Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.
 |
| Simplified Illustration of What I Found On One Treasure Coast Beach Saturday. |
The above illustration is not totally accurate but gives a good picture of what it looked like. First, the coins were found in one area running from close to the toe of the cut down to near the water line well before low tide. The coins did not appear to go all the way to the water line though.
In the above illustration black dots represent coins. There are not as many black dots as coins found in the coin hole area that spread about fifty yards along the beach. The coins were on average about five yards apart. This was not a densely packed coin hole.
The grey dots out to the right represent aluminum targets that were found about a hundred yards or so to the north. They were up against the toe of the dune in a white shell packed sand which was distinctly different from the sand the coins were found in.
Although there were more coins found than shown, the illustration shows he correct number of dots for the other types of targets dug on that day.
To the South of the coins no targets of any kind were found for a hundred yards or so.
Red dots represent lead finds, and orange represents gold.
I only spent between one and two hours checking this stretch of beach. I did not cover every inch of the beach. Some areas were detected much more thoroughly than others.
I first used a very lose search pattern to identify different areas that I would more intensely search. I try to find the most promising areas where I should spend most of my time.
I quickly hit a few of the coins in the coin hole as I walked along the beach, then nothing as I went north until I hit the aluminum junk area.
I've explained before some of the scan patterns that I use to identify hot spots. The zig zag pattern is one of those. That is not what I used Saturday. I simply followed the contour of the beach near the face of the cut at first. Since I quickly discovered a few coins up near the cut, on the return I went down closer to the water to get an idea of how wide the coin bearing area might be.
Here is an important point. Look at the illustration. The black dots represent coins, the grey dots aluminum, the red represents led finds, and the orange iron. What do you notice about the distribution? The targets of different metals were grouped without exception. This was a well developed distribution pattern.
The coins were not real old, but were not recent drops. They were all, except one, colored and crusty.
If I was using discrimination, I might not have detected the aluminum or iron targets. I would have had a less complete picture of what was going on.
The two round lead sinkers helped to identify the lower boundary of the coin hole.
I certainly did not need discrimination in the coin hole because there was no junk in with the coins. The aluminum told me that the area to the north was probably not a good place to waste time, so that information was helpful too. There is simply too much beach to cover equally and completely, so you need to focus your time and efforts on the most promising spots.
The distribution of targets led me to the most likely location to find gold. Of course, sometimes the areas aren't so well defined, but in this case the targets were not new and had been well classified and distributed by type.
This illustration shows a number of things and explains why I use some of the techniques that I often talk about. I can't get into all of them now.
Here is one thing I will advise. Sample different areas of a beach to try to identify the area where you want to focus your efforts. Don't use discrimination, especially at first, until you get some idea of any distribution pattern.
Distribution patterns are not random below the high tide line. This particular example is a very well developed pattern and makes an excellent illustration.
I probably spent about eighty percent or more of my time in the area of the coin hole. It was located quickly.
-------------------
You can go back and look at the completed Sedwick Coins auction catalog on the icollector site to see what prices were realized by the various lots.
Here is the link.
http://auction.sedwickcoins.com/Treasure-and-World-Coin-Auction-16_as34049
Sedwick also sent me an email to say that new items were added to their online store.
-----------------
Don't expect any Thanksgiving storm this year. The surf Thursday will be calm.
They are predicting a bump in the surf out another week, but the long range predictions are not very accurate.
Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net
