3/2/13 Report - Finding Small Gold & Big Surf Predicted

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

A Couple Beach Finds

Everybody likes to find big hunks of gold, but I really like to find small items.  They might not be worth as much, but at times they can be, especially if there is a quality gem or something.  But the reason I like to find the smalls is that it tells me I'm probably not missing much.

I've told this before, but when I started detecting I found a lot of men's rings and thought that women didn't lose as many.  I eventually learned that the reason that I was finding more men's rather than women's rings is that the women's rings are often smaller and I was missing more of them.   After learning a bit more about detecting, I started to find a lot more women's jewelry.

It is easy to miss smaller pieces.  They won't give a loud signal.  And until you learn more about your detector, it is hard to distinguish the signal of a small surface item from that of a deeper item.  And if you are missing the smalls, you are probably also missing the signals from deeper items.

If I'm finding small items I feell like I probably have my detector set up fairly well and am doing a fairly good job and am not missing a whole lot.

In order to find small items, especially small gold items, your sweep speed has to be good, your detector settings have to be good, and you have to have a good ear so that you won't miss or mistake whisper signals.

The small gold ring on the left above is very small, 14K, with a small diamond chip.  That could easily be missed if you are swinging your detector too fast, have the discrimination too high or otherwise have your settings off, or aren't listening for small sounds.

When you get to know your detector, you can usually tell the different between a small surface target and a deeper but somewhat larger target.  And of course, you can learn to tell the difference between noise and a small signal.

The bracelet does not look small, but will sound smaller than it looks.  If you test your detector on chains of various sizes, you'll find that they might sound smaller than they are.  The signal will generally sound more like the largest single piece on the chain.

If you detect a thin chain with a medalliion or charm on it, what you will mostly be hearing the charm or medallion - more than the small links of the chain.

Small Mini Mouse Head

The small Mini Mouse head above is, as you can see, quite small.  It is a detector find.  It seems like it broke off of something.  Again, I always like to dig small items like this because it tells me I'm probably not missing much.

The trouble with small items like this is that they are hard to see even after you dig them, especially when water detecting.  They'll keep falling through your scoop.

I once found a gold bead on a shipwreck beach that I couldn't see in the sand for the longest time.  I finally found it when I threw the sand on my coil and moved the sand around on the coil until I finally found it.  It was very hard to see even in the sand on the coil.  I could hear it every time I moved it on the coil, yet still couldn't see it at first.

Piece of healthy iron spike and copper sheathing.

The large spike and piece of copper shown here are very different from the smalls, yet many people will miss the spike, especially in discrimination mode,  

On the other hand, the large piece of copper will really scream out.  It would be hard to miss the copper unless you simply think it sounds too big and pass it over because you are targeting coins and jewelry.

Both of those big targets can mask and cause you to miss precious metals though, especally small ones.



Here is a digital book collection online that will keep you busy reading for about a century if you like history.
It is the Hathi Trust Digital Library and contains many full text books on the early US and colonies.  It is easily searchable by keyword, and is great research tool.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=listis;c=855228657;sort=title_a;pn=3

I wonder how many of you have read the digital book on the conquests of Cortes that I posed a few days ago.  I found it very interesting.


On the Treasure Coast this morning, the wind is still from the north/northwest.  The surf is only about two feet.  The one thing I do like is the north winds, but unfortunately I haven't been out to see what if anything happened yet.  I'll try to get out to take a look before long.

Low tide today will be a little after 5 PM.

The real news though, is the 5 - 8 foot surf predicted for this coming Friday.  Now that is something to watch for.  An eight foot surf could really improve detecting conditions if the surf actually gets that big and other factors are right.

In any case, that is the most interesting thing I've seen for a while, and well worth watching for.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net