Rain Clouds Over the Ocean This Morning on the Treasure Coast.
It is not uncommon to find diamond rings. There are a lot of zircons out there though. You can have a $30,000 diamond or a piece of junk. How do you know?
With practice you can learn to identify most diamonds with a jeweler's loop, but it can be difficult to tell a zircon from a diamond. A diamond tester can be helpful, but they aren't inexpensive. Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to take your find to a pawn shop or jewelry store. They'll often test it for you. If you don't trust the first opinion, go get another one. That is pretty easy.
Many diamond rings will have the carat weight of the diamonds marked on the inside of the band. That is always a good sign.
It used to be that if the gold was good, the probability was that the diamonds would be real, but with the increase in gold values they are now putting diamonds in less expensive metals such as silver.
It is easy to identify a lower quality but real diamond. With a loop you will often be able to see "inclusions," which are little black spots (carbon) inside a real diamond. Zircons will not have those obvious imperfections. But neither will the highest of high quality diamonds.
There is a world of difference in the price of a low quality diamond and a high quality diamond. In the world of diamonds, bigger is not always better.
Here is a link if you want to read more about diamonds and how to determine their value.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/16/savings-experiment-get-the-best-bling-for-your-buck-when-buying/
As you might know there is a lot of crime in the world these days. Lately sales of home safes has increased dramatically.
Here is the link to that story.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95577970
My recommendation is to use a bank safe deposit box instead of a home safe for valuables. I know it isn't as much fun, but its the best thing in my opinion.
A fire safe might be a good idea for important papers though.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
Here is a photo of one Treasure Coast beach this morning. Conditions remain poor.
This beach is one of the flat ones. Another that I visited was stepped. There was the remains of one old cut and below that, new fill, and then another slope. The stepped beach looked worse than the flat beach to me even though I didn't bother to turn my detector on at either this morning.
One of the Flat Treasure Coast Beaches This Morning.
Notice the sea turtle tracks.
Down at Fort Pierce, I saw one guy snorkeling with a detector at the Nieves site. Just to remind you so that you don't get in trouble, detecting in the water at a leased salvage site is illegal.
I also saw a guy detecting the south causeway beach across from Harbour Isles.
As the photo at the top of the blog shows, there were some rain clouds and even some thunder on the Treasure Coast beaches early this morning. Watch for lightening.
The wind is from the south as are the swells. Seas remain at about one foot but will be increasing a little, very little, the next few days.
There is one tropical wave down below Hispaniola and Cuba that has a 30% chance of developing into a cyclone. I don't think it will affect us.
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net
