Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Dug Shield for Identification. Photo submitted by James F. See more on this below. |
If you like history, you'll love this. The North Carolina archives contain digitized newspapers going back to as early as 1751. That provides an excellent research tool and it provides hours of entertainment for anyone wanting to read history in the language and style of previous centuries.
Just browsing through those newspapers, I read about the shipwreck of the Albion and the Central America, read about thefts, accidents, gold mining and prospecting, financial transactions and treasure hunts.
As one example, here is the beginning of the article that I found in the June 13, 1889 issue of The Carolina Watchman, page 3.
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| Excerpt from 1889 newspaper article. |
You might want to look up that article and read the entire story.
The articles in the archive can be searched using key words. The word "gold" is highlighted in this excerpt because that is the keyword I used in my search.
I find it much more interesting to read history as recounted closer to the actual occurrence rather than summarized in some later book or source.
You can also look at the ads etc. The digitized newspaper archive seems to go back to 1751 so there is a lot to look through.
I can't promise that you'll find exactly what you are looking for but I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a lot fascinating stories and details.
You can see how this resource can provide a lot of good detecting leads.
Although this particular collection is from North Carolina newspapers, the news covered is global as well as local.
You can also find old local newspapers online. I was just reading a 1906 Fort Pierce newspaper, for example. There was a lot of fun too. Just search digitized newspapers and enter the name of the locality you are interested in (Fort Pierce, for example) and I'm sure you will be able to find it.
Here is a link that will allow you to search the informative North Carolina archives that provided the story on the treasure hunt for Sherman's treasure.
http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/newspaper/search.html
You don't get free information like that everyday. That will provide you with tons of reading and many detecting clues. All free.
I posted a photo of a dug shield above. Your probably wondering where it came from. You are not alone.
It was dug by a member of The Central Florida Metal Detecting Club in a very old park just off a river in Sanford, Florida.
It is about 2" wide by 3" long. The photo was submitted by James F., who enlarged and filtered it using Photoshop to try and bring out more detail. Here is that image.
Let's put our heads together and try to figure out whatever we can about this find. Notice the arms or legs of the figures standing up facing he triangle figure in the bottom field. There seems to be something sitting on the triangle, over and under it.
Let me know what you think. I'll post clues as I get them and we'll try to solve this.
Besides the rain that lasted most of the day yesterday, in the afternoon the wind switched and started blowing in from the northeast for a while. Pretty stiff wind. I suspect there was enough to stir a little sand.
Friday and Saturday the surf is expected to be 1 - 2 feet, and then will pick up to 2 - 4 feet for a day or two.
Of course I don't expect any real improvement in beach detecting conditions from that.
Low tide will be between 5 and 6 o'clock.
One more thing. Tonight (Fri.) you can watch an unusually close asteroid fly by the earth streamed live from an observatory starting 4 PM.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/clay-center-observatory
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
Although this particular collection is from North Carolina newspapers, the news covered is global as well as local.
You can also find old local newspapers online. I was just reading a 1906 Fort Pierce newspaper, for example. There was a lot of fun too. Just search digitized newspapers and enter the name of the locality you are interested in (Fort Pierce, for example) and I'm sure you will be able to find it.
Here is a link that will allow you to search the informative North Carolina archives that provided the story on the treasure hunt for Sherman's treasure.
http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/newspaper/search.html
You don't get free information like that everyday. That will provide you with tons of reading and many detecting clues. All free.
I posted a photo of a dug shield above. Your probably wondering where it came from. You are not alone.
It was dug by a member of The Central Florida Metal Detecting Club in a very old park just off a river in Sanford, Florida.
It is about 2" wide by 3" long. The photo was submitted by James F., who enlarged and filtered it using Photoshop to try and bring out more detail. Here is that image.
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| Filtered Image of Mystery Shield. |
Let me know what you think. I'll post clues as I get them and we'll try to solve this.
Besides the rain that lasted most of the day yesterday, in the afternoon the wind switched and started blowing in from the northeast for a while. Pretty stiff wind. I suspect there was enough to stir a little sand.
Friday and Saturday the surf is expected to be 1 - 2 feet, and then will pick up to 2 - 4 feet for a day or two.
Of course I don't expect any real improvement in beach detecting conditions from that.
Low tide will be between 5 and 6 o'clock.
One more thing. Tonight (Fri.) you can watch an unusually close asteroid fly by the earth streamed live from an observatory starting 4 PM.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/clay-center-observatory
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
