12/8/11 Report - Chilly Air, Little Cuts & Big Bling

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

One Little Cut Found On a Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

I now know that I've turned into a total wimp.   The beach was chilly this morning.  I actually put on an extra shirt that I had in the car.  

I was surprised by how high the water got at some spots this morning.  A one place it actually cut into the foot of the dunes a little. 

Most of the beach was loose sand, I only found this one place that was cut a little by the last high tide.

I did find more green clad coins there, and just a few old things.   I've been finding a lot of green clad coins lately.

Although I only saw this one area that was cut, I would expect at least one more somewhere on the Treasure Coast.

Overall beach conditions remain poor even though there was some sand being moved this morning.

The surf web site predictions for the next week look erratic.   I guess that is what you would call it.  They are predicting the seas to be up a little and then down a little, etc.  On Wed. they still have one short time frame when seven foot seas are predicted.  I don't know if that will hold.  Yesterday's predictions looked different than today's.   I'm not quite sure what to expect, other than nothing greater than seven foot seas.   There very well could be a few cuts popping up here and there.  Not enough to change my beach conditions rating from poor though.


Here is a good article about a field that was covered by silt brought by a flood and then uncovered many years later by another flood that exposed what was covered by the first flood.  It provides a good illustration and a good lesson.

http://westernfarmpress.com/cotton/preserved-1927-mississippi-cotton-field-uncovered-2011-flood


I got an email from  a local person that is selling a little used  Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II with two coils, heavy duty scoop, and all kinds of extra accessories for sale.   For more information contact adkmurray@yahoo.com.


There are all kind of treasures, and some of them are especially prominent around Christmas.  Mitch King, Vice President of the Treasure Coast Archaeological Society, puts on a real display at his house.

Here is the link.   Be sure to view the video.

http://www.veronews.com/news/sebastian/spotlight/sebastian-home-s-holiday-show-a--year-tradition-for/article_5f87a542-1fc0-11e1-9615-0019bb30f31a.html


Christie's is presenting an Elizabeth Taylor auction exhibit this December in New York.  The exhibit includes  a 33.19-carat diamond ring she received from Richard Burton and is estimated at $2.5 to $3.5 million.  And a 16th-century La Peregrina pearl set in a necklace with rubies and diamonds. The pearl was part of the crown jewels of Spain and was worn by many Spanish queens. Estimated value: $2 million to $3 million.

These are the kind of sugar plums that dance in detectorist's heads.

Here is the link if you want to see a selection of those jewels.


http://www.dnainfo.com/20111204/midtown/elizabeth-taylor-auction-exhibit-sparkles-at-christies


Now you have some good Christmas ideas for the wife.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/7/11 Report - Signs of the Times - Bottles

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

Blown Bottle Found on Treasure Coast.





When you detect, keep your eyes open for clues. You can learn a lot from the non-metallic items that you see. Many will help you evaluate an area, including what has gone on there in the past, as well as what is going on there now. Remember, beaches are dynamic. They are always changing. And the items on a beach are often moved. One key to success, is knowing what is going on and where items of different types are being deposited.

Like coins and metals, the prices of different collectibles change over time. Since the popularity of sites like eBay, many collectibles markets changed dramatically. Older, but more common bottles that once were easily sold for good profits, are now harder to sell. Yet there is still a market for nice old bottles and a very good market for rarer bottles.

Detectorists might not always recognize the significance of some of the thing they see when they are out detecting. I've mentioned before the fellow that saw a stack of blue and white china being uncovered on a beach and paid no attention to it and later found out that it could have been very rare and valuable Kang Hsi china, but he couldn't find it again. Things like that happen all the time.

The more you learn about a wide variety of objects the better off you will be.

One day I detecting for coins right after Hurricane Andrew passed through, and I saw some bottles in the surf. Luckily I could tell those bottles were old, so I found an bag and started picking up the bottles. I found out that the bottles were worth more than the coins that I found that day. That was when got my first introduction to old bottles.
Anyway if you see a bottle on the beach, or anywhere else, estimating it's age might provide some useful information. While I am no bottle expert, I can give you some things to look for that will help you tell something about how old a bottle might be.

Old bottles were hand blown. As a result you'll often be able to see bubbles in the glass if you hold the bottle up to light so you can look through it.

The bottle shown at the top of this page hows an unusual number of unusually large bubbles. Those aren't cracks or reflections. They are actually long thin bubbles in the glass.

You might also be able to see that it has an applied top.

The glass of older bottles is generally thicker than newer bottles, and also more irregular in thickness.

Modern machine-made bottles are thin, consistent, and don't show bubbles.

Another way to tell the age of a bottle is the seam lines. I won't go into all of that, but generally speaking, the higher the seams go on the bottle, the more modern it is.

When talking about soda bottles and things like that, older bottles were often embossed. Embossing gave way to painted labels and paper labels.

Here is a milk bottle found on the Treasure Coast.   It is embossed on the side as well as the bottom.

This particular bottle is also embossed Miami, Florida.

I've found quite a variety of bottles from Treasure Coast dairies.   I would like information on Alfar, Boutwell, and Alfar Boutwell dairies, especially.

It seems the two must have combined at one time.  From the bottles that I've found I would guess that they were dairies located in the Fort Pierce area.

By the way, one Vero area dairy bottle that I found sold for over $80.

That might spark your interest in bottles.  There are many web sites on old bottles.   But my main point is that detectorists should be watching for any and all types of clues when they are detecting.  Bottles can be treasures, but they also can tell a story that can lead you to other treasures.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions

The wind is from the west now, and the seas have dropped off to somewhere around the three to five foot area.   Conditions are poor, but you might want to check out the low tide zone before the seas pick up again.

They'll increase next week, reaching around seven or more feet by Tuesday.  I consider six to eight foot seas to be the low end of what is usually required for significant improvement.  Although, of course, it doesn't always happen, as we've seen repeatedly, eight foot sea are getting up to levels that very well might result in improvement.

So hunt low tide now and look for possible improvement when the seas increase again.



Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/6/11 Report - Fort Pierce Dumping Sand Again & More

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

Sand Being Dumped On South Jetty Park Again.

Here they go again.   Seems like there must be an unlimited supply of tax-payer dollars.  

This is supposed to be a temporary fix.  Of course it is.  They have to keep pumping those dollars.  

The last project must have lasted a few months.   And duped all of the poor unsuspecting sea turtles into making nests in sand that would be lost before the eggs could ever hatch.

And can you believe they are doing this before the winter storms come.  It seems like they are making sure that it won't last long at all.

All of the detectorists who come here to hunt treasure on the Treasure Coast beaches will see little but piles of sand.

I had some people from England contact me last night who will be coming here to detect.

I'm not sure where that sand is coming from, but a day or two ago I saw a big barge full of sand coming in from the ocean and suspected this might be happening soon.  Without knowing, I would guess this sand is coming from way off shore.

Here is a link to an article showing a concretion that was x-rayed and found to contain an early pistol.  The find was made up by Jacksonville.

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/8469


And here is  a 2002  article by the Mel fisher Heritage Museum talking about and showing a variety of x-rayed concretions.

http://www.melfisher.org/xray.htm



And here is an article about Frank Garcia digging up Florida fossils.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/fossil-fanatic-is-a-whiz-at-digging-up-history-about-florida/1175460



Beach conditions are currently poor for finding cobs.  The photo below shows a typical beach.  Not much but sand.

We'll have a few more days of decreasing seas before another front comes through and the waves pick up again.

I'm still learning my way around this new Google Blogger software.   I noticed a number of typos in my last post and just didn't take the time to fix them.  I don't think my readers mind that too much.  I would like to do a better job though.  Getting accustomed to the new editing software makes it more difficult so I've let a more few things slip lately.   I hope to get used to this new software before long, and I hope you'll be seeing an improvement in the look of the posts as well as a decrease in number of typos.  I'm going through the learning curve again.   If these stupid geeky software designers would learn to design intuitive software, we'd all be better off.  I designed and developed a lot of software, and a lot of it was used by people who had never seen a computer before, so it had to be truly intuitive.   So I know it can be done.

Happy Hunting,

Treaureguide@comcast.net

12/5/11 Report - No Upgrade & Poll Results

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasrurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

 Looking North from Seagrape Access This Morning.

No new erosion here.  More on that below.

The most recent blog poll has concluded and the results are in. 

As you might suspect, the largest number of respondents live on the Treasure Coast, but not overwhelmingly -  just a touch over one fourth of all respondents.

The second greatest number chose the "Central Florida" category.   Unfortunately, that category was a little ambiguous.   I wasn't able to define it well in the poll and receive email from one person living in the Cocoa area asking if that was considered Central Florida.   When I quickly created the poll (not the ideal way to create a poll) I as thinking that north of the Treasure Coast would be Northeast Florida.  How would anyone know what I was thinking?   Anyhow, I suspect those two categories might be a touch off due to how I wrote the poll, but I don't think it is way off.

The third greatest number of blog readers, according to the poll, are from a state other than Florida.  I guess that surprises me a little, but on second thought it probably shouldn't.   I do hear from a number of snow birds as well as others who travel here to detect.   I doubt that either the state or the Treasure Coast appreciates the amount of tourism brought to our area by the detecting hobby.

I'm a little surprised that number isn't higher because so much of this blog is generic treasure hunting stuff and applies to any state.
It is natural that those who travel here to detect would utilize online sources of information about our area.  And of course, there is a lot of generic detecting information that you can find in this blog, some of which has been first published here.

The next largest group of respondents comes from Southeast Florida, which has a large population of detectorists who are close enough to make a quick day trip for detecting.

And the sixth largest group of respondents lives on the West Coast of Florida.  I have heard from a number of them via email and talked to some of them on the beaches. 

And the seventh largest group gave "Northeast Florida" as their primary residence.  I'm a bit surprised by how far down on the list that one is.   I have talked to people from that region.  The low number in that category might in part be due the ambiguity of the categories that i mentioned above.

And last, four percent of the respondents have a primary residence in another country.  I'm a little surprised that it was that high, but I do know that I get a number of readers from around the world.

Well, that's it for the poll results.

Here is a very good concise history of colonial Mexico.   There is a lot of good detail and some nice illustrations.but it is exceptionally well organized and easy to quickly scan.

http://mexicanhistory.org/colonial.htm

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I think you'll find it worth your time.

Treasure Coast Beach Forecast an Conditions.Well, there wasn't hardly any new erosion this past weekend. There was however a little churning and sand movement on the front beaches. Not enough that I can upgrade my beach conditions rating, though.

In front of Disney there was a little dip that might be worth checking. I would suspect at least a few targets there.

The area between Turtle Trail and Seagrape held a number of targets. There were some iron conglomerates and some clad coins down by the waters edge. It often surprises me how many targets there are for as much as these places get detected. I would guess the best hunting on the Treasure Coast right now to be down at the water's edge.

The seas will be decreasing this week on a daily basis until next weekend.  That will give you a good chance to get out in the low tide zone.

There is a good bit of clad and modern jewelry still being found.


Happy Hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net


 

12/4/11 Report - So Far Rough Weekend Seas Have Disappointed

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



Two Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beaches Sunday Morning.

The photo above and on the left shows the beach at Frederick Douglas Park.   No cuts this morning.  It was actually better looking a couple of days ago. 

Of the beaches that I saw this morning, it looks like most of them.  I didn't see much evidence of erosion at all.  In fact some filling took place despite the rough seas.

The photo above and on the right shows one little cut.  It actually occurred a few days ago and the front filled in some since then.  That cut is one to two feet high.

Below is one area that if you just found it, looks pretty good.   However the most of that erosion occurred several days ago.   I showed a photo of it previously.  It did cut back a little further, but the front also filled in.   There was at least three feet of sand gone in front of that cliff before.

Overall, I didn't see enough improvment to raise my beach conditions rating from a one. 

It seems the water is hitting directly from the east again.  As you know, that usually doesn't help much.

There might be some places that I didn't see where the water got to the dunes.

Next Saturday is the St. Lucie detecting club holiday party at Bernie's house.  Bring your favorite dish.

Contact Bernie to RSVP by this Saturday..... 786-246-9335


The following was received from Daniel Frank Sedwick by email.

Consign to Auction #11 (April 2012)



Our spring auction is already shaping up to be another blockbuster, with plenty of time still to include your consignments. The deadline is January 15, 2012, but consigning early has its advantages: We will display your special items at upcoming shows, we will spend more time researching and promoting your consignments, and we will give preference to earlier material in case of duplication. Click here for more information on how to consign.


Also keep in mind that for qualifying consignments WE WILL TRAVEL TO YOU to discuss and take delivery of your items. Cash advances are available as well. There is no better place than our auctions to sell TREASURE and COBS, and our service is second-to-none!


Overseas consignors must ship their consignments to us NOW to avoid delays from the holiday rush. Items received after the January 15 deadline might not be included in our spring sale.


Happy Hunting,
Tmailto:Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/3/11 Report - James Shaw Cup & Conditions Watch

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

Add caption

Piece of a cup found by Rich R.

It's nice when you find the markings.   Sure makes ID a lot easier.

About the cup, Rich says, The James M Shaw company manufactured dinner & restaurant ware for many commercial enterprises include steamship companies, restaurants, etc. Most notably the dishes for the S.S. Titanic. They had offices in both New York and England.

Neat find.


Gold is where you find it.   In Guatemala, as well as many other places, they mine garbage for gold and other items that can be turned into cash.

Here is a link to a story about that.

http://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=gold+found+in+guatemala&s_it=tb50-ie-aolmail-ab-en-us



Christmas shopping?   Here is what Sedwick Coins has done to make it easy.

Just in time for the holidays, we have LOADED our Online Store and eBay Store with new items for immediate purchase. Choose from dozens of different shipwrecks and different dates of cobs from all mints. We even have fresh material in milled gold (busts) and silver (pillars and busts), as well as a smattering of other world coins. And don’t forget COIN JEWELRY, including all your favorites in treasure, ancient and historical coins set in gold and silver pendants, bracelets, rings, earrings and more!


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.


The wind blew all night.  As I mentioned yesterday, some erosion has already begun.  Not enough for me to upgrade my conditions rating yet though.

Saturday and Sunday up to eight foot seas are predicted along the Treasure Coast.  Unfortunately, now the wind is directly from the east.   That seldom causes much erosion.

We're certainly getting big enough seas.  I'm sure there will be some places that improve.  I don't know how much yet though.

I'll give more on conditions later.


Happy Hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/2/11 Report - Lead Whatzit & Five Easy Tips

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

Lead Ring Found on Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beach.

This isn't jewelry. It is about four inches around. It seems that I should know what it is. I think I've seen something like it before but can't place it. Anyone have any ideas?

I'd like to hear any and all thoughts.

A cache of gold jewelry was found in a drain. It might have been hidden by thieves intending to return for the stash later.

Here is the link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-15630700

 I seldom pass a drain grate without looking into it and wondering what might be in there. It would be awful easy to coins or anything to roll into one of those things.

Many people run at a lower sensitivity level than is necessary. There are a variety of quick and easy techniques you can use to reduce the amount of noise and false signals. Here are five that will often help.

1. Slow down your sweep speed.

2. At the end of each sweep in each direction, don't change directions so abruptly. Instead of thinking about each sweep as going from one direction to the opposite direction, think about moving the coil in an almost imperceptible figure eight. In other words think of the end of each sweep as being a curve instead of an abrupt change from one direction to the other. Thinking about it is about all it takes. Someone looking couldn't tell the difference, but it makes the transition smoother and can eliminate false signals at the end of each sweep.

3. Sweep parallel to the water line rather than at ninety degree angles with the water line. That means sweeping north/south on a beach rather than east/west.

4. When there is black sand on the beach, along with the lines of black sand rather than across it.

5. When detecting in the water where the water has been relatively calm and where there are little ridges that look like sand dunes, sweep with or in the same direction as the ridges rather than across them.

These five easy tricks can cut down on false signals and reduce the need for cutting down the sensitively setting.


Paper can be worth more than gold.

A comic book sold for over 2 million dollars.

Here is that link.

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?storyid=%7B1c69123d-024c-4518-84e5-e9e396c89e06%7D


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

Conditions are poor for fining cobs, but it looks like some improvement might be coming.

There was a little erosion last night.   I saw one shipwreck beach that had a one-foot cut that ran for over a hundred yards.  I was surprised to see that.  It evidently occurred last night.  That erosion was into a bunch of recently accumulated sand, so even though there was a little cut, it was not in the right place to be very promising.

We're going to have higher seas this weekend, reaching seven feet or so by Sunday.  That could be good enough for improved conditions.   There have been  a few spots that were recently washed out, as I showed one day.  Those spots might get good with the higher seas even if the angles aren't just right.

I'm expecting some improvement in beach detecting conditions after this weekend.  I'll keep watching.



Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net