Shell Pile on One Treasure Coast Beach
Shell piles like this are worth looking through. I like to detect around them too.
If you dig down a few inches around piles like this, you'll often find layers of shells covered by the sand.
While the piles often hold fossils, sea glass, or pot shards, detecting around the shell piles will often lead to iron artifacts or pieces of thin metal or sheeting, such as copper sheeting. Many detectorists have no particular interest in those things, but they can often be worth as much as a cob in poor condition.
Below is a couple of pot shards form the Nieves site that is up for auction on eBay and at this point has a $25 bid with two days remaining.
Pot Shards for Sale on EBay.
These are larger shards than many that you will find in shell piles, but even small pieces can be interesting, especially if they are marked or something.
Things like this can also be good clues, and can be what I call signal finds. They can indicate the presence of a shipwreck or historic site in the area and tell you to check the area for other signs.
Another point that I want to make is that there is a lot to be found near shipwreck sites besides coins and many things that people tend to overlook have economic as well as historic value. Keep your eyes open while you detect.
Workers cutting a tree at Gettysburg found a mini ball in the trunk.
Here is the link to that story.
http://www.wgal.com/r/28820840/detail.html
Metal detectors will work other places than on the sand or ground.
Someone wrote in asking about Calabash, an old place where blacks used to gather in the Savannahs back near the turn of the century. It has an interesting history, but I haven't learned much about it yet.
Here is a brief description of Calabash and some of the old towns of the Treasure Coast.
https://sites.google.com/a/flgenweb.net/stlucie/history/old-communities/a-c
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
Some of the tropical waves disappeared overnight. Seven seemed to come from nowhere but is headed out towards the Atlantic and won't affect us.
The seas are still calm and conditions remain unchanged. You can still go out and much around for a few artifacts, like those I mentioned today, or detect the tourist beaches.
The surf web sites still show a predicted increase in seas about Wednesday or Thursday, but not enough to significantly change detecting conditions.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
