Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Three Unidentified Iron Object Dug Yesterday. |
Each one is about 6.5 inches tall and 3.25 inches at the widest. And front to back, around 1.5 inches at the bottom, and 1.25 inches at middle.
I'm not sure what they are. What do you think?
I'll tell you what I think after I see what you all think.
Yesterday I was talking about eye-balling. Well, I eye-balled the little doll shown in the pictures below yesterday after I posted yesterday's post.
It is about 3 inches tall. It is a little boy, as you can see. And has a hole where it should be, in addition to the hole in the top of the head.
It is ceramic. I don't know if bisque might be the right term.
After a little research, I found a photo of a doll like this that was sold on etsy, and as I guessed, it originally had a rubber hat that you could push down and make water spray out as if the figure was peeing.
This one is marked JAPAN on the back. If it were marked OCCUPIED JAPAN I would know that it was made somewhere from 1945 to 1952.
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| Ceramic Doll Eye-Balled |
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| Top of Same Doll |
I'll have to do some more research to determine the age of this one.
I've found a number of ceramic dolls in the past. And I've found doll parts that were porcelain.
Porcelain doll parts sell quickly. I think I might have shown one or two of those in this blog before, maybe back some time ago.
After a real quick search of this blog, I see that I posted some doll parts back in my 9/9/11 post.
There is a good bit of collector interest in items labeled OCCUPIED JAPAN. Besides inexpensive dime store items (if you remember the days of 5 and 10 stores), they include some other nicer items such as painted table sets. Some of those list for hundreds of dollars.
I don't know how much the little peeing doll sold for on etsy. After an etsy item sells, they don't leave the price on.
I remember the five and ten or five and dime stores that I knew as a child. They usually had a few of those mechanical horses or something you cold ride for a nickel out front.
The Japanese products had a poor reputation in those days.
I thought of the first transistor radio that one of my friends got. I think it was made in Japan, so I looked that up.
Here is a little of what I found on Wikipedia under "transistor radios."
Prior to the Regency TR-1, transistors were difficult to produce. Only one in five transistors that were produced worked as expected (only a 20% yield) and as a result the price remained extremely high.[5] When it was released in 1954, the Regency TR-1 cost $49.95 (equivalent to $433 today) and sold about 150,000 units. Raytheon and Zenith Electronics transistor radios soon followed and were priced even higher. In 1955, Raytheon's 8-TR-1 was priced at $80 (equivalent to $694 today).[5] Sony's TR-63, released in December 1957 cost $39.95 (equivalent to $331 today).[5] Following the success of the TR-63 Sony continued to make their transistor radios smaller. Because of the extremely low labor costs in Japan, Japanese transistor radios began selling for as low as $25. In 1962 American manufacturers dropped prices of transistor radios to as low as $15 (equivalent to $115 today).[5]
Well, that was a little walk down memory lane. But one of the points I wanted to make today is what I said yesterday about keeping your eyes open for items that are made of metal as well as those made of other materials. Another point today is to be aware of a wide variety of types of objects and their possible value.
When you are looking for shipwreck treasures, you might as well pick up other things that you see along the way that might be worth a few bucks. Even if they aren't worth much, they can be interesting in some way. Some little vintage item like the one I showed today can actually be worth more than an old dug coin.
There are a lot of people that collect vintage things because of nostalgia. They like things that remind them of an earlier time. And that creates a market and value.
I know that this isn't the type of treasure that the Treasure Coast is known for, but don't get too narrowly focused or you'll miss a lot.
The wind is out of the north/northwest today. The surf is around 2 feet. That will bump up a foot or so later in the week, but the mostly north wind will continue.
I don't expect much improvement in beach detecting conditions for a while. I'm interested in taking a look at some of those less hunted out-of-the-way spots until beach conditions improve.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
LiDar used to precisely measure hard to access ancient structures in Mexico.
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=61508#.UVDUYiDD_IV
