8/13/15 Report - Lima 8-escudos: Rare and Not So Rare. Animas River Toxic Pollution. Kudos To Garrett Detectors.

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

1711 Lima 8-escudo Up For Sale On eBay.

You might remember the post I did on 7/28 showing a pile of gold coins found this year by salvors working the Treasure Coast.  I mentioned that I could see some Pillars and Waves cobs from Lima in that group.

A couple days ago I did a post about what is called the Jeweled Cross Series of gold cobs.  Those are early Mexico minted cobs.

Today I'll post a bit about Peruvian gold cobs.  They were produced from 1696 to 1750.  I'll only consider those up to 1715 in today's post, and I'll just consider 8-escudos for no good reason other than brevity.

Of course the first thing you'll notice about these cobs is the nice pillars and waves design.

Compared to Columbian and Mexican gold cobs, Peruvian gold cobs are usually relatively round rather than odd shaped,  well centered, and have a clear date and mint mark.  In general they are well struck.

The mint mark is in the top left and the mint mark top right, and the date is on the bottom row.  That makes it easy enough.

There are some Lima 8-escudos that are very rare and others that are relatively common.

The 1696 H, 1701 H, and 1709 H are the most rare Lima 8-escudos of the period that I am talking about.  H is the assayer initial.  There are only five or so known examples of each of those.

The most common of those up to 1715 are the 1711 M, 1712 M, and 1713 M.  I don't doubt that one of the main reasons they are more common is because those dates would have been ready to be shipped with the 1715 Fleet.







A 1711 M 8-escudo
currently
offered for sale on eBay

I would be surprised if there were none like this in the group salvaged this year.  And maybe there are a even a few of the rare dates.

I think I'll be able to show you more of this years finds before long.

For a good detailed report on Lima gold cobs of all denominations, here is a link to a good detailed report by Sedwick Coins.

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/articles/limagoldcobs.htm

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Since posting about the jeweled cross series of gold cobs yesterday, I've heard from two people who have found one.  I might be able to post a picture of one of those in the near future.

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One of the most scenic train rides you can ever take is the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge railroad.  If you ever get a chance take that train.  It goes past some amazing scenery as it follows the Animas River, which at one point you can see running through a famous gorge just as you enter a tunnel.  Then when you get to Silverton, it is like you just stepped onto a TV set.  The town looks like the old West the way you see it on TV.  You can see the old silver mine right outside of town, and there is still placer mining in the area.

Maybe you've heard about the Animas River in the news lately.  That is the river spoiled by millions of gallons of toxic waste spilled into the river by the EPA!  Yes, it is the same Environmental Protection Agency that is so zealously regulates and fines anyone from huge corporations to small scale recreational miners.  And it was their fault that this horrid mess took place.  They'll pay for some of the damage, but it will come out of our pockets.

Hopefully the beautiful Animus River and other streams downstream will recover quickly.  I can only hope so.  It is a shame to see such beautiful country spoiled like that.  When it gets cleaned up, I highly recommend visiting the area if you never have, and take the train to Silverton.  Oh, and they run a Christmas Special, just like the Polar Express that would be utterly fantastic if you have kids - or not.  When it comes to things like that I still am a kid.

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If you send me pictures or anything by email it would be good idea to if you put like Do Not Post (DNP should do) or OK To Post on the top.  I usually don't post something if I'm not sure about it.  It would just make it a little easier for me if I don't even have to think about it.    Thanks to all.

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Kudos to Garrett Detectors.  I had a problem with a slipping arm cuff.  I called and told them and they promptly sent out a new one, which I put on my detector, and it seems to work find.  Good customer response.

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I watched a Youtube video in which a guy was going to test and compare an ATX and CTX 3030.   After watching about a minute I could tell that the guy didn't know how to use those detectors very well.  Sometimes the detector comparisons you see are worthless simply because the detectors aren't used well.  Some detectors are easier to use than others, but it is very easy to use the ATX poorly.  You can't tell much about a detector if you don't know how to use it.  I can't believe that fellow was buying these high end detectors and was so clueless about how to use them.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/9/2015 Report - Rare Indian Head Penny Found. Olive Jar & Musket Ball. Deep Quarters.

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

1872 Indian Head Found by William M.
Photos by William M.

William M. made a very rare find.
He found this 19th Century Indian Head, which is a rare key date -  1872.

You can see what the coinstudy.com site says below.  The 1872 is one of the most rare Indian Heads.  In fact it is so rare, that even worn coins bring a minimum of $80, and the price quickly escalates with condition.

Great find William!

Congratulations and thanks or sharing.













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Joe D. sent in a report on the Palm Beach beaches.

Hello, your description on the 6/6 post pretty much matches Palm Beach now. I took my son today to hunt for sharks teeth that were recently discovered after the renourshment. Many people had obviously  been doing the same! I've got to say that I was shocked at the amount of holes that were dug and left open on the beach! Some of the holes were huge! Others were small but deep enough to break an ankle. The sand is full of shells and coral, and is much harder packed than original sand! ...  I think we spent more time covering holes than we did hunting! I Guess we will see what happens here! All the old finds are covered under a million cubic feet of sand now anyway!

Thanks for the report Joe, and for covering holes even though they weren't yours.  Even when a hole isn't dug by a detectorists, detectorists might get the blame.  We don't need that.

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Olive Jar Bottom And Musket Ball Found
By The Crew of The Capitana.

Yesterday I showed a cannon ball found by the crew of the Capitana on the Treasure Coast.  Here is an olive jar bottom and musket ball that they found.








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I went out to the beach early Monday morning to do a little detecting.  As soon as I got there I could see it was no different than the three South Hutchinson Island beaches that I showed you on the sixth.

The front beach was higher than it was a few months ago.  And it was littered with sea weed.  Very few shells.

Here are a couple of pictures showing what it looked like.

Treasure Coast Beach Monday Morning Near Low Tide.

I did a little detecting even though conditions looked poor.  I scanned the front beach just to see.

Every target was deep.  The first three or four targets were too deep and close to the water to be removed.  The hole kept filling before I could get the target out.

I did eventually get a few quarters.  They were all a foot or so deep.  It was unusual to get quarters and not hardly any other coins.  I figured that was because the smaller coins were too small to detect that deep.  I'm not absolutely sure any smaller coins were there but it would be unusual for such a high proportion of quarters, so I'm guessing that most everything, including the quarters were under about a foot of sand, and the smaller items weren't detected that deep.

If you pay attention to target depth and what you are getting as well as what you aren't getting, that will help you analyze just what is going on.

Also check the holes for any layers of different types of sand or shells or whatever.

There were no layers visible in the holes this day.  It was all one thick layer of the same type of fine brown sand, undoubtedly accumulated over the recent weeks of unchanging calm surf.

I didn't have much hope of finding much of anything very good, but managed to find one piece of gold, which was only and inch or so deep - evidently a recent drop.

I'm going to be talking more about analyzing a detecting site and how it might have developed  over time.  If you get a good idea of what has been going on, you'll have a better idea of where to spend your time and where you shouldn't spend your time.

As usual, the dry sand had very little.  There were few good targets and very little junk.  As I said recently, some of these beaches have been cleaned up.  I'm proud of how little junk is left at some of these previously junky beaches.

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A boy was bitten by a shark off Daytona Beach on June 7.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/boy-bitten-shark-florida-beach/story?id=31594612

Shark bites do occur but they are probably much more rare than you might think.

I've seen a few while I was in the water.  One was very large, but seemed startled by me and went the other way.  I always wondered if he didn't sense the metal detector pulses.  Or he might just have left for some unrelated reason.

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A nuclear physicist and an archaeologist at the University of York have joined forces to produce a unique appraisal of the cultural significance of one of the world’s most important locations for scientific inquiry.

In a paper published in the journal,Landscapes, Professor David Jenkins, of the Department of Physics at York, and Dr John Schofield, Head of the University’s Department of Archaeology, have investigated CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider on the Franco-Swiss border.

Situated between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, CERN was established in 1954 to promote peaceful co-operation between nations still recovering from the Second World War.

The study, the product of a visit to the complex near Geneva, focuses on physicality of a location of which researchers say: “It is hard to think of anywhere more significant for all of humanity.” They describe this as an archaeological enquiry, with the buildings, the equipment within them, and a range of everyday objects at the center of their research.

Here is the link.

http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2015/research/cern-heritage/

Is there anything that they do not or will not consider to be an archaeological site?

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It looks like we'll have another week of calm surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/2/14 Report - PCGS Top 100 Modern Coins, Century of Gold & Silver Prices, National Geographic's 10 Fascinating Metal Detector Finds

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

Hundred Years of Gold and Silver Prices.
Source: http://www.macrotrends.net/1333/gold-and-silver-prices-100-year-historical-chart

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One of the pages provided by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) web site, is a page showing what they consider to be the top one hundred modern era coins.

Here is the intro.   The modern coin era began in America in 1965, the first year the U.S. Mint produced copper-nickel "clad" coins as replacement for silver coins, ending an unbroken, 173 year tradition. For many collectors, this was the death-knell for collecting, as the coins would no longer have any intrinsic value and mintages would be huge. Collectors perceived the modern coinage as a vast desert of ultra-common, mundane, unattractive and boring coins. So without further adieu, here is the TOP 100 MODERN COINS.

http://www.pcgs.com/top100/details.aspx

While many of those are so rare there is very little hope of finding one, some are possible.  It is always good to be aware of coins that could be worth considerable more than face value. 

Really inspecting coin finds can add both fun and value to the hobby of metal detecting.

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Gold prices moved sharply lower Tuesday, giving back nearly half of the prior session’s gains and returning to below $1,200 an ounce.

Gold for February delivery dropped $18.70, or 1.5%, to end at $1,199.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange

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If you want to get the most out of your gold finds you need to sell at the best times.  The price of both gold and silver has varied widely over the last hundred years.  (See chart above.).  Silver has gone up and down pretty much along with gold and both have huge spikes that would be very difficult to time.

In the early eighties the Hunt brothers monopolized the silver market.  You can see on the chart how it peaked at over $110 per ounce and then plummeted to around $15 dollars an ounce.  Few people that ride an investment to a peak are able to sell while prices are still high.

Over the last few decades the price of gold has been a really wild ride.

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Here is National Geographics list of 10 fascinating metal detector finds.  You won't want to miss this.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/diggers/articles/10-fascinating-amateur-metal-detector-finds/

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It looks like we'll be having a somewhere around a four to six foot surf for a few days on the Treasure Coast.  The trouble is that the wind will be mostly out of the East.  I'm not expecting any real improvement in beach detecting conditions for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

9/29/14 Report - Things That Can Affect Your Metal Detector ID Readings. Depth Readings. Rare Gold Coins.

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



Three Dollar Gold Coin
Source: See link below.

I did a little test using the Ace 250 today.  I wanted to see if the depth meter is very accurate.  I used a new dime and quarter and Tungsten ring for the test. 

The depth meter on the Ace is in two inch increments, starting at 2 inches and going to 8.

I placed the items on the ground stuck a yardstick in the ground beside them and moved the coil over the individual objects at various heights.

With these surface objects, the depth meter worked somewhat but was not real accurate.  I can only characterize it as somewhat accurate - not highly accurate.   

This test was a very crude test, so I won't try to draw a lot of conclusions from it.  My general conclusion is that the metal detector's depth readings for items when tested in this manner does give some idea of depth, but may not be real precise.

I don't know if naturally buried items would result in depth readings that are more or less accurate.  There are limits to how precisely you can measure the depth of buried objects when you dig them anyhow.

When you are leisurely detecting, take time to carefully notice the precise signal and readings and try to remember them and relate them to the actual object when it is dug.  That will help you learn to better understand your detector.

In my estimate, this inexpensive little detector works very well considering the low price.  There are times when I would use it instead of detectors that cost ten times more.  It isn't the deepest seeking detector in the world, isn't always totally accurate, and has other limitations.  It is enjoyable and useful though.  I've previously described my multi-detector approach to some sites.

One side note is that the Tungsten ring was identified as a pull tab on the ID scale.  

The Sinker.

Just after conducting the above test, I spent a few minutes detecting in a yard that had been detected probably twenty times before with different detectors.  In those few minutes I found a couple of interesting things.  First dug was a zinc penny that had obviously been missed before.  It was right beside a lead sinker (see picture), which might be why it was passed over.  The sinker jumped back and forth between penny and dime on the ID meter.  Actual coins read more consistently. 

Also found in those few minutes in the seemingly over-hunted yard was the following Alabama tag which reads 2.5 Alabama.  The tag is 1.25 by 1.5 inches.

It produced a less consistent ID reading than a coin.  When flat on the surface, it was identified as a quarter and half, jumping back and forth.  It also occasionally gave an iron reading.

After digging it up I did a little test to see if I could find out what caused the mixed ID.  When the object was flat on the ground, it read as a coin (jumping between quarter and half), but when I stuck it in the ground so it stood on end and detected over the edge, the ID was iron.

The Alabama Tag.

My most general conclusion is that the position of an object in the ground can affect the ID reading.  Second, an object buried at an angle will give a variable signal as the coil goes over it at different angles and positions.  Sometimes the coil will be more parallel to a slanted object and at other times moving so as to detect more of the edge.  That will result in different types of signals and different IDs.

I decided to try to replicate the experiment with a quarter.  Of course I got a good consistent ID when the quarter was flat.  When I placed it on edge, I got a good reading most of the time, but also, but also now occasionally got the iron ID.  The iron reading with the coin on edge was rare though, unlike with the tag.  The iron reading obtained by detecting the edge of the tag was pretty consistent.

I'm assuming that the more accurate and more consistent ID on the standing quarter was due at least in part to its additional thickness. 

I'm guessing the tag is tin, but don't know that for sure.

I continue to learn more about my detectors and how they respond to various objects. 


Anyone know what that tag is?  Please let me know.  I don't think dog tag, but maybe.


In a nice series of articles on rare coins that can be bought for under $5000.  This one (part 6) is on hree dollar gold coins.

http://www.coinweek.com/featured-news/rare-gold-coins-5000-part-6-three-dollar-gold-pieces/

Close Up View Of William M's Found Locket.

A day or two ago I mentioned GoPro.  They make the action cameras that are often used on TV detector and diving shows.  The stock went up another ten dollars, hitting 90 at one point today.

I posted some items found by William M. the other day.  One was a runner medallion.  Bruce B. sent me the following information about that.

 Just a note, I have a cross-country medal my grandfather won in 1910 or 1915 very similar to the medallion here. My grandfather eventually became a Big Ten cross-country champion, but the medal I have at home is for a much smaller venue—a competition in Evansville, Indiana. The piece in your photograph hence would seem to be typical of the period.

Thanks Bruce.  I'm sure William  will really appreciate that info.

Here is a correction concerning the locket I posted yesterday.  William M. sent me a close-up of the locket I showed yesterday.  He says the picture in it is a print rather than a photo.  Notice the dots. 


Today on the Treasure Coast we have a 2 - 3 foot surf.

The surf will be 1 - 2 feet for the next few days.

There is no tropical activity that will affect us.

There is one day remaining to give your response to the blog poll.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net