8/11/17 Report - More on Metal Detecting Watches and All Metals Mode. Sedwick Treasure Auction. Numismatic and Shipwreck Salvage Presentations.

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

Two Areas of Weather That Might Affect the Treasure Coast
Source; nhc.noaa.gov

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Yesterday I showed how one metal detector responds to watches.  I used the inexpensive Garrett Ace 250 for my demonstration.  I could have used a variety of other metal detectors and got very similar responses.  I might  actually do that some time.  Of course different detectors will respond somewhat differently, but the main point remains the same: how you use your detector will determine what you find or don't find.  As I am showing, it is easy to miss potentially valuable targets such as watches if you are not careful.  I've often warned of the risks involved with various forms of discrimination and too much reliance on target ID as well as other detector settings such as search modes that might seem convenient.  You can miss very good targets and never be aware of it.

Yesterday for my demonstration I used the Ace 150 in Coin Mode.  As you saw, there were times when the detector completely missed or responded minimally to large men's watches.  But what if you were not using such a selective mode?  I'll show you what happened when I switched to All Metals mode.

I used the same watches placed in very similar positions.  Also the same detector.  The only difference is that I switched to All Metals mode.

Here is the video link.

https://youtu.be/BtIVumXmtyU

[ I corrected the following three or four paragraphs.  My original text was incorrect.  Sorry! ]

There are are basically two tones that you heard.  One is the Bell Tone that is used by the Ace to indicate a coin or similar good target.  The other tone is lower.

The signal produced by the various watches varied depending upon the direction the coil was moved.  That happens with a lot of targets, especially those that are elongated like nails or spikes.

The signal produced by the last watch ( the heavy high-end Seiko ) was the most consistent.  It produced a definite signal almost all the time, no matter if the coil was moved parallel or perpendicular to the face of the watch.  In one direction, though, the signal was a Bell Tone, and in the other direction is was the lower tone.

The first two watches often produced no signal, which you might find very surprising, especially since it was made using All Metals mode.

The main point is that with complex targets such as watches, the signal will vary depending upon a variety of factors, including how the coil goes over it.  Changing the direction pf the sweep or position of the coil by a few inches one way or another, often resulted in a very different response. That makes target ID for such targets very tricky.

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Below is a notice I received from the Sedwick's concerning the upcoming treasure auction.  Even if you aren't participating in the auction, you might want to catch the guest speakers, which are listed at the bottom of this notice.

Sedwick's Treasure, World, U.S. Coin & Paper Money Auction #22

Now is the last chance to consign to our Treasure, World and U.S. Coin & Paper Money Auction #22, which will be our Fifth LIVE PUBLIC FLOOR sale. As usual this event will take place at the DoubleTree by Hilton at Lake Buena Vista in Orlando, FL, with live floor auction on Thursday-Friday, November 2-3, 2017 and lot viewing and guest speakers the day before (Wednesday, November 1).

The final deadline for consignment to our upcoming auction is almost here: August 17. We have secured a vast amount of great pieces but there is always a spot for interesting consignments and trophy coins. Many international guests will be coming from Latin America and Europe, so take advantage of our great LIVE FLOOR event and get top exposure for your pieces.

This auction will feature Part II of The Richard Stuart Collection Selections, which includes the largest group of Panama cobs ever offered in one sale with 10 unique pieces; an impressive assortment of unique and finest pieces from Central America, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua (including the largest offering of provisional coinage ever presented in a single auction) and Panama; plus the largest single-sale offering of British "Admiral Vernon" medals from the same pedigree.

Other features in this auction include a selection of Lima gold cobs from the 1715 Fleet (many unique dates and finest known pieces) in addition to many other Fleet treasures like gold chains, ingots and other artifacts. Finally we have hundreds of cobs, particularly Lima and Potosi, and an exquisite collection of Mexican pillar dollars.

Guest Speakers Include:

1) Jorge Proctor, Numismatist and Researcher: "The Forgotten Mine of Colonial Panama"
2) Manuel Chacón, Numismatic Curator: The Central Bank of Costa Rica "Costa Rica Numismatics"
3) Carlos Jara, Numismatist and Researcher: "Central American Provisional And Provincial Mints"
4) Capt. John Brandon, Historical Shipwreck Salvor: “An Overview of the Exploration For and Recovery Of Historical Shipwrecks: 1715 Fleet, Atocha and Lucayan Beach Wrecks”

We look forward to hearing from you, with thanks in advance.

Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC

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There are now two areas of weather pinpointed on the National Hurricane Center map for our area.  The first will just produce rain.  The other one has been out there for a while and might develop this weekend.  At this time it is expected to stay east of us and possibly make landfall in the Carolinas.  It is too early to say much about how that one might affect us.

On the Treasure Coast we'll be having something like a two foot surf again.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/9/17 Report - Hurricane and Storm Threat. Amazing Lightning Video. Detecting Watches and Surprising Metal Detector Responses.

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

Source: nhc.nooa.gov

It looks like Franklin is going to hit Mexico as a hurricane.

The weather way out to the east of the West Indies on the map is the one that the local weather channels have been talking about in relation to Florida.  It isn't expected to develop until this weekend.  It is supposed to stay out by the Bahamas and maybe be more of a threat to the Carolinas. It seems to be heading more to the north now.

We have some new weather shown on the nhc map now.  It is already over the Bahamas but is disorganized and probably won't do much more for us than bring some rain.  It doesn't look like it will increase our surf.

I'm not expecting any significant change in beach detecting conditions any time soon.

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What Happens When Lightning Hits a River
Source: See clip below.

You have to see this.  This is an amazing video.

https://kost1035.iheart.com/content/2017-08-02-what-happens-when-lightning-hits-a-river-watch/#.WYXtO2xYBml.facebook

It appeared to me like the lightning following a small stream or runoff down over the bank and into the river.

Anyhow, really cool video.

Be careful when there might be lightning around.

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Some of my most valuable finds are watches. They are very common finds for me, even when I hunt heavily hunted areas.

You can't depend upon a detector to tell you that you are over a watch - at least not any detectors that I'm aware of.

Watches differ in size, shape and composition.  If the watch is laying with the face flat against the ground or looking up as shown as position B below, you'll generally get a pretty good signal.

If, however, as is often the case, the watch is positioned with the face perpendicular to the ground ( position A in the illustration below), the signal you get will vary a LOT depending upon a lot of variables including which direction you swing the coil.  I made a video that illustrates very clearly that you can get little or no signal when you swing your coil in the N/S direction over a watch that is laying on the ground like the one shown as position A.  It is really striking, and to me, the extent of the effect was surprising.  If I get my video uploaded you'll see it very clearly.

Swinging in the W/E direction and perpendicular to the face of the watch will result in a much better signal.  You might get a double signal as you cross over the watch and band, depending upon a lot of different things, but you'll certainly get a much better signal than when you move your coil in the N/S direction.

As I said, there are a number of variables.  The band can be in a variety of positions. The detector and mode will also affect the results.  I hope I get my video loaded soon.  I think you'll be amazed by what it shows.  I'll quit trying to describe what my video will show.

In the experiment reported above, I used "coin mode" on the Garrett Ace 150.  That might be the reason for the results. I'll do the same test using other modes to see how they differ.  I usually use all metals mode.  That might make all the difference in the world.  I'll see.

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Some people think there is a coup underway in the U. S.

http://www.wnd.com/2017/08/after-the-coup-what-then/print/

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That is all for now.  I'll try to get my video uploads worked out soon.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/20/17 Report - What Might You Be Missing: Trade-offs and Strategic Metal Detecting Strategies.

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

Three Shipwreck Spikes and Some Modern Coins

What kind of items would you most likely miss?  Different people miss different things.  Everybody misses some types of items.   Your detector and settings and hunting style will be more tuned for some types of items, but that will mean that there will be other things you will miss.

There are always some trade-offs.  Your hunting style might be near optimal.  You might be finding the types of things you want to find while not missing much that you don't care about.  But do you know?  Do you know what you might be missing?  When you decide to discriminate or skip one type of item, are you aware of what else you might also be skipping?

You may never know what you left in the ground.  There might have been a few surprises.  I bet there were.

The number of watches I find has always been surprising to me.  I was surprised, first of all, by how many are lost, and secondly, how long they seem to remain on heavily detected beaches.  The thing is that they aren't identified by detector meters and they can sound like junk.  If you leave a watch in the ground, you might be leaving the most valuable thing you passed over all day.  That is just one example of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

There are some things that I'm sure I would have found years sooner, except they were in my "blind zone."  I didn't realize it for a long time, but it was the result of the characteristics of my metal detector and the items that I was targeting at the time.  I was focusing on gold jewelry, and as a result, there were other things that I was missing.

You can not avoid making some trade-offs when you focus your hunting on certain types of finds.  It is wise to focus your time and efforts.   Your decisions can save you time and optimize results.  You might be perfectly fine with deciding to accept one type of error in order to save time and optimize your overall results, but you need to be aware of the effect of your decisions so you know you aren't missing things that you'd really rather find.

Here is a little quiz.  Which of the items in the photo at the top of the post do you think a detectorist would most likely fail to find if it was in the metal detector's range and the coil was right over it?  

I'm going to talk about this in generalities today.  Assume all of those items were all at the same shallow depth. And I'm not going to go by any particular metal detector or the particular settings you might use.

You might think that size is the primary determinant, but in this case it probably wouldn't be the smallest of these items that most detectorists would miss.

I'd say that probably fifty percent or more of the detectorists that hunt the Treasure Coast would not detect the second item from the left.  It is a broken iron spike.

If I'm talking about another area of the country where other types of detectors predominate and where there are more relic hunters, for example, the results would not be the same.

You'd think that most detectors would detect a shipwreck spike, but many will not, even one of the ones that is very commonly used on the Treasure Coast shipwreck beaches will miss them.  You might run full sensitivity and no discrimination and it will still not respond to iron targets like this.

Years ago I wondered why I hadn't found iron shipwreck spikes even though I found all kinds of other shipwreck finds, including small cobs.  The simple reason is that I wasn't digging iron at the time, and the particular detector I was using at the time would null out on iron.  If you aren't digging iron, you won't find iron, and there might actually be a few iron items that you'd prefer to have. Again, it is good to be aware of the effect of the decisions you make.

The first spike in the photo is an interesting one to me.  It was bent over then clenched in, but then the head pulled through the wood.

The iron spike in the photo, is broken, as you can see.  The smaller spike to the right of the iron spike is copper, like the first one shown in the photo, and I think more Treasure Coast detectorists would dig the copper spike than the iron spike.

Of course, some metal detectors are very hot to iron and would easily detect the iron spike.  Most people do not like to detect with a lot of iron sensitivity and so either choose another type of detector or use some type of discrimination.

I'm talking about this to encourage you to get to know your detector and the possible results of different detecting strategies.  You might want to test your detector and the way you detect to see if what I am saying is true for you.  You should know if your detector is hot to iron or not.  Don't just complain about the iron junk.  Make a calculated decision.

Another Selection of Finds.

Here is a second grouping.  Which item in this photo do you think the most people would miss?

Again, you have to know what they are made of.   The first is copper; the second bronze; the third is lead, and the fourth object is lead.

The copper, bronze and lead will usually give a good strong signal on many metal detectors.  The one that many people might miss would be the third item: the lead stylus.  ( It has been identified as a stylus, although other people think otherwise.  I've recently talked about the difficulty of identifying artifacts.)

The lead stylus is surprisingly stealthy to a lot of detectors, while the crumpled lead sheathing gives a huge signal. 

What I said today might or might not be true for your detector and how you detect. My primary purpose with this is to make you think about different types of targets, and your detector and how you hunt.  I'm convinced that trade-offs are unavoidable, but can be good.  You just have to make informed decisions.

It is easy to miss certain types of items and never know it.  That might include a few of the types of items that you might prefer to find.  That is why it is important to know your detector and experiment with a variety of types of objects.

If I figure out how to get my detector sound recordings into blogger, I might give you some examples for two or three specific detectors.

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Tropical storm Don has disappeared and there is now no tropical activity in the Atlantic or Gulf.

Expect a one to two foot surf for several days.  We are having some decent negative tides.  Every tidal cycle, some sand in the very shallow water and at the water's edge gets shifted.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

11/14/16 Report - One More Use For Test Targets. Call of Nature Leads To Important Discovery. Small Surf This Week.

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

Detectmg The Land Where My Ancestors Roamed The Frontier

I did some land hunting not long ago and posted a couple pictures from the hunt. I haven't done much land hunting lately - maybe only a few days a year.  I used a different detector than I usually use on the beach and found that I needed some refreshing.  I wasn't sure of some of the signals,

One of the things I highly recommend for most anybody, and especially beginners is using test targets of various types and under various conditions to really learn what your detector is trying to tell you.

In the past I talked a lot about using test targets.  I use test targets occasionally even with a detector that I've used a lot - not only to explore signals to various types of targets under different conditions, but also to test my settings during a hunt to see if they are the best I can get for the situation.

In this case there were ID readouts that were a little inconsistent.   There were some ID readings that jumped a bit depending upon where I passed the coil over some objects.  In order to identify exactly what that indicated, I used some test targets and placed them at different angles and then scanned them at various distances.

The depth of an object will affect the accuracy of the ID on some detectors, especially when the target gets close to maximum detectable depth.  The angle of an object can also affect the signal or readout.

The most simple way to use a test target is to lay the coin or object flat on the ground.  That is usually what is done.  Sometimes the object is buried, but almost always laying flat.

If you lay a test target on the ground you can see exactly where the coil is in relation to the target and how a change in relative position affects the signal.

Coins and other objects can be wedged against a rock or root and be on end or at an angle instead of flat.  That can affect your signal.  I think I've shown in the past how a coin standing on end can sound more like a nail or other long narrow target.

Partly due to the fact that I hadn't used that particular detector a lot recently and partly due to the fact that I wanted to investigate the cause of some mixed signals, I used test targets once again on that recent hunt.  I don't think there is any better way to get to know your detector than by using test targets, and I don't think most people do it enough.

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“Nature called, and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art,” archaeologist Giles Hamm told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian prehistory.”

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/MiamiHerald/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TMH%2F2016%2F11%2F13&entity=Ar25E4&sk=A211F79C

Thanks to Alberto S. for that link.

I know of a few times when Treasure Coast detectorists found reales when they went to relieve themselves.

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Darrel S. reports that Seagrape Trail is now open again.  Thanks Darrel.

We'll have a small surf most of this week, not increasing until Friday.  We'll still have some good high tides and a northeast wind.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net