Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| New 14K Gold Bracelet Find Find and photo by Steve in Sebastia |
"Gold is Where you Find It".... This century old adage applied mainly to those out prospecting. You really never did know where gold would be found. Sure a degree in geology would never hurt. In my "do over" life...that will be the first thing. But some of the old timers just had a "nose for it." Gold has popped up in the strangest of places. Many a prospector out "bird dogging" (as it was called) came away with great riches by not following the pack.
I recall the long hours of "bird dogging" off the local waters here... in the general area of General e Capitan Don Jaun Esteban de Ubilla's Flagship and Capitana near the McLarty Museum. Funny how that works... we talk about "Ubilla's Capitana... yet Ubilla, is in fact a city in Spain. Google it. It is just that common practice back in Colonial Spain was to address a man with the ending word, being the city or region he was from! That's why the name is always DE Ubilla, "de" being "from" in Spanish. But I digress...
Bird dogging with a metal detector (back then a Fisher's Pulse 8X) on flat barren bottom, tossed around by the surge when you finally "tried" to work a target, and generally just a few feet of visibility. A few dozen tanks of that kind of work, was enough for me. But then one day when I was working a project up in The Great Lakes, on a quantifiable wreck with known bow and stern... I get a call that the Captain of our Salvage Vessel down here in Sebastian, Kim Ferrell, has hit it good! He was out "bird dogging" and had found -- a half of a chest of 8 reales-- ("ray all ace")! Or to the dreamers and lovers of Spanish Lore...half a treasure chest of the famous pirate treasure..."Pieces of Eight" !!!" Way out off the beaten path.... READY? Out to the NE about 150-200 feet of the main salvage area in 18-22' feet of water." It was a big deal, the promoter in LA called the media, and the helicopters flew in from Orlando and Palm Beach. Big news that night... seeing a lump of silver still shaped like the cedar treasure chest! If you are still around and reading this... well done Kim! As a pro (not nearly as glamorous as it sounds) my first question is..." Where is the 2nd half of the chest?" Same as my cuff link with a 200-400 B.C. Silver Denarius. Where is the 2nd one??? How did I miss the 2nd one in the first place? Someday I'll write about how we worked the deep passenger steamships (150-205 feet deep, up north on "The Great Lakes."
So getting back to "Treasure is Where you Find it !"... I was sitting in my favorite place. My 30 year old Lazy Boy that is still built and acting tighter and better than a brand new one for a thousand dollars up at the "Lazy Boy" store in Melbourne. You sit down trying out a new one, put your feet up, and shift your weight back and forth, and you have to hang on for dear life...you might just get sea sick!!! No thanks!
So I have a couple hours to kill before dinner last Friday. Too lazy to pack up the car with all my gear, and put on my harness, so I just grab my Minelab CTX 3030, and walk across the street to an empty lot. But being here over thirty years...I know there had been a small modest 50s style ranch on this lot years ago. It was demolished after sustaining terminal damage after hurricanes Francis and Jeanne. It had flooded some, and got beat up pretty bad. Another similar house across the street from that one was lost too. That one the lady had just spent $50,000 in renovations. Sad.
So if you have ever detected a former demo'd homesite...let's just say...it ain't pretty. Metal junk is spread everywhere when the bulldozer does the final rake out. But being new to the 3030, I thought -perfect for learning the tones and discrimination patterns and effects-. I especially had a keen interest in a good target such as a coin in close proximity to a rusty nail. And was there nails! Hundreds of them! The bent in a circle nails are the worst for fooling the detector. You name it...brass hose bibs (water faucets for your hose) thank you...still work, will someday use. Brass hose nozzles for the end of the hose, sockets, tile pieces with the mesh metal grid...and on and on. Then to beat all.. the lot is cut very high, so your coil rides up about 3" over the weeds/ turf. No real grass or sod, just a tangle of weeds and vines. Best of all.... heavily infested with fire ants! But you could not see the mounds, due to the high cut weeds!
Now I arrived in Florida in 1987, and promptly went to the beach to see the site of a Spanish Galleon. After all...it is the very reason I moved to Sebastian. At the time, there was an empty lot right in line with the Capitana. So I walked through only to be yelled at by the next over neighbor. Big deal...just wanted to see the site. But no... being a polite Wisconsin boy... I stand there explaining my love for history and the sea... all the while standing dead center in a fire ant mound. Well...when 14 got aboard...the "master ant" yelled: "Now Boys!!!" and they nailed me! The worst burning pain I had ever felt. I ran down into the water, rubbing up and down my legs, and never will I forget the sight I saw that afternoon. Those little bastards were washing in the salt water waves, hanging on by their butts, and not legging go! I'll always remember seeing them swinging back and forth in the waves. I headed home -fast-. Half way to 520 at Wabasso, my mother would not have known me. My face was twisted in a horror story that I almost ran off the road when I looked in the rear view mirror. A twisted up face... like "Dr. Jekyell and Mr. Hyde." My wife raced me to the ER. That is all I remember until I came to... the doctor smiled at me and said; "You had about 10 minutes." I replied: " 10 minutes for what?"... his answer short and sweet.... "To Live." The ER doctor said they lose about 20 people a year in this area. So please be careful if you are allergic, and carry your Epipen, if you go off on hunts.
So I dig a few dozen targets, earning my keep, and learning as I go. I find my first "coin spill !" Three Lincoln Memorial pennies. Oh boy. But I still got coins out of this desolate lot. I may sound like a chump, but I love them all. I found a couple of dimes and a few pennies in my own yard, and had more fun, running over to show my neighbor a half eaten away zinc penny! I said: "And to think...this is our monetary system!!!" (; So I tell the wife... "Gee... I wish the pennies had at least been "Wheaties"? But I found three in the same hole...my "first" coin spill so...that's that.
I go back two days later...again too lazy to go anywhere, other than to stumble across the street. And what do I find about 15' from the first coin spill? ANOTHER coin spill! And like a wish come true... Wheaties... all of them! Too funny. But I first detected a real clean signal... that clearly stood head and shoulders above all the others. I said to myself... so "this" is how a coin signal should sound! Crisp, clean tone, on the screen the image kept building exactly in the same spot, not bouncing all over, and painting the image in darker and darker red, layer upon layer. Then... the pin pointing lined up with the coil location as well. Two key things to watch for on the 3030.
Now for the finale.... I locate and dig the first coin. I check the hole with my "Garrett Carrot" pin pointer, and sure enough...another reading about 6" away. I slightly elongated the hole. Another penny! Scrubbing the hole with the pin pointer shaft along the hole walls up and down (remember the entire shaft end up to the light is -a transducer-, not just the tip. I see too many people just point the tip at the ground. That you do at the end to finalize the pin point. Probe into the last couple of inches of lose soil in the hole, rub the walls 360 degrees up and down the hole walls with the pin pointer shaft, but --do not- use your pin pointer as a digging tool. It will start acting up and falsing in no time! The Garretts have a nice "scraper blade" running down the entire tip length to assist you in scraping down the walls to get a clean detecting surface. But again... don't use it as a pry bar to dig!!!
So that is it...2 Wheaties. But now our next mission is to carefully recheck the target area one more time. Sure enough... 1 more faint reading, a little over from the first hole, but still adjoining the first hole. Yup... a 3rd Wheatie! A bona fide coin spill! Oh boy... but you know what??? I am really enjoying myself. So the next mission is to dig ALL targets around the coin spill.
I get a reading with a fairly good tone, but signal jumping around a bit. Dig it anyway! Rusty nail... a foot from "coin spill." NOW... an honesty check. I am here to help others learn from my mistakes, not to brag of my finds or my skill... in the least. HAD I DUG ANOTHER NAIL FIRST...THE DIG WOULD BE OVER. I WOULD HAVE MOVED ON... But I get a reading a foot to the right of the nail, and a foot and a half down from the coin spill hole. The tone is strong, but much, much lower a tone, and the screen image is almost off the screen on the left, actually hitting the wall of the screen on the left side, ..not way over to the right like a coin. Then the clincher... NOT to dig it, due to it being so -long in length- a target. I do a pin point on the detector, and I get the same target in a straight line almost a half foot long. Now by "sizing your target," I KNOW...this cannot be any coin, and instead a big piece of junk copper gas line, etc. But we'll dig it, because it's near the coin spill. My mind said... it certainly cannot be anything as ridiculous as gold in this low level mess...certainly not anything valuable at "this" site!!! But in the back of my mind... I knew gold was a very low tone and a number like 12-5 was in fact around gold, instead of a silver or clad coin at 12- 37-43.
So this object is laying perpendicular to how I was standing facing the coin spill hole. I tried to pin point this object with the detector...it just ran in a length of equal signal. So I -WRONGLY- centered on this target, dug my hole, and off to the side of the clump dropped off a heavy lump. Gold toned chain? What??? Costume jewelry... but boy did I make mistakes had this been real. Then to my horror... I'm on my hands and knees, I look down into the hole right below me and see 2 links hanging down the rear edge of the hole (toward me). I thought... Thank God this is just practice, because if it had been real... I would have just ---chopped a gold chain in half--- with the Lesche sharp shovel !!! Shame on me! So I widen the hole toward me, and out drops the remainder of the chain. The shovel had actually more "pulled" than cut on the chain, and a little ball on a stud was on the one end, and a matching round hole on the other. The bracelet was open when lost, as the lock mechanism was full of dirt.
I've had enough lessons for one day. I head for home. Shamefully... I hand the wife the 2 pieces. She walks to the sink and starts washing. She says: "For gold plating, I have yet to see a tarnished link"? And I drew closer, now more afraid than excited... Sure enough on the clip "tongue" said - "Italian"- and on the other side a 3 letter brand, and --"14k"--. Yup... it was real... and I had just chopped it into two.
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| Where Bracelet Came Apart During Recovery |
So... full circle to the title... "GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT." No location should be judged as being "too poor" a site to hold gold. Why? Because.... Gold is Where you Find It !!! With careful placement in my vise with cloth covered jaws... I gently heated the opening hole end, and pressed the stud with ball end back into it. Click...good as new! 13.5 grams, 0.48 ounce, 8.7 dwt. $338 scrap, new about $500-$600. Santa was sure good to me this year... I found my first coin spill !!! ; Listen for those -very low tone- targets... and never, ever judge a site as being "not worth it." I bet there is still more there... and to tell you the exact location...(it is Christmas after all...) This Italian gold bracelet was found 147 steps SE from my front door!!! Yes... I really did count them.
Merry Christmas,
"Steve in Sebastian"
Thanks much Steve.
Steve's "stream of consciousness" email message gave us a look into the mind of a treasure hunter and all the twists and turns and ups and downs that can occur during a single hunt. It also provides some good tips.
For those of you who have been detecting the same over-hunted beaches again and again with the same poor results, you might want to try something different. There are a lot of virgin detecting sites out there, believe it or not, and also many that are not exactly virgin, but still hold some very good targets. You might be surprised how much good detecting you pass up on the way to the beach.
Detecting old home sites is a different type of detecting. You'll learn a lot by doing it if you stick to it long enough.
I often look around and think about all of the sites there are to detect. I've had my eye on a local restaurant that just went out of business, for example It has a grassy overflow parking lot that was often full.
Some sites might not look like much, but that doesn't tell you what might be there. What you see there now does not tell what went on there in the past. You really have to go some to find land where there is nothing to be found in the ground. People that tell you there is nothing there often just don't know how to go about it.
Chains can be tricky to recover. In the water, they tend to slide out of the scoop as the scoop is raised,
I also remember my first introduction to fire ants. I was trying to recover a target in a fire ant mound. Bad idea, especially when you don't yet know what they can do to you.
I've also made some big mistakes by assuming that an item was not very old or very good when it was older or better than I thought it was. It is better to be overly optimistic than pessimistic if you are a treasure hunter.
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It appears that the after Christmas increase in the Treasure Coast surf will not amount to much - only two to four feet.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
