Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Religious Medallions Found with Metal Detector.Religious medallions are relatively common detector finds. They can be centuries old or almost new, and made of gold, silver, or other metals.
The medallions shown here are a few decades old and fairly heavy silver.
These medallioins, as you might suspect from simply looking at them, were not found on a salt water beach. They were found in a fresh water lake near Minneapolis.
I've mentioned before how I like the silver coins found in the cold northern fresh water lakes. They tend to get a nice bluish patina. Silver that has been immersed in salt water, on the other hand, are often in very poor condition and sometimes nearly black.
You can often tell a lot about where silver was found by the patina.
Some pieces of silver jewelry can be a lot more valuable than the melt value. Watch out for more valuable designer pieces and Mexican silver.
One of the disadvantages of hunting in salt water or on the salt water beaches is the poor condition of older silver items. Silver coins found on salt water beaches are usually in poor condition. Gold, though, stays very nice even in salt water.
One thing you might do if you have a lot of badly corroded silver, is take a class on jewelry making or lost wax casting. You can then use damaged silver make jewelry of your own design.
I personally like some patina on my silver jewelry. The patina highlights the detail and gives it a nice seasoned vintage look.
Don't forget Bill's coin cleaning instructions that I have listed in my treasure link list to the left of these posts. Look on the left and scroll down until you find the treasure link list.
Silver is now about $28 per ounce.
A woman found her gold ring that she lost 16 years earlier on a carrot that she pulled from her garden.
http://spiritdaily.com/A11ring.htm
Protect your plants from the cold tonight. They might pay you back.
I heard of a shark bite down by Jupiter yesterday.
The fossil tooth that I posted recently isn't a peccary tooth as I conjectured. Fred D., our resident fossil expert sent me an email telling what it actually is.
Here is what he said.
The tooth is most definitely a tapir tooth and judging by the cone cusps, a very early species. Most likely Tapirus Haysi, early Plesitocene. A Perissocactyl related to the horse because it is hoofed.
Thanks Fred.
It is hard to imagine that it is already the second day of 2012.
A cold front will be coming through this afternoon and tomorrow night we'll probably have a freeze warning on the Treasure Coast. The wind is now out of the west and the seas calm but the seas will increase to about four or five feet soon. That probably isn't enough to change beach hunting conditions much, but it might improve a few spots just a little.
Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
