Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Finds are more than objects. They are also information and become a part of our life experience.
When you find a coin, you learn something. The coin tells a bit of a story. It tells you that a person was there or nearby at one time and that they carried the coin and was engaged in some activity that caused them to lose it. The coin will be either U. S. or some type of foreign money. It will be either relatively old or new, maybe centuries old or very recent. It will show signs of being in the surf a while or not, etc.
Beside obtaining the object and whatever information you glean from it, you will also have had a new experience - either trivial or not.
Think about your metal detecting experiences. Those that you think about often and relate to other people are probably those that seem the most significant to you.
Objects are often valued in a special way by the elderly. My mother, who is over ninety, holds onto special objects in order to hold onto a part of her past. Younger people hold onto objects in a similar way, but it is different for the elderly.
Much of the past has disappeared for the elderly. They may have lost many if not all of the important people from their past. There is no one left that shared their past. Many of the objects of the past have also been lost in one way or another.
My mother still has a coffee table that she got when they finally finished building our house. She remembers picking it out and where they got it. It was a big deal for her. While the coffee table is special by itself, what makes it more special to me is the drawings that my sister and I drew on the bottom of it when we were very small. They are still there.
Where I grew up, there were landmarks and buildings that were a big part of our lives. Across the road at the bottom of our long driveway was a huge oak tree and an old barn. They were a big part of our lives. Al almost as important to us as our own house. The oak tree and barn were there when mother was very young and still when my dad built our house. And I do mean built - with his own hands, along with my mother's help.
That tree, it seemed, was there forever, but it is no longer there. Neither is the barn.
When my mother was young, she and a cousin collected chicken eggs they found in the barn. My mother still mentions that.
Barn owls had a nest in the oak tree. I hit rocks from the driveway with a broomstick. Across the road and over the fence that stood in front of the oak tree was a homerun.
Those things were a big part of our lives, but like most things, are no longer there.
Objects tell a story. People talk about reading beaches, but finds should be read too.
If memory was perfect, we wouldn't need photos, but things disappear and memory fails. Objects can help keep memories alive. If you've been detecting a long time and kept some of your finds, you probably know that.
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Here is an interesting philosophical article on ghost towns and vanishing Florida from the Journal of Florida Studies.
http://www.journaloffloridastudies.org/0102ghosttowns.html
Thanks to Dan B. for the link.
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Yesterday I said that I find gold dubloons boring. That was a shocking statement to me too. I thought I should explain it a little. And there is certainly nothing boring about finding gold dubloons. That is exciting enough.
I just don't find the designs on either the obverse or reverse very interesting. And the nearly constant color and lack of corrosion is not very interesting to me. I enjoy the process of cleaning cobs and seeing details emerge.
There are many things that are interesting about gold dubloons though. The more you study them the more interesting they become. I guess I've just got more involved with studying the monograms.
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Although the recent weeks of wind and surf have not improved beach detecting conditions on the Treasure Coast, they have been moving sand. Although we haven't seen much erosion, that continual flow could be setting things up for some good conditions if we get the right changes. Remember that sand is always moving from one place to another. When it is piling up one place, there will be some place else where it just left.
For the next two or three days we're supposed to have about a three or four foot surf. It will increase some on Saturday. Along with that increase in surf will be a change in the direction of the swell, which has been lacking for the past week or two. I'll be watching to see what happens with that this weekend.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
