5/8/19 Report - Difficult to Recover Targets and a Few Tips. Three Finds for Thoughts and Opinions.

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

Compass Rosette Find.

Find and photo by Trina O.

Trina O. reported this item found at Wabasso a couple days ago. It is five inches in diameter.

It looks like a compass rosette to me, but I need some help here. It seems to large for a regular hand compass. There is no hole in the middle, but I suppose the dial could be suspended. And I'd think there would be another ring around the rosette. I'd like to hear from some of you guys who have more experience with these. Does it look like it is from a functional compass?

Let me know what you think.

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Here is an mystery item (actually two) that requires more than a single photo.

Above are three different views of  the two objects that seem to have exploded at one end.  See also two closer views of the larger one below.

I've found several of these that are very similar.

They appear to be copper or copper alloy and shaped something like shell casings. There is a hole in one end, but the other end appears to be blown off.   As you can see, one exploded more completely than the other.  I thought they might be shell casings at first, but they don't look like any that I am familiar with.

The small end with the hole in the middle of it is about 3/8 inch in diameter.

The cylinder seems to expand a bit from the end, but that might be due to the force of the explosion.

Notice how the metal on the one end was blown back.

What do you think these are?

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There are some  targets that can drive you crazy.  They just don't want to stay in a sand scoop.  Some are small.  Some are light and want to float away.  Some are nimble.  And some are big or awkward.

Evasive targets can be even more evasive when you are working in rough water when there is little or no visibility.

There are small items that will continue to escape through the hole in your scoop.  There are those that keep getting swept out of the front of your scoop.  And then there are the chains.

Gold and silver chains can be very evasive.   You'll get part of a chain in your scoop, and then when you lift the scoop, there will be enough of the that is not in your scoop that the entire chain will slide out as you lift.  That is especially true of the large and heavy chains.

Small chains will snake through the hole in your scoop.  They'll also slip through a small hole in your pocket.  I once had to backtrack  nearly a mile and refind a very nice gold chain that did that to me.

Small objects can take a lot of time to corral.  One I always remember is a small gold bead that I could barely see in the sand even when I had it on my coil cover.  I kept moving it around and heard the signal but still couldn't see it.  It was about the same color as the sand and very small.

Another was a miniature copper teapot that kept slipping through the hole in my scoop. The water was rough and visibility was zero.  Rough water complicates things, because when the item slips through your scoop, it doesn't fall straight down, so you have to find it again.

Sometimes the bottom is so packed and rocky that digging is impossible.  I've described other techniques for dealing with that.

For large deep objects near the water line, one technique has helped me a lot.  Of course you can get a shovel and a buddy and dig like crazy, and you can build a little sand dike, or try to drain the hole, or line the hole with a bottomless bucket or something like that, but none of those have helped me like what I'm about to describe.

After digging the hole to as close to the object as you can get, get down on the ground and stick your hand and arm into the sand soup and feel around.  That sounds simple enough, but it really helps a lot of the time.  If you can get your hand on the object so you can feel its exact depth and location, you'll have a much better chance of getting it out.  Sometimes you can grab it and pull it out.  Be careful not to get stuck or cut.

If an object is long and thin, like a rod, due to the detector's response, you might be digging to one side or another rather than having a good idea of the rod's position.   It is difficult to get something like that in your scoop, but if you know exactly where it is at, you'll have more luck.

For flat objects, you'll have to get the tip of the scoop or shovel under the edge of the object.  If you don't know exactly where the edge is, you'll keep banging into the top of the object.

The arm stretch won't be successful every time, but it will help.  When nothing short of an excavator works, I just leave the object and keep watching for the sand to move until I can get a better shot at it.  You might be worried that someone else will get it, and that is possible, but I've seen objects like that stay in place for years before finally getting to it.

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John E. sent this photo showing the back of his mystery object along with a penny for size comparison.

My best guess is still earring even though I'm far from sure.  It looks like it would be difficult to insert.

The symbolism of the trident and water and the shape of the object make me think of fertility symbols, but that is probably way off.

What do you think?

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We'll have a little bigger surf Thursday, but a south wind.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/6/19 Report - Mystery Find. Old Rat Tail Spoon. Shipwreck Silverware. Silver Coins As Investments.

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

Rat Tail Spoon
Photo submitted by Dan B.

Dan B. has been reading and researching while recovering from surgery.  One of the things he learned is that his spoon (shown above) is called a "rat tail" spoon.  You can see why.  It is because of the supporting ridge that extends part way down the bowl.  Dan says he has found mostly pewter examples.

The rat tail helps date the spoon.  Here is a couple paragraphs from the Queen Anne's Revenge web site.

Of particular interest to us in dating our spoons is the evolution of the spoon during the second half of the 17th century. During this period, the bowl became wider and eventually the join of the bowl to the stem was reinforced with a spinal rib extending down the bowl. This feature is called a rat tail and can be seen not only on the backs of the spoons pictured here, but also clearly in the X-ray.  (See original article.)

All four of the bowls we have at present have the rat tail. Though this detail helps us with a generic dating of the spoon, it is difficult to identify them more specifically as their handle is shortened or missing entirely. Furthermore, we have not determined if our spoons were shortened intentionally  or broken before or during the wrecking of the QAR; however, this modification is a historically and archaeologically documented practice among sailors in the late 18th century. Why? So sailors’ personal spoons would more easily fit within their pockets. Could this be why we find so few spoons – they simply left the ship in the pockets of their respective pirate owners? Granted, its only one answer among many possibilities, but it does make one think how different shipboard life was 300 years ago.

Here is the link.

https://www.qaronline.org/blog/2019-04-03/artifact-month-pewter-spoon

The evolution of silverware is well documented, making it fairly easy to associate examples with a particular time period.  Many items are much more difficult.

That is an interesting example of how shipboard culture results in discrepancies between finds from shipwreck sites and land sites.  There are some interesting unanswered questions having to do with apparent discrepancies between submerged shipwreck finds and shipwreck beach finds.

There was a rat tail spoon from a 1798 wreck listed in the recently completed Sedwick auction with an estimate of between $500 - $700.

A silver fork from the 1715 Fleet was listed at a much lower estimate -  $100.  Tjhere have been quite a few of them found.  They aren't much different from the spoons you use.  Although forks started out with two tines, the one in the auction had four, which it seems became the most common.

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Mystery Item.
Photo and find by John E.

John E. found this item Saturday.

It seems to show a trident over water.

In Ancient Greece, the trident was a symbol of abundance and that’s why it was depicted on coins and talismans to attract wealth. It symbolized the unlimited treasures of the sea.
John thought the item might be an earring.

It looks like an earring to me, except it looks like it would be very difficult to put in.  That part just doesn't look right to me.


What do you think?










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Jacksonville, Florida.

Two teens swept out into the ocean prayed for help. Then along came a boat named 'Amen.'

Eric Wagner said he was taking his boat from Delray, Florida, to New Jersey when he found the teens about two miles from shore...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/two-teens-stranded-ocean-prayed-help-then-along-came-boat-n1001576

That is a reminder to watch those rip tides.

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I was looking at a Peace Dollar the other day.  It wasn't struck very well.  That is common with Peace Dollars.  Most of them aren't worth a lot.  A lot of peace dollars in average circulated condition aren't worth any more than nineteen or twenty dollars.  I would have expected more appreciation.  Peace Dollars were made from 1921 through 1935, so they are nearly a hundred years old.

As investments that doesn't seem very good.  Due to inflation, a dollar in 1920 is equivalent to about $12.50 in today's money.  So the majority of the gain in the value of your average condition Peace Dollar is mostly just inflation.

If you put a dollar in the bank and let it accumulate interest over the last hundred years, I think you'd have a lot more.  I won't look it up right now, but you can if you want to.

Of course if your Peace Dollar was a rare example or in much better condition, the story could be different.  In MS60or 60+ condition, the values are in the hundreds of dollars, and a 1934 S could be worth over a thousand dollars.

What I'm saying is that you can't just take any coin and put it away and expect it to be a good investment in the future.  Like with so many things, rarity and condition are very important, and if you want to pick a good investment, it helps immensely if you can select those examples that have a good chance of appreciation.

The value of silver has dramatically changed over the past hundred years.  If you are dealing with  common silver coins in average or poor condition, the price will be affected a lot by the bullion value, which varies wildly.

Here is a hundred year chart for the price of silver.

That is amazing to me.  The dollar value of silver has varied from down around $5 up to around $116 per ounce.  If you decided to sell such coins at the peak when the Hunt brothers were manipulating the price of silver, you would have done well.

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The surf will be only one to two feet for a couple of days, increasing some around Thursday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net