Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
I've been showing some things that I recently found on a trip up north. To me one of the more interesting finds was this lead bullet that was found along a path not far from some coins. Old items such as a crotal bell and old horse shoe were previously found in the same area.
This bullet has a very concave base. It is a touch less than 3/4 inch long.
I don't know much of anything about old bullets, but from what I recently read, it seems to me the ridge with the hash marks near the bottom of the bullet is for connecting a cartridge. I think that means it is older, but I don't know that.
I'm sure there is someone out there that can give me an idea of the age of this bullet. I also found a small lead strip that could have been used to make bullets.
I think what intrigues me as much as anything is the unknown. I don't know much about this bullet. I suspect that it might be old, but I might be wrong.
I guess it is the story that might be there. The story hasn't emerge yet and maybe never will. But in the scratches and scars there is a lot to think about.
I'd really appreciate it if you can give me an age range for this bullet.
Here is a good view of the indentations on the end. How did that happen? What do you think?
I ran across a couple excellent web sites on old bullets. Here are the links. They provide a lot of excellent pictures and information.
http://sgtriker.com/bullets.htm
http://www.tennesseelead.com/
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Mistakes are inevitable, but they can be intelligently managed.
It pains me to go back over a post after I think it is done and find a lot of mistakes. It happens all the time. It seems I never publish a perfect post.
The only way to completely avoid mistakes is to not do anything, and that is the biggest mistake. If you get too tied up with making things perfect, you won't get much done.
In metal detecting there are different types of mistakes. One type is the false positive. That is when you get a good signal, but when you dig up the item you find it isn't any good.
Another type is the false negative. That is when you get a trash signal or no signal at all when there is actually something good there.
Detectors aren't perfect and neither are the people that operate them. You will get both false positives (when there is a good signal but no good target) and false negatives (when you do not get a good signal but there is a good target). Of course it isn't really quite as simple as that in reality.
You can adjust your detector settings so that you get very few false positives, but that will probably increase your false negatives. Or you can adjust your detector settings to eliminate false negatives, but that will probably increase your false positives.
To put it another way, decreasing sensitivity and increasing discrimination will cause you to miss more good targets, while increasing sensitivity and decreasing discrimination will cause you to get more false signals.
If you are aware of the trade-offs, have specific goals and a good idea of the probability of different types of targets, you can manage your errors effectively.
I'll talk about that more in a future post.
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The most interesting thing to me today is the surf predictions for the Treasure Coast. This week the surf isn't supposed to get much bigger, but beginning next week the surf is supposed to increase up to 6 - 10 feet by Thursday. That is interesting. Too bad the long range predictions on MagicSeaWeed, especially when they predict a big surf, are not very accurate. 90 percent of the time the predicted big surf does not occur. We'll have to wait and see how it develops this time.
Just added Tue. afternoon: They already bumped it down to seven feet. That isn't bad, but more decreases won't be surprising.
I'd still like to get information on a couple of the things I preciously posted as well as the bullet I posted today.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
