6/6/17 Report - John Brooks to Jensen Beach. Salvitae Blue Seaglass. More on Musket Balls.

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

John Brooks Beach Monday Near Low Tide.

As far as I could see there was only a sloped beach front.  No cuts anywhere.  It all appeared to be recently accumulated sand.

There were three salvage boats working at the Nieves site.

Jensen Beach Monday Near Low Tide.

Jensen Beach appeared to be just a little different form John Brooks.  You can see the small dip running between the beach and the sand bar.  The slope was not as steep.

There was one beach that had a slightly better shell line running along the low tide area.  It had only small shells though.

I didn't do any detecting Monday but did find some small fossils.  

A couple of days ago my wife picked up this blue sea glass on a local beach.

Blue Sea Glass Picked Up a Couple Days Ago.

You might be able to faintly see on this seaglass "SALVITAE," and some other lettering.

This seaglass doesn't have the nicest shape, but is fairly large and has a nice color.  It is the bottom of a cobalt blue cure bottle made by the American Apothecaries Company of New York.  Salvitae was something like milk of magnesia and was sold in the 1920s and 1930s.  

This is just another reminder that things that are nearly 100 years old still wash up on the beach and can be found without even using a metal detector.

---

Yesterday I showed some musket balls found by the Capitana guys.  Although their's were, not all musket ball finds are old.  I've found a few that were undoubtedly very new. 

Musket balls are still being produced today for various reasons such as for use with antique guns and battle reenactments.  It isn't difficult to tell the difference between musket balls that are old and those that are new.

First of all, a musket ball will generally show evidence of a mold seam and the remains of a sprue. The sprue looks a little like a neck.  It is where the lead was poured into the ball shaped mold.  And you can usually see where it was clipped off with clippers.  Not all genuine musket balls will have an obvious sprue though.

New musket balls will be shiny gray.  Old dug musket balls will often have a coating of lead carbonates, sulfides and oxides.  The patina will usually be white or beige, however different soils can result in different colors.

Musket balls were sometimes made with an alloy of lead and pewter or lead and tin.  The American army during the revolution often used alloys because of the short supply of lead.  That resulted in musket balls having a somewhat irregular surface.

Musket balls usually have a diameter between 0.39 and 0.80 inches, however musket balls were often use with buck shot, which was much smaller. That was referred to as buck ad ball. George Washington was a proponenet of buck and ball during the revolution.

---

No changes in beach conditions are expected. Don't forget, though, that heavy rain can cause erosion. The fossils I found yesterday were exposed by heavy rain. I'll have some of those pictures for you tomorrow.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net