Large Chisel Found on a Treasure Coast Wreck Beach.This was found earlier in the year and is now shown partly cleaned. Electrolysis was used and some of the crust has been removed.
While I like the crust, if left uncleaned and unconserved the spike would deteriorate badly.
The top shows that the spike has been heavily used.
I hope to find some marks revealed when the crust is removed from the chisel, but doubt that I will.
The blog survey results are just in. This survey was very consistent from beginning to end. Some of my surveys started out one way and then somewhere along the line shift, but in this case the percentage of respondents in each category stayed pretty much the same throughout the period of the survey.
One thing that totally surprised me is that none of the over 100 respondents admitted that they would mislead others about a treasure coin that they found. But would you really expect someone who would mislead you to answer that question honestly? I don't know. What I do know is that no one said that they would mislead others. And I suspect that most respondents were honest about that even though there were a few who wouldn't admit to their tricks. I have known detectorists who intentionally gave misleading information. That is the reason I find it hard to believe that no one would provide misleading information.
What seems certain from the results of the survey, is that most detectorists will not tell everything they know when they find a treasure coin. About one third of the respondents said they wouldn't mention the find to hardly anyone. That is a lot of people who would just keep their find secret. And even more, nearly half of the respondents said they would tell that they found a coin, but not where. I believe the percentages for those two answers are probably fairly accurate.
Nearly one quarter of the respondents said they would share all details of a treasure coin find openly and honestly. I don't doubt that a lot of detectorists do share very openly. I've met quite a few detectorists who freely share information about their finds. I always enjoy those conversations and when someone shares with me, I generally try to make sure to return the favor by providing some information that might be useful to them.
There is an astounding amount of shipwreck information to be found online. In addition to the many web sites, there are a large number of digitized books that can be browsed either entirely or in part. One such book that I just found is The History of Shipwrecks By Angus Konstam. Although the entire book can not be read online, you see a lot of it, much of which concerns Florida and other Spanish shipwrecks. There are also a lot of good photos.
The book starts out talking about the Emanuel Point Shipwreck up near Pensacola, off the tip of Santa Rosa Island. It was one of the earlier shipwrecks in the New World, and was possibly from Tristan de Luna's 1559 expedition. It is well worth a look.
If you want to read about that and many other Florida and other Spanish shipwrecks, here is the link.
http://books.google.com/books?id=qKEdrqnExSkC&pg=PT39&dq=florida+history+shipwreck+florida&hl=en&ei=wPjoTZG1NonL0QH7h6GOAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=florida%20history%20shipwreck%20florida&f=false
Thursday there was a problem with my links. One reader emailed me about that but I didn't get the email until later in the day, so then I took care of that, but left the post on for an additional day so you could go back and check the fixed web addresses.
The site on fake coins had so much good stuff, that I thought I'd provide another link to it today - this time directly to the gallery on fake coins. You won't want to miss that.
Here it is.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=54
The Mel Fisher investors will be having some fun this June. July 6 – 13 they will be able to search for emeralds on the Atocha site. The Dare will be on the Lost Merchant at that time.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
The wind is still from the east and the seas are running about 3 to 4 feet. It hasn't changed much for a while. Certainly no change in conditions to report this week.
I'm still looking ahead to after this weekend when the seas are supposed to get down to about one foot. That will be a good chance to check the beach fronts for more relics, and maybe get out in the water a little in some of the places that aren't leased.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
