12/2/18 Report - Detailed Coin Price Tables. WW II Propaganda Money. Best Information on How To Clean Your Coins and Artifacts.

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

Eagle Photo by Gaylen C.

Gaylen C. caught some great eagle photos north of Fort Pierce.  Here is one.

Thanks Gaylen!

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If you are wondering how much you should ask for a particular coin, or how much you should pay, there is a lot of detailed information you can find.  I was researching the value of some of my finds and found a site that gives a lot of information.

Here is an example of a table that I found for a 1921 Morgan dollar.

As of 2017, a 1921 Morgan dollar in VF 20 condition would go for around $28, while a PG 65 might bring $62,500.  That is a huge range that illustrates the importance of condition and rarity.

You can also see how coins increased in value of the years.  There is a big difference between the 1950 prices and 2017 prices.  There is also a big difference in the value of the dollar, which you should take into account.

While you can get some tables on the web-site you can purchase others.  That could be worthwhile if you are interested in selling or buying coins.

Here is the link.

https://www.us-coin-values-advisor.com/rare-coin-values-index.html

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Alberto S. found some interesting information relevant to the paper money photo that I posted yesterday.  It appears to be a 1930s - 1940s Japanese ten-yen note.  But the interesting part is that they issued similar notes during the war with propaganda messages on the back.

Here is that interesting bit of WW II history.

In the summer of 1945, Japan was showered almost daily by aerial leaflets in such quantity that the Japanese people developed a kind of apathy against them. A novel approach had therefore to be sought to attract renewed attention. The ingenious idea was to reproduce the face side of the then current 10-yen banknote and replace the back by a propaganda message. For who could resist money falling from the sky?

There are four different propaganda leaflets. All have the same exquisitely lithographed front to resemble closely the genuine Japan 10 Yen 1930 banknote but with different messages on the back.

One striking difference between the genuine bills and the counterfeit is that the former has red seal on the front whereas the latter has brown seal. The other difference is that all counterfeit bills bear the serial number 450941 and the block number 1124 on the front.

The purpose of the leaflets was to stir Japanese resentment against their government and to create fear of inflation.

Here is the link.

http://nutmegcollector.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-10-yen-1930-banknote-on-u-s.html

Here is what a genuine note looked like (same source).  Mine was torn.

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If you want to the best information on how to clean and conserve your finds, I always recommend the TAMU conservation lab web site.

This link will take you to a document that details how to clean coins.  It might be too technical for some situations, but it is the best information.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/CRL/conservationmanual/File13.htm

You can find detailed information on how to clean almost any artifact on the TAMU web site.  Check it out.

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The Treasure Coast will have another few days of small surf before we get anything bigger.  The high tides are still decent, but that is about it.  Don't expect any big improvement in beach conditions real soon.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/25/18 Report - "Copy" Treasure Coins, Iron Conservation, Hunger Stones Appeared.

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

I was researching a token and ran into a forum where a lady from Florida posted these photos and said her grand daughter found the coin on her way to school and wondered what it was.

To the right you can see the word "COPY"  on the coin (upside down).

Many reproductions or fakes will be marked like that, but many will not.  Sometimes the mark is small, inconspicuous or worn off.  I've shown examples of that in the past.

On the same topic, the coin that I originally showed on 8/21/18 and again yesterday, the person who found it took it to a pawn or jewelry shop as I suggested and had it tested.  It was found, as we suspected, that it did not test to be either silver or gold.

Concerning the cannon ball that was recently found by Fred B., it should be properly conserved.  Iron that has been in salt water will need to be soaked in pure water until the salts leach out.   I neglected to tell Fred that.  Thanks to Scott C. for reminding me.   I sent Fred an email right after I got Scott's email.  Hopefully Fred knew to do that, but for all of you, if you don't properly conserve iron objects, they will fall apart.

The best resource on how to conserve objects is the TAMU Conservation Manual.  Here is the link.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/CRL/conservationmanual/ConservationManual.pdf

I know it is long and detailed, but it has all the information you will need to conserve almost any type of object.  No body wants to see a favorite find fall apart.  It is worth doing it right.

You saw the cannon ball, but Fred has another conglomerate that shows parts of a lead sheet and a spike.  Would anyone be able to do an x-ray to see what else might be in there.  Fred is considering not opening this one, but doesn't know what else might be in it.

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Just yesterday  I posted about an old path that was revealed by a severe drought.  Here is something even more interesting that was revealed by a drought.

Hunger Stones Revealed by Drought.
Source: See Apnews.com link below.

Due to this summer’s drought in Central Europe, boulders known as “hunger stones” are reappearing in the Elbe River.

The low water levels in the river that begins in the Czech Republic then crosses Germany into the North Sea has exposed stones on the river bed whose appearances in history used to warn people that hard times were coming.

Over a dozen of the hunger stones, chosen to record low water levels, can now be seen in and near the northern Czech town of Decin near the German border.

The oldest water mark visible dates to 1616. That stone, is considered the oldest hydrological landmark in Central Europe, bears a chiseled inscription in German that says: “When you see me, cry.”

Here is the link.

https://apnews.com/9512be71cc8f40a7b6e22bc991ef2c6c

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No storm or big changes in beach conditions yet.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/18/18 Report - Faculty Member Says, "Treasure hunters are no better than ISIS, except they do not film themselves."

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

I must come to the defense of higher education and archaeology today because of the comments made by one person.  I'm never in favor of judging a group by one person.  

"Treasure hunters are no better than ISIS, except they do not film themselves."  That is a quote from an email written by the person that seems to run a TAMU web page to fight treasure hunting.  I  gave the link in my previous post.  Joe D. forwarded the email containing the quote to me.

The quote equating treasure hunters (however defined) with ISIS fails to appreciate that treasure hunters don't kill, maim, enslave and rape thousands upon thousands, as does ISIS.  What shocked me the most about the comment is the gross insensitivity to human carnage and suffering inflicted by ISIS on thousands and thousands of victims.  When I originally read the web site I thought the author might be using the term treasure hunting as a synonym for looter or something specific, but after reading the email, I wouldn't be surprised if he is actually lumping every one that goes out to the beach for a little recreational metal detecting in with looters - and ISIS.  I hope not.

I do not believe that this person's attitudes reflect the vast majority of those in archaeology, otherwise we would not have people such as Eugene Lyons, E. Lee Spence, or Robert Marx who contribute significantly and are accepted and honored by both academia and treasure hunting.  And we would not have a long history of permits issued by states to treasure salvage companies.  The Florida Collection obtains items every year from Treasure Coast treasure salvors.

I have cited studies in which amateur detectorists worked with archaeologists to survey sites.  The Portable Antiquities Scheme, which began in 1996, has resulted in thousands of finds being made by amateur detectorists that have become a part of the PAS database.  Dr. E. Lee Spence, who credits Robert Marx with being the father of underwater archaeology, worked under permit with Intersal Inc. to locate Queen Anne's Revenge, which I've posted about quite a few times.  Those are just a few of many examples.

The people that read this blog are very much interested in archaeology and would support archaeology any way they can.  They include doctors, attorneys, teachers, etc.  Some have made contributions to the field of archaeology. Most do a little detecting on the beach and have not found anything that would be of interest to an archaeologists but are still enthusiastic about archaeology and are much more interested in our common past than the average citizen.  They are a part of the public for whom the past should be preserved and also the supporters of archaeology.  It is sad to see them lumped in with ISIS.  Mud slinging doesn't accomplish anything.  It would be better to have rational discussion.  I was hoping that the author of the ISIS quote was perhaps using the term "treasure hunter" differently than many casual detectorists and not knowing how many friends of archaeology might be offended.  The gross insensitivity to the suffering of the victims of ISIS is really hard to overlook.

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Just so I won't be accused of taking the quote out of context, below is the text of the email Joe D. received in response to his email to the author of the "stop treasure hunting" web site, which I referred to in my previous post.

Precisely because I am in academia I have the moral obligation to give my informed opinion on treasure hunters or anybody that destroys the world's cultural heritage or the world's environment. I do not talk lightly about treasure hunters. I have been around for many years and when I say that treasure hunters are no better than ISIS, except that they do not film themselves, I know what I am talking about. I have seen treasure hunters destroy amazingly important testimonies of our common past to get a few artifacts that shine.

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Don't forget the Robert Marx lecture at FIT on Feb. 20.

2/17/18 Report - The Very Real Threat to Treasure Hunting That You Need to Know About.

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

I just ran across a web site that you need to see. It is described as follows: "This website is intended for people fighting treasure hunters all over the world. It is the website I wish I had when I was fighting the treasure hunting legislation passed in Portugal in 1993 and repealed in 1995, fortunately before the government could issue any salvage permits. I hope you enjoy it."

The same web page leads with the following quotes. "Treasure Hunting! Always shallow, no matter how low treasure hunters sink." and, "You can say Expert Treasure-Hunter instead of Burglar if you like. Some of them do. Its all the same to us."  

(See http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/index_treasurehunters.htm.)

A lot of different things are all the same to them.  They seem incapable or unwilling to make important distinctions.

The web site does not generally make clear what they consider a treasure hunter to be other than evil. They do acknowledge two categories of treasure hunter. They say, "There is a small, silent minority who really finds and rescues precious cargoes, and that goes largely unnoticed by the general public."  They describe the other group as, "The large, noisy majority who advertises its activity in the press, on the internet, and through PR agencies in search of ignorant investors rarely rewards its investors."  Overall, their simple-minded cartoonish characterizations are more suited to propaganda than education, even though the web page is published on a state university site.

Definitions are critical for clear communication.  Here is a Merriam-Webster definition of "treasure" that I found on the internet.

Definition of treasure

1a (1) : wealth (such as money, jewels, or precious metals) stored up or hoarded 

• buried treasure

 

(2) : wealth of any kind or in any form : riches

: a store of money in reserve

2: something of great worth or value; also : a person esteemed as rare or precious

: a collection of precious things

I'm sure there are detectorists that would consider their activities to be a type of treasure hunting, and  there are treasure hunters that do not hunt artifacts at all, such as gold miners and nugget shooters.  Maybe I don't really know what a treasure hunter is, but they definitely do not use the term the same way I do.  For them it seems to boil down to treasure hunting is not what they do and is evil.  

You'll find the link to the page I'm talking about below, and I highly recommend that you take a look at it.  I'll summarize a number of their statements in this post, but I'll give you the link and hope you check it out for yourself.

First, the author says that treasure hunters can not "do archaeology with high standards."  He says that treasure hunting companies depend on investor money and can not follow good standards and make enough money to survive.  That would be no problem if treasure hunters were funded by the tax-payers like these academicians.  They would have plenty of time to sit around drinking coffee in the faculty lounge and still have time to linger over each and every grain of sand when they feel like wandering out to the site.  I spent years in academia myself and know the torrid pace.

Second, he says that archaeologists and treasure hunters can not work together.  Basically he says that treasure hunters have no ethical code and sell artifacts for profit, while archaeologists have an ethical code, and I assume, perfectly adhere to it without exception.  Of course I disagree with both of those propositions.  The common view is that treasure hunters are motivated by greed and profit, while archaeologists don't care at all about fame or fortune.  It sounds like archaeologists donate all of their time, would not advance their career by taking credit for discoveries and make all of their findings freely available to the public, who they claim to serve.   I'm appalled by the tax-payer funded projects that are only published in expensive books instead of freely on the internet.

He says treasure hunters and archaeologists can not work together because archaeologists are bound by an ethical code and treasure hunters have none. Again, treasure hunter bad, archaeologists good.  That is what it comes down to.  That is why they can not work together.

He says that archaeology can be conducted by private organizations and give one example of such an organization. Their primary virtue of that company is that they never sold one artifact. I wonder if those artifacts that went unsold were ever seen by the public or if they are sitting in an office or dusty basement.

He then gives four reasons that archaeology collections should be kept together. I won't disagree with any of those, but I will say that museums sell artifacts and artifacts are deaccessed.  This actually raises some good questions that deserve to be explored in more detail some other time.

I'll skip to his last two points now.

He says that treasure hunting is not a profitable investment. He would have us believe that treasure hunting is done only for greed and profit, but that treasure hunting is not profitable.  I guess that is why treasure hunters have to cheat investors.

Is there a future for treasure hunting?  Here is his answer.  No. More and more countries are forbidding this activity in their national waters. Also, most museums have adopted a ban on the purchase of items salvaged from shipwrecks.

Here is the link if you want to read the rest of that page.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/treasurehunters_04faqs.htm


Here is the link for the profile of the author.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/academic/FACULTY/castro.shtml

It was difficult for me to not go on at length in response to each and every item, but that would take forever.  I will perhaps address some of it more in the future.

I have never believed that universities should hire their own students as instructors.  That type of academic incest results in the kind of simplistic and extreme thinking you will see when you visit these web sites.

As part of the public for whom archaeology claims to be working, and as tax-payers, who support public universities and archaeology, and being among those most actively interested in the our past, I hope you will take a look at these web sites and judge for yourself. If this type of thinking goes unchallenged by good common sense, there will be no more treasure hunting or anything closely resembling treasure hunting.  That means the end to the metal detecting hobby.

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Before ending today, I want to express my deepest sorrow to the families, friends and acquaintances of those killed or injured in the recent school shootings.

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Appreciate the important things in life,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net