.

In the game, when you get a hit at one location, you know that the rest of the same ship must be at an adjacent grid location. That is because the hit gives you information that tells you that the adjacent locations have a higher probability of being where you will find more of the same ship.

It isn't exactly the same with treasure salvage.  There isn't always an adjacent location that will also contain an item,  You still have a better chance of finding something good when you excavate near a good find than if you picked a random location anywhere in the sea.  It is about probabilities.

There is almost always some type of clustering when it comes to metal detecting.  While an individual item might show up anywhere and have no particular known relation to any other object, generally speaking there will be clustering.

If you look at the chart above showing holes and coded to show what type of object was in each hole, you'll notice that both holes and colors are sometimes clustered.  People use that kind of information to figure out where to dig next.

You don't find ballast rocks randomly distributed over miles of ocean, for example.  There will more than likely be a pile somewhere.  And other heavy items will likely be with the pile, such as cannons or heavy silver bars.  That might be partly because they were stored in the same part of the ship.

There are principles that determine where things will end up.  There are a variety of factors.  That is what makes it complicated.

There is also clustering of items in wet sand areas, whether they are ancient or more modern.  The water will shift and sort things over time.

The longer an item is in a high energy environment, the more it will be sorted.  As a result the pattern will become more defined.  That is how coin lines and coin holes are formed.

There is also clustering of new drops in the dry sand.  Those items have not been affected by Mother Nature, but they are clustered by human nature.   People congregate together and lose items where they congregate.  People participate in different types of activities - volleyball, for example.  More items are lost on volleyball courts than in wide stretches of sand where nothing much takes place.  Furthermore, more items can be found at certain areas on and around volleyball courts.

Since things are not generally randomly distributed, your search should not be random.  The more you understand about how items were lost and the forces that might have acted on them after they were lost, the more you will find, as long as you spend the time.

---

The surf is now down to 2 - 3 feet and will continue to decrease for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/27/14 Report - Million Dollar Hoard Found By Metal Detector. Success of Portable Antiquities Scheme. Probability.

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

Seaton Down Hoard
Source: See link.

The Seaton Down Hoard, found by an amateur detectorist, consists of 22,000 coins and is valued at nearly $1.5 million dollars. 

The hoard has the distinction of including the one millionth object reported as a part of England's very successful Portable Antiquities Scheme, which, unlike the American system, rewards those who find and report antiquities.  The PAS has been hugely successful.  Too bad we don't have something similar.

The Seton Down Hoard was located by amateur detectorist, Laurence Egerton.

The Independent reports, Laurence Egerton, 51, a semi-retired builder from East Devon, discovered two ancient coins “the size of a thumbnail” buried near the surface of a field with his metal detector in November last year.

After digging deeper, his shovel came up full of the copper-alloy coins. “They just spilled out all over the field,” he said. “It was an exciting moment. I had found one or two Roman coins before but never so many together.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/the-seaton-down-hoard-amateur-metal-detector-uncovers-22000-roman-coins-9758483.html

 Coin From Seaton Down Hoard
Source: Same link.

This is an interesting article that you'll want to read.

------------------
.
Probability is an interesting subject and very relevant to anyone that takes detecting seriously. 

Skill might be defined as anything you intentionally do in such a way that it increases the probability of success.

Different people will define success differently.  For some it might be finding a valuable object.  For others it might be finding something old.  For others it might be finding a personal item of sentimental value and returning it to the owner.

There are many metal detecting skills.  You can skillfully use a detector, read a beach, or conduct research, to name just a few.

A good knowledge of probability will help you.   It is not something you can be totally precise about, but by deriving a good estimate of the probability of success at different sites or under different circumstances, you can increase your rate of success over the long run.

Just a few basics.  One site can produce a lot of coins but little of much economic value.  Lets say the average gold find at that site is worth $50.  And you make a gold find at that site once every five hunts on average.   That means the average gold find would be  1/5 X 50, or $10.

At another site, the gold is of higher value but you find it less often.  Let;s say the average gold find there is worth $200, but you only make a gold find at that site once every ten trips.   That means your average expected gold find per hunt would be 1/10 X 200 or $20. 

That means that the second site produces more value on average even though you find gold at that site less often. 

There are other things that should be taken into account.  One of those is personal preferences.  

Some people get discouraged easily and like to find something nearly every hunt even if it isn't very valuable, for example.  They might stick to high-probability but low-value sites just because of personal preferences.  Those people are not suited for something like the search for the Atocha.  They would get discouraged and give up way before finding that kind of high-value target.

There is always the element of chance involved in metal detecting.  There are factors which you have no control over, or at least which you did not take into account, that will affect the probability of success.  The element of chance provides a good bit of the excitement of metal detecting.



The history-buff that owns President Eisenhower's Rolex did not accept an auction bid of $475,000.

http://nypost.com/2014/09/17/owner-of-eisenhowers-rolex-snubs-475k-auction-bid/



The other day I was talking about lightning.  You can check for lightning in your area at various web sites.  One is weatherbug.com.

http://weather.weatherbug.com/FL/Port%20Saint%20Lucie-weather/weather-maps/lightning.html



Speaking of probability, what is the probability of being killed by lightning?

The National Safety Council says 1 in 136,011.   That is hugely better than the odds of winning PowerBall.

Here is a link to that site which presents a list of causes of death and the associated probabilities. 

http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistics/Documents/2014-Injury-Facts-43.pdf

If you go back to your car to avoid lightning, there is a good chance that you will be killed as a pedestrian.   1 in 723.

And if you then drive home, you might consdier that the chance of being killed in a motor vehicle incident (in your lifetime) is 1 in 112.

I know there are a lot of qualifications and ifs, ands and buts.   I'm just having some fun with the numbers. 

I do find it interesting how fears and behavior are so often proved to be irrational when you really get down to the numbers.  

Nobody wants to ban cars even though they kill way more people than guns.  They are just too convenient and too much a part of daily life.


I have more Treasure Coast find photos to show but that is all for today.


There is no weather in the Atlantic to watch now, and the surf on the Treasure Coast remains in the two to three foot range.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net