5/13/19 Report - Alternative Types of Treasure Hunting and Thinking Outside the Sphere. $24,000 Penny Find. Cashless Society.

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

Urban Prospector

Source: New York Post.

There are many places and ways to treasure hunt. but people are usually on a very narrow track.  They might try one or two or maybe three kinds of hunting, but there are many others that they never even consider.

While most of the time I metal detect on the beach,, I have done some other very different things, but there are still many others that I have never tried.

There are some types of hunting that most of us would never think of.  For example, there is a fellow that hunts the cracks and pot holes in the streets in the New York diamond district ( photo above).  He extracts the accumulated debris and later pans it.

You can view the video of how he works the streets by going to this old post.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2011/12/122611-report-one-strange-place-to-find.html

I really recommend taking a look at that video.

You might be surprised by how much you can find on the streets.  Without even trying, I can remember finding, a heavy gold chain, gold bracelet, gold earrings, and Gucci and other watches on the streets, so I'm not at all surprised by the success of that fellow.

Parking lots are good too.  You have a good chance if at first light of day you search in front of a glitzy but rowdy bar after a busy night.  I learned that when I arrived early one morning to detect and found a heavy gold chain after getting out of the car.

I once found a gold ring that had been smashed by cars in a puddle in a parking lot.  I looked for the gem stone in the puddle too, but I don't remember if I found the gem stone or not.  I doubt it, or I'd probably remember it.

When I lived down south and visited the shopping malls with my wife, I'd spend a lot of time scanning the floor especially around the edges of the jewelry cabinets and under the clothes racks. You might be surprised by how often you could find an earring backing or some other little piece, like maybe a small stone that popped off.  That isn't what we typically think of as treasure hunting, but for me it was.

I used to find valuable old books at thrift stores.  That is not as easy now because of how the collectible book market has changed as a result of the internet.  That was also a type of treasure hunting for me.

My point is, no matter what type of hunting you do, there are other types of hunting that you might not think of.   People naturally fall into habits, and those habits can become constricting.

I believe that despite the amount of sharing that takes place these days, most finds are never reported or publicized.  Those that are publicized usually don't reveal much of anything that is radically new .  People that are onto something really new and exciting often aren't ready to publicize what they are doing.  And they are too busy.

It is good to be skeptical, but a person can dismiss things too quickly because of the limited range of their own experiences and imagination.  That is a real danger.

Most beach hunters have not done much cache hunting, for example, and there are a lot of different ways to do cache hunting.  You can do it like they do it on the Curse of the World War II Gold TV program, which for my taste is way too much like the Oak Island show, or you can do it many other ways.  Glenn Carson wrote a book on the subject, but I haven't seen a lot written on the subject.  There are so many places and ways to do it, and the hits are not real frequent.

People who renovate houses have an inside track on cache hunting.  There are things stuffed away in nooks and crannies that are forgotten.  I know that for sure.  You can occasionally stumble on a find like that, or you can intentionally hunt things like that and become skilled at it.

Abandoned houses, shacks, barns often conceal nice treasures too.

I define "treasure hunting" way more broadly than "metal detecting."  Although I enjoy and have done a lot of metal detecting, I have done some other types of hunting too - some of which are less common and less written about.  There are many other ways to hunt for things.  I personally like what I call eye-balling, which can be practiced in more places and will result in different kinds of finds.

As we all know, beach metal detecting is a great activity.  It offers so much.  Being outside is nice.  The exercise is good.  And you never know what you might find.  And in my opinion, it is a great educational activity.  There is so much you can learn from it.  It is also a challenge.

It is important to evaluate information and ideas, but I think creativity is as important as skepticism.  Things can be too quickly accepted or too quickly dismissed.

When you see or hear something that you think is impossible, at least entertain for a minute the possibility that there might be something you haven't thought of.  Ask yourself how it might be possible. You might discover brand new opportunities when you challenge your own skepticism.

For me, a lot of the fun of treasure hunting is the creative process.   Don't let treasure hunting become a mindless mechanical repetition.  There are always new things to learn and different ways to do things.

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Megan Green made a great find in 2017.  It was a 1969-S Lincoln Double Die Obverse cent.

Megan took up coin collecting when her young daughter had a serious heart defect.  Megan needed a diversion and began searching coins.  She searched wrapped rolls and boxes of coins she got from the bank.  After a while she gave up, but then started up again after a taking a break.

Not only did the hobby provide the diversion she need during trying times, but it also helped with medical expenses.  The 1969-S double die cent find was valued by PCGS at $24,000.

That story was reported in greater length in the May 21, 2018 issue of Coin World.

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Here is an article you might want to read about how cash is being replaced by other methods of exchange.  I've talked about that some in the past.  I disagree with some of what is in the article, but you might find some of the ideas interesting.

It starts...

A cashless society has been a talking point for futurists for years, but for one reason or another, has never quite been within our grasp. Now, like the electric car and clean energy, it’s finally happening - and it’s about time...
https://transferwise.com/us/blog/the-disappearing-paper-why-cash-is-a-dying-payment-method

In my opinion there are some very good reasons to use cash and some real dangers to cashless systems.

But what will be the impact on detectorists?   It will hurt some more than others.  Many are not  interested in finding modern coins anyhow.

The article mentioned that the average life of paper currency is only six years.  It looks to me like the life of a zinc penny might not be much better.  I've been seeing a real high percentage of 2018 and 2019 pennies lately.

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Have you ever noticed those slide show articles, like Ten Most Expensive Cars or something like that.  For each and every paragraph you have to click a NEXT icon.   I hate those, they are click-bait, and I just refuse to do them.  If I really want to see the information, I try to find the same information somewhere else, and you usually can, because they steal the information and put it in a form that requires you to click to see each paragraph, and each paragraph come with a bunch of ads. Tyup

I don't do Facebook or some of the other things either.

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Thanks for all the kind reponses to my Mother's Day post

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The Treasure Coast surf for the next week or so will be only one or two feet.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/14/15 Report - Big Events & The Times. Hurricane Drought. Detecting On The Edge.

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

It seems that 2015 is a year of a lot of big anniversary events.  I think I posted not long ago a link to an article about how the world changed in 1965.  To save you the math, that was 50 years ago.  It was a time of change and transformation.  And personally, it was a pretty big year.

Crises Magazine said, Different writers here and there have talked about 1965, fifty years ago, as a year of transition. It was a year in America when trends came into focus, culture was altered, and life changed—politically, socially, culturally, morally, and in the Catholic Church. Perhaps historian James T. Patterson provided the most detailed elaboration on these developments and their implication for the country in his bluntly titled book from a song of the time, The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America. I found the article interesting, maybe you will too.   Here is the link.   http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/1965-the-dawn-of-our-current-age

In treasure hunting, 2015 marks the 300th anniversary of the 1715 Fleet disaster and 30th anniversary of  the discovery of the Atocha.

Another article had the following to say.  This year we celebrate 200 years of the victory of the Battle of New Orleans!  The British were defeated by the good people of New Orleans, Louisiana during this Battle.   On January 7-8 while all the men were fighting the battle,  the women gathered in the evening with the Ursuline Sisters to pray before the statue of Our Lady of "Prompt Succor" ( Means Quick Help.) The next morning a Mass was offered and the nuns promised to have a Mass of Thanksgiving annually if they were victorious.  That Thanksgiving  Mass is still celebrated to this day at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor on State St.   There were many odds against  Andrew Jackson and his men but after winning the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson publicly acknowledged that the American victory was won by heavenly intervention.  You can read the rest of that article by using the following link.  http://holymotherchurch.org

2015 is also the 70th anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bomb, the 20th anniversary of the release of Windows 95, and 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina was ten years ago.  And that was the last year that a major hurricane hit the United States.  It has been that long. Time flies.

Talking about the amount of time since the last major hurricane, the Advocate says, The gap is something of a record that has not occurred since the 1870s, according to information compiled by researchers at LSU.

The article continues, There have been hurricanes that have caused widespread damage such as in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy, a Category 2 storm hit the East Coast, and Hurricane Isaac, a Category 1 storm in Louisiana, but neither storm reached Category 3, 4 or 5 status as measured by wind speed (http://theadvocate.com/news/12162292-123/9-years-since-last-major)...

When you go out and look at the Treasure Coast beaches, you'll see some very sandy conditions - not only has the sand been accumulating on the beaches but also in the shallow water close to shore.  In Florida we haven't had anything to really move much sand for quite a while.  Even Sandy didn't cause much erosion.  It was more of a high tide event down here.

I guess it looks like we are due.  I really can do without a major hurricane.  A good storm that sits off the coast and churns for a while can do the job.

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I often hear people complaining about how difficult it is these days.  They talk about all the competition, and they talk about how every beach is over-hunted.  They talk like in years past all you had to do was walk out there and things would fall into your scoop.  They don't know.  Most of them weren't even born then.

There were more detectorists than you would know about back in the old days.  There was no social media.  You didn't know about Tom, Dick and Harry and what they found even if they were out there hitting the beaches everyday.  There was no email, and there were no blogs, or forums.

You didn't hear about the top guys anyhow.  The LOOK AT ME Kardashian generation wasn't born yet.  The guys were much more secretive, especially the best ones.  Some of them are still around, and you still don't hear about them.  I know one that is as good as anyone, and certainly better than any of those that you read about on the internet.  His water skills are amazing.  He was actually a Navy Seal. As a result he hunts locations, times and waters where others don't.

There were some very intense hunters in the old days.  I once mentioned a fellow that hunted every low tide for weeks on end.  No break.  I haven't heard about him for quite a few years.

I knew others, one of which would come crawling up out of the ocean every morning as the sun rose.  I saw him a few times, including once up at Vero, even though he was a South Florida hunter.  He didn't say who he was, but I had been around enough and knew.

Everybody learned and perfected their skills pretty much on their own back then.  There was very little sharing of information.  You couldn't go on the internet and read about where to hunt, where not to hunt, how to use your detector, etc. etc.

And for those of you who like the new detectors and new technologies, we didn't have all of that.  If you want to go back to the old days go buy a used detector from past decades and see how you like using that instead of your latest and greatest

Don't think there wasn't competition in the old days.  There was more than you know about or hear about.

I never hunted South Beach much.  I never spent much time where the crowds hunted.  Like some of the others back then, I didn't like being observed.

The heavily hunted areas are heavily hunted for a good reason, but there are always other hot spots that aren't heavily hunted.  You have to spend some time to find those spots.  And they may come and go, but they were out there back then and they are still out there.

Some hot spots are not well known because they only open up periodically.  Some are not well known because they are hard to get to, but when you have over forty miles of densely populated coastline, I'll guarantee you that there are hot spots out there that you can still have pretty much to yourself if you are willing to spend some time prospecting.  It might take a while, but it can be done now just as it was done decades ago.  There are always those following the crowd and then there are those detecting on the edge.  If you are on the edge you won't be bothered by the competition.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/14/15 Report - Breaking Out Of The Rut And Beating The Crowd. Prospecting For New Metal Detecting Sites. Barber Dime Find.

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

!904 Barber Dime Find
Find and photo by Dan B.

Sometimes it might seem like there are too many people with detectors these days and that every good place has been cleaned out.  There are a lot of guys with detectors, but the fact is that most of them are hunting the same few spots. It's true! If you stop at some beaches any day of the week, you'll see one or two other detectorists and sometimes six or more.  

Dan B. found the nice 1904 Barber dime shown here.  Really neat!  Besides sending the photo of his recent find, Dan  mentioned something that I talked about before.  It is something that helped him, and it might help you too.

Here is what Dan said.

 I remember what you once said about barriers or things that guard good targets. Like depth, a tree, or weather, etc.

It has served me well to actually go looking for "the dragon" that signals a possibly hidden spot.  It is really about determination and creativity.

Same Dime
Find and photo by Dan B.

I did say that, and it is true.  While there are a lot of guys out there detecting, most of them are doing the easy thing.  They go to a place where they can park their car and walk across the walkover and start detecting.  It doesn't take much time or effort.  

The guys that are finding the most are spending the most time detecting, but they are doing something else as well.  They go a step or two beyond what most people are doing.

One guy I knew was good in the water.  He was very fit and an expert at what he did.  He would swim across the intercoastal if that is what it took.  As a result he found and detected good places that he had all to himself.

Others weren't so good in the water, but would walk miles to get to a good spot.  That is how they took it to another level and beat the crowd.

I know that not everybody is able to do that kind of thing, but many just aren't willing.  That is one of the biggest differences between the guys that make more finds and the others.

In many cases, it just takes a little additional effort.  In some cases, it takes a lot.

Don't get me wrong.  If you detect for a little casual entertainment and want to get out there and relax, there is nothing wrong with that, but don't expect to get as much as someone who is dead set on coming back with something very nice and spends the additional time and puts in the additional effort.

I remember one day when I was determined to get a piece of gold.  I wasn't having much luck that day either.  I started in the morning and it took me to near sundown to hit that piece of gold.

I'm not like that anymore.  I'm much more casual about things.  Back then I was trying to see what I could do.  Now I know what I can do and what it takes, and I'm not as driven.  If I really got interested in doing something in particular, I could be just as intense again, but usually I don't need to.   

In Dan's email he mentioned an ant hill, which is where he found the dime.  Anything that can discourage others can protect a treasure for you.  It can be weeds, bushes, distance, weather, hard rocky soil, muck or mud, trash or whatever.  Anything that will discourage the crowds provides an opportunity - if you are willing and able  to overcome it.

I remember my first introduction to fire ants.  It was while digging a target.  Now it seems I'm almost immune to fire ants.

By the way, in the past year I've seen three Coral snakes.  Watch out for anything venomous.

When people are going through one of those inevitable dry spells, which are bound to happen from time to time, the first thing they start to question is their detector.  If you do some simple tests like those I've described in the past, you can quickly tell if your detector is performing well enough. The problem is seldom the detector though.  More often you have fallen into a rut, doing the same old things at the same old places time and time again.  Yes, conditions play a part in it, and to some extent luck, but when you have been striking out on a regular basis, it is always a good idea to try something different - something that will separate you from the pack, and maybe something you've never tried before.

Believe it or not, despite the number of other detectorists, there are still good spots out there that you can have all to yourself if you are willing to invest some time in exploring new areas.  When you explore new areas, you might strike out nine times out of ten, but that one hit will be worth the effort.  It can pay off for years to come.

Don't think that just because you didn't find anything the first time you visited a new spot that it is no good.  There are always the current conditions to take into account.  It will often take a few visits to identify a good new spot.

When I was hunting hot and heavy down south, I hunted some of the same spots as everyone else, but I also had a number of spots that I had very much to myself.  I would visit them over and over and never see anyone else there.  They really weren't all that difficult to find either, but they did require some prospecting.  

When conditions won't change for the better, you might have to.

On the Treasure Coast expect something like a two foot surf for a few days.  Nothing better in sight real soon.  We do have a nice negative tide though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/9/14 Ancient Glitter Covered Tunnel With Artifacts. Beach Gold Prospecting and Mining In Alaska. 10,000 Year Old Arrowhead Found By Ten Year Old.

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



Not Indiana Jones
Source: Telegraph.Co.Uk link below.

An interesting 2000-year-old tunnel below the Temple of the Plumed Serpent is coated with powdered glitters so that when a torch is lit it appears to sparkle like the night sky.  The 340-foot tunnel has yielded thousands of relics.

Here is the link to the video.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archaeology/11198329/Mexico-powder-glittered-tunnel-reveals-ancient-relics.html

Source: Nevada-outback-gems.com web site linked below.

Maybe you've watched the TV show Berring Sea Gold.  Don't you love to see those guys dredging under the ice?  

Prospectors have worked the beaches around Nome with a variety of types of equipment.  I've never seen anything about anyone nugget shooting with detectors on the beaches there.  I'm sure they so if it works.

Anyhow here is a web site with a lot of great information about gold mining in that area.  Included is information about old creek beds that are now under water off shore and a lot of other good information.

It is worth remembering, that like up there, our beaches were once way out from where they are now.  There is a lot of archaeology to be done under he water.

Here is a link to that jam-packed site about gold mining along the beaches of Nome.

http://nevada-outback-gems.com/prospecting_info/nome_gold.htm


A 10 year old boy found a 10,000 year old arrowhead on a New Jersey beach. 

Here is the link for the story and video.

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/08/26/boy-finds-10-000-year-old-artifact-on-beach/20952328/


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comast.net