11/5/18 Report - A $2000 Mercury Dime. Depth Ueber Alles: Not Always a Good Idea? Beauty of a Proof.

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

Source: Sedwick Coins Auction. #24. 

Yesterday I reported on a $100,000 plus gold coin and a $70,000 plus silver coin that was sold in the recently completed Sedwick Treasure Auction.  Here is something less exotic, but which still brought a very nice price.  The winning bid for this circulated mercury dime was $2300.   Not bad for a U. S. dime.  Below is the lot description.

USA (Denver mint), 10 cents "Winged Liberty," 1916-D, NGC VF 30, key date. Popular key date with just 264,000 coins struck by the Denver mint in 1916, the design's first year of issue. Circulation wear evenly throughout with good detail on the fasces and leaves on the reverse, light purple toning around design elements but mostly silver gray in color, slight die rotation (typical for this date). NGC #4703569-010.

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You know that feeling when something is in your eye and hurts like blazes but you can't quite see it or get it out.  That is how it is with treasure hunting sometimes.

People often want the deepest seeking detector.  Some people are obsessed with depth.  Depth is OK.  I want a detector that does a good job on little objects at some depth, but I don't always go for depth.

I've said before, even if not lately that my strategy is mostly to find objects that because of the current conditions, are not real deep.  What good is it to detect something if you can't recover it?

Let's say I'm working near the water line and detect an object that is a couple of feet deep.  So you detected it, but can you get it.

As you probably know, it isn't easy to dig a hole a couple of feet deep in the sand, and if you can, and it is still deeper, is it below the waterline?

Maybe you've been there.  Dig, dig, dig, and then you think you're almost there, and a wave fills the hole, or the hole just collapses.  (I have talked about a few techniques for dealing with those situations, but won't repeat them now)

There was one big target north of the Seagrape Trail access that could be easily detected.  It was there for over a year, at the least.  While I'm not up that way a lot, I've seen quite a few people trying to get it.  I've observed two or three people working at it together.  One guy must have worked on it for hours.

You can only move so much sand with a scoop or shovel, and if the item is below the water line, its even harder.  You can spend all kinds of time and not get it.   Treasures often have dragons to guard them.

One strategy is to wait until the dragon falls asleep and the beach moves enough so that the target is uncovered or nearly so.  That strategy has its risks too.  You might not be there at the right time and somebody else might get it.  That is the way it goes.

The point I want to make is that there is little benefit in detecting targets that you can't get to.  I said "little," not "none."  It can work against you if you don't focus on manageable targets.

If you can get a permit and use heavy equipment on the beach that is one thing, but a lot of the time, that kind of treasure is like an persistent itch in the middle of the back that you can't reach.

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Yesterday I put a proof 1990 silver coin from the US Mint under magnification. What a beautiful coin! A real work of art! The surface had a perfect mirror finish. All of the details were magnificent. I was awe-struck.

I'm usually looking at dug coins that are either corroded and black, or if in very nice shape, still nothing at all like proof encapsulated silver coins. They are worlds apart.

It made me think. Would I have appreciated those proof coins so much if that was all I ever saw? What if all coins were so perfect and beautiful?  I don't think I would have been so impressed. It would have been just one more and nothing really special.

That could be the basis of a sermon, but I won't go on.

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The tides are pretty big on the Treasure Coast now, but the surf is only in the range of two or three feet.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/2/18 Report - $47,000 Kennedy Half. Shipwrecks and Climate Change. Metal Detecting Strategy.

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

1964 Kennedy Half Dollar.

The coin shown is in exceptional condition for a dug coin.  The melt value is about $5.50, but being in at least fine condition would probably be worth over $7.00.

Last year a 1964 Kennedy half sold for $47,000 at auction.  It was a rare special mint set (SMS) coin.  Only 12 are known and their origin is a mystery.  It isn't an error coin or variety and is not easy to identify.

The 1964 SMS Kennedy half dollar has a satin-textured surface.  Salmon-orange rim toning kisses the upper obverse and lower reverse surfaces of the coin with ambient white-gray coloration across the fields and devices. Surface marks on the lower obverse that mimic dark fingerprints are described by Heritage as “carbon-gray flecks.”

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Shipwrecks aren’t necessarily barren, static things, vanished and abandoned to the deep water and the recesses of someone’s foggy memory. They may be moldering, but, like the Vamar, they’re often active places—part cultural heritage site, part dynamic ecosystem. They’re constantly in flux, and they’ll be impacted as climate change affects the water that holds them.

For years archaeologists have mainly been concerned with what climate change might do to places where the land meets the water. They’ve examined ways to stave off rising tides by buffering sites that will be swamped, hauling things to higher ground or documenting whatever they can in the water’s path. For these sites that are not yet damp, water is a threat—sometimes a distant one, sometimes one that’s gaining ground—but for the wrecks, it’s a foregone conclusion. That ship has sailed—and sunk.

With climate change, “sea-level rise is the most obvious thing people are used to hearing about, and the most easily dismissed with submerged sites,” says Jeneva Wright, an underwater archaeologist and research fellow at East Carolina University. Sea-level rise is far from the only climate-related threat facing submerged sites, though: Wright outlined a handful of others in a 2016 paper in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology written when she was working as an archaeologist in the National Parks Services’ Submerged Resources Center.

Across the field, there’s admittedly little data about some of these risks, and Wright says that archaeologists would do well to collaborate with biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, and other scientists who have amassed much more information about what a changing climate will do to parts of these ecosystems. For now, Wright describes her reading of these risks as “theoretical, hypothetical, and logical,” meaning that though there’s fairly limited research within archaeology, these forecasts square with projections that researchers in other fields have arrived at, after starting to scrutinize the future effects of climate change on, for instance, ocean chemistry, reefs, and other marine life....

I added the underlining.


Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-climate-change-will-affect-shipwrecks

Thanks to TekLord Doug for the link.

Shipwrecks are definitely not static things, but some shipwrecks are definitely more vulnerable than others.  There is little data on this stuff, and the hysteria is not based upon anything scientific.

Nothing has failed like the Critical Thinking Movement in education.

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Wen you get a signal it might be trash or treasure.  You might try to distinguish between the two by using a meter or different tones, but it is never a perfect process.  Mistakes can be made.  You never know when you make a mistake and leave something good in the ground.

The table is simplified.  There are also times when signals might be due to ground mineralization or electrical interference or other things when there is no metal item to dig.  Different targets also have different values.

What this table makes clear is two types of mistakes and two ways that you can be correct.  You can correctly identify treasure or trash and you can be mistaken about each.  When you decrease the probability of one type of mistake, you can increase the probability of another type of mistake.

For example, when you only dig very good signals, you miss more good targets along with the trash you eliminate.  What you should consider is when you decide to dig less trash, does the gain in saved time and effort make the loss in some good targets acceptable.  That is a very difficult evaluation because you never find out the value of what you left in the ground.

Many people just can't tolerate digging trash.  That is something they "feel" every time they do it.  If they similarly experienced the disappointment of treasures left in the ground, they might feel very differently about how much trash they are willing to dig.

I also know that some people think they don't miss any good targets.  And they'll never know any differently.

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No storms to watch and no big change in beach conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/6/18 Report - Metal Detecting A Nicely Shaped Cut: A Case Study. Identifying Patterns and Choosing A Strategy.

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

Cut I Was Talking About Yesterday.

I wanted to talk more about the cut I hunted the other day because even though it didn't produce anything really remarkable, it is a good illustration.  You will never see a  back-beach cut that is more perfectly formed for producing a high concentration of coins.  I won't say it has it all because there is one thing that is missing.

The best back-beach cuts, like this one, have a sizable steep cliff, then below that, a hard packed slant, very often with some black sand, and below that there will be a softer surface that slopes at a less steep angle. You see the first two in the above photo.  I didn't get back far enough to show the third in the photo.  You can expect coins and similar objects to be found very shallow on the hard-packed slope.  You will often see some coins there without detecting or digging.

This particular cut ran maybe fifty yards or a little more.  I thought I took a photo that showed more of it, but can't find it now.

Coins and other things will typically be found running the length of a cut like this.

When I arrived at this beach yesterday, I first looked north, but it didn't look very good.  But then I looked south and saw a more concave beach that had been cut back.  I walked in that direction a short way down and saw the cut at the back of the beach, so I immediately went up to detect in front of the cut.

I was surprised at first.   I didn't find the good concentration of coins that I expected.  In fact there were no coins for maybe the first five or ten yards.  Knowing that there should be a heavy concentration of coins there, I figured that somebody had already detected the cut, which was created probably two or three days before I got there.  There were no foot prints or holes though, so I figured that whoever detected that cut was there before the most recent high tide, which removed their tracks.

One good thing about cuts at the back of the beach is that they will occur when the water is highest and then not fill again right away if the high water slacks off.  They can remain in place for days or more.

After going the first five or ten yards I finally found a nickel, and then another nickel right away, and then shortly after that another nickel.  So now I am sure it had been detected and that the previous person was using discrimination.  When you know what the target distribution should be like, and I did in this case, you can tell if another detectorist had been there and also something about what they did or did not do.

I already made some choices that day.  I passed up one good wreck beach because it didn't look good because I would have had to detect a large area with a small chance of finding anything old.  Conditions there were not great, and I wanted to spend no more than an hour for various reasons that I won't explain now.  I chose the beach where I could dig a number of targets quickly even though they were' probably not going to be real old. 

I said this cut was ideally formed for a high concentration of targets.  I also said that there was something about it that was less than ideal.  The thing that was wrong with it, is that the cut was into recent sand instead of into older layers.  That means that the targets would not be very old, though perhaps with few exceptions.  And that is what I got - modern coins ( and a few other things).

Some of the Coins Dug In Front of The Cut

Notice the nickels.  Those are some of the first targets recovered from this coin line ( Coin line is a term that I "coined" to describe a long narrow distribution of coins as opposed to a coin hole,which refers to a high concentration of coins in more of an oval pattern.)

You can see that after the first three nickels, I started digging other coins.  The area near the beach access was more cleaned out than farther on.  The other detectorist evidently lost interest or got sloppy after a while.

I knew that there should be a high concentration of coin targets as soon as I saw the cut.  I also knew that they would mostly be modern.  I didn't know that someone had detected the area before me but was able to determine that quickly.  I didn't stop when I found that out because when you have so many targets of this kind, people will usually leave some good hunting.  They will usually either cover a small area very carefully or a larger area less carefully.  In one case you can find the areas they missed, and in the other case, you can cover the same area they did but look for the small and deep or otherwise missed targets.

Since I had a very limited amount of time, I decided to go for quantity rather than quality and take a chance on something more interesting being found in with all of the clad coins. If you pick up enough modern targets, you have a good chance of picking up something better.  I found more coins than shown above and a few other things.  Below is one of the targets that was found between the coins.

Thin Gold Chain.

I was lucky to have found such a thin chain because I was skimming pretty fast.

To summarize, this particular cut looked nearly perfect, so I decided to use it as an illustration.  You can often visually identify the best spots on a beach to find concentrations of certain types of targets.  Knowing the likely distribution of targets and comparing that with the actual distribution, you can also often tell if someone has been there before you and make strategy decisions accordingly.  

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I've received so much good input from readers and had so much to talk about lately that I've been having a hard time deciding what to post and have had to put some things off for days.  That is a good problem.  Thanks to all who have contributed.

We are still having good high and low tides.  That should keep it interesting.  Also expect another increase in the surf next week.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/9/16 Report - Some Basics On Detecting Strategies. Ancient Iron Tools Found by Metal Detector.

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

Iron Viking Tools Found by Metal Detector.
Source: see link below.

I started to talk about strategies one day not long ago.  The first thing I pointed out is that the selection of a strategy should depend upon how you value different things.  If you ask people if they'd rather find a valuable piece of modern jewelry or an old coin, different people will give you different answers.  Some people like to find things that do not necessarily have a high economic value, while others are primarily interested in the economic value of their finds.  Some people are analytical and have a good idea of what they want to accomplish and know how they value things.  In order to select the most effective strategy, you first have to be clear about how you value things and what you want to find.

Different people utilize different decision strategies.  The eternal optimist, for example, tends to use what those who study decision theory refer to as the Maximax strategy.  They consider the best possible thing that could happen and make decisions based upon the best possible outcome.  They think of big finds, and don't think so much about the possible cost.

Treasure hunters are generally optimists to some degree.  They have to expect finding something and probably dream of finding something in particular.  The prime example of the eternal optimist is Mel Fisher, who was able to search for the Atocha year after year without being discouraged and giving up.  He expected to find it and looked at every day as if that day would be the day.  Most people are not that optimistic.

If you are a pessimist, you probably won't be a treasure hunter very long, if you start at all.

The pessimistic person thinks of what can go wrong and thinks in terms of minimizing negative outcomes.  They will tend to go after safe and easy targets.

The best decision strategies are informed by data and a clear estimate of the value of different finds and the probabilities of different finds.  At sites that you have hunted many times and studied the signs, you'll have a good idea of the probability of different kinds of targets under different conditions.

The probability of a find can only be estimated.  The estimate should be heavily based upon past experience and analysis of the situation.

I once did post on math for metal detecting.  That was my 7/10/14 post if you want to take a look at it.  You can find that post by entering "math" into the blog search box.

One day not long ago, I was working a coin hole and decided to leave the coin hole to check another area.  The other area was an area that in the past had produced some older items.  Why did I decide to leave a coin hole when it was still producing?  The answer is that the hole would most likely produce modern coins and cheap modern jewelry.  How did I know that?  From past finds and what I had dug to that point.  I also knew the type of people that normally visit that site.

While you hunt, collect data.  I always recommend keeping detailed records of finds, most especially the first few years you detect.   After a few years you'll know a lot about different beaches and what they produce.  Always observe and be ready to modify your thinking.

One of my main strategies is sampling.  Even if I think I can tell by looking at a beach, I'll often make a quick check with my detector to make sure my assessment is correct.  Sample to learn, and sample to verify.

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The exciting find first came to the attention of Holm and her colleagues when a couple of amateur archaeologists with metal detectors found a signal near to the fortress’ east gate.

“We could see that there was something in the layers [of soil] around the east gate. If it had been a big signal from the upper layers then it could’ve been a regular plough, but it came from the more ‘exciting’ layers. So we dug it up and asked the local hospital for permission to borrow their CT-scanner,” says Holm.

There suspicions proved to be correct and they discovered a large collection of iron that immediately looked like tools. Even though the toolbox itself was long gone--wood rots away over time--but the placement of the objects suggested that they were not simply random finds...

Here is the link for the rest of the story and see the finds cleaned.

http://sciencenordic.com/archaeologists-discover-viking-toolbox

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Darrel S. reports that a number of detectorists were at Turtle Trail early Tuesday.  The blue bags were still showing, but it didn't seem anyone did any good.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/29/16 Report - Big Dug Object. One Beach Coin Hole and Search Strategy. Speakers for Upcoming Sedwick Event. Continuing Wind Requires Monitoring Of Treasure Coast Beaches.

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

Barrel-like Object Dug by Jeff W.
Photo submitted by Jeff W.

I received an email from Jeff W. who sent the above picture of the item he dug.  He wondered what it was.  I don't know for sure what it is, but I urged extreme caution.  There are still World War II bombs and other things on some beaches that can be uncovered after storms.

Anytime you are digging something big like this, exercise extreme caution.  My first thought was depth charge, but of course I don't know what it is.  It could also contain hazardous materials.

My recommendation would be to report it to authorities.

Be cautious.  Be safe.

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Rough Diagram of One Productive Beach.

A few days ago I told you about a beach that I saw and could tell that it would probably have a lot of targets.  I stopped to check it out and quickly found a lot of modern coins there.  After getting an idea of the target distribution pattern, I stopped digging coin signals in the hope of finding a ring or something.  That is the same beach I tried to illustrate above.

The cut extended about three hundred yards, going from over six feet at one end (right) and tapering down to nothing at the other end.  A heavy concentration of coins (A) was found in front of the cut roughly near the middle, but actually more to the right than is shown in the illustration.  Towards the far end of the cut (C) old items were found in past years.

My strategy of skipping coin signals in the hope of quickly finding a ring worked.  Two things were required before it worked though.

The first thing I did was sample the beach to define the target distribution pattern.  I  quickly ran a very loose pattern to find out where the coin hole was and its approximate boundaries.  After doing that I had a good idea of where in the hole any gold rings would most likely be found.  It was near the center of the hole but closer to the water.

You can often get a good idea of where things should be found by looking at a beach, but you can quickly check that by doing a little sampling.

In the past I would have cleaned everything out - coins, junk and all.  This time, with the incoming tide and the multitude of targets, I didn't have enough time to clean it out so I took a short cut.

I returned the next day, thinking there was a good chance of something else good remaining along with all the coins that I didn't remove the first day.  I used to know about how many coins on average I would find per gold item on the beaches that I hunted frequently, but I can't remember those numbers now.  I moved and haven't hunted those beaches for a long time.  It seems to me that one or two hundred coins per gold ring was typical, but I could be way off.

I detected the same beach a few days before all of this and found the gold choker that I posted.  I lost track of how many days that was too.

Although I knew there were still a lot of clad coins in area A, I wasn't much interested in them, and the gold you find at this beach, as infrequent as it is, isn't the more expensive stuff, so I was thinking about skipping down to area C where older items had been found in the past.  I'm more interested in older items these day anyhow, so I did that, again running a very lose scanning pattern, and checked out area C enough to determine that it wasn't really worth spending much time on.  It got mushier and the targets were scarce.  So I returned to the coin hole.

On the way down to C and back, I spot checked high and low on the beach and found that area B produced a variety of very shallow coins that were barely covered by a thin layer of sand.  It appeared as though they slid down the face of the cliff.

One thing I like to do is sample areas to determine what is going on in the area.  Sampling can be a good strategy.  It is an important strategy for me.

Another thing I like to do is develop a mental map of any target distribution patterns and get an idea of how things got to be where they are and how they have been moving.

After sampling and getting a good idea of what different areas might produce, you can then make decisions about how you want to approach the beach.  Keep sampling, analyzing and modifying your strategies as you work and continue to collect information.

There are a lot of different strategies that could be used.  The one that is right for you will be determined by a number of factors including what you want to find, the beach conditions, how much time you have and other factors.  One good strategy when things are not looking good is to simply leave and sample some other beaches.

You might not even be interested in digging clad coins and modern jewelry.  Different people are interested in different things.  I'll talk more about that and different strategies in the near future.

One of the most valuable things you can take away from any hunt is new information and a more complete understanding  A find is a find, but new information can help you locate many finds in the future.

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We've had a steady wind and fairly high surf, but I haven't seen anything that makes me think that beach detecting conditions have improved significantly.  I am not highly confident about that though, because I haven't had much time to look around much.  There could possibly be a spot or two that are producing, but if there are spots like that, I'd say they are few and far between.  I don't think the water has been getting high enough in the right areas lately, but again I haven't been able to do much scouting around.

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Speakers prior to the upcoming Nov. 12 Sedwick Coins auction at the Doubletree Hotel in Orlando will be the following.

- Martin Woodward (U.K.): Treasure Wrecks in English Waters

- Isaac Rudman (Dominican Republic): La vida de un coleccionista profesional / The Life of a Professional Collector (in Spanish)

- Paul Karon (U.S.A.): Analysis for Collecting Potosi Cobs

- Dave Horner (U.S.A.): Compilation of Treasure Recovery Stories 1970-1990

For more information check SedwickCoins.com.

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I'll try to get out to take a look at a variety of beaches some time this weekend.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/22/15 Report - One Hunt: Strategy And Results. Two Gold Rings In Two Hours On A Poor Beach.

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



Two Gold Bands Found
On The Treasure Coast Yesterday

I often talk about having more than one detector and selecting the one to use based upon your strategy.   Yesterday, like every other day that I hunt, I did that.

First came an assessment of conditions.  Here is what I considered.    On the Treasure Coast beach conditions have been poor lately.  The surf has usually been not big but not smooth either.   There have been many tourists in the area as well as locals enjoying spring break on the beaches.

The day before yesterday I went by some of the beaches but didn't detect.  I had other things to do, but I noticed where the people were.  I noticed one beach that was particularly jammed. 

Even though water hunting generally produces more gold per hour and wet sand can be very productive when conditions are right, I decided to hunt the dry sand where the people were.

My first consideration was beach conditions.  Another consideration was that I didn't have a lot of time and didn't feel like driving to a more promising beach where the conditions might be better and the finds might be higher quality.   So I narrowed it down to a few beaches that were close by, and selected one that I haven't hunted very often but where I saw a lot of beach goers the day before.

Then it was time to decide on a strategy and select a detector.   Just to give a couple of examples, I could select a simple target ID detector or a deeper seeking detector.   Of course you can have various combinations other than these two extremes, but I want to keep it simple here.

So one strategy would be to quickly skim a large area for recent drops.  Another would be to go for deep small gold that might have been missed by others.

Due to the fact that there have been so many detectorists on the popular and easy beaches lately, I didn't expect a large number of good targets.   I expected most targets to be recent drops, but there might also be a few small and deep targets remaining.

I decided to go with the deep-seeking PI detector.   Many people say they would never do that in the dry sand due to the amount of trash you will have to deal with.  Some beaches are pretty clean now.  Not even much trash remaining.

I was right about one thing.  The beach had been heavily worked- even more than I expected.  The area in front of the parking lot was pretty much cleaned out.  Somebody must have been there yesterday evening or early in the morning.   There was little trash, though some, and the surface clad had been removed.

There were however some recently dropped coins to the South of the area in front of the parking lot.

It takes a while to clean out an area of that size and when it is very clean there is usually at least one person that detects the area daily plus a few more detectorists that hit it once in a while.

I did a loose pattern scan to see if the area was clean and to identify how far the cleaned area might extend.  During my analysis, I considered what kinds of things, including trash, remained.  In this case the cleaned out area did have some foil remaining, a few pieces of small iron, and a few bottle caps.

One thing that I especially noticed is that there was foil down several inches.  Most junk foil will be near the surface.  But that also told me there might be deep gold that was missed.

As quickly as possible I did my analysis and identified the boundaries of the area that was cleaned out.   The really clean area, not surprisingly, was the area right in front of the parking lot.  That is very often the case.

I went just south of that and started to find a few scattered bright shiny recently dropped coins.  That area had been hunted some, but not as recently, and it was not completely cleaned out.

After hitting a few shiny clad, a small signal turned out to be a 14K ring down several inches.   I continued hunting south and hit another similar looking band, only this time it was 10K.  I soon called it quits. 

What I wanted to illustrate today is how you might analyze a situation and select a strategy for a particular hunt.  I hope that gives you some ideas about how to approach different situations.  There are a number of factors to take into account. 

In this case, it appeared that most good surface targets had been removed.  My strategy of going deep paid off in this case.

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Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide.

The beach above isn't as bad as many you'll see on the Treasure Coast right now. 

The surf should be small enough to do some water hunting -  only one or two feet Sunday.  The trouble is that in many areas there is too much sand.  It is not easy to find a good water hunting area now with all the sand near shore.

At least one beach had some shells and a good number of fossil pieces recently.  Also a little seas glass.

With the vernal equinox and the negative low tides, you'd think you could find some decent dips in the water somewhere, but the best dips that I've seen are still sandy.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net