12/10/17 Report - Ole Timer Talk: 10 Different Gold Items One Short Hunt.

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

I've posted a few Ole Timer Talk pieces in this blog, but haven't told any of my experiences that way.
A few came to mind last night.  I've referred to parts of those experiences to illustrate some things I wanted to explain, but I haven't described them as completely as I could.

The experience I'm going to talk about today happened on an otherwise normal day about thirty years ago, so I'm sad to say that I forgot a lot about it.  That is mostly why I haven't told it this way.  Fortunately I have some written records to refresh my memory and help me get the most important parts right.

My records were scribbled in cursive with a lead pencil.  The paper is now old yellow crinkled tablet paper.  The entries are labeled with the month and day, but not the year.  That was a big mistake that didn't seem like it would be a problem at the time.

One sunny day near low tide in early February I arrived at a beach that I detected frequently back in those days.  I don't recall any, people on the beach, which is kind of strange for a nice day down south, so I would guess it was early morning.  The parking fee there was something like four dollars, so people mostly parked elsewhere if they could.  There were no other detectorists there.  That I know for sure.

The surf must have been calm.  I don't remember it being an issue at all.

I was in South Florida and was targeting modern jewelry in those days.  I had a few years of detecting under my belt, but was not much more than what I would consider to be a beginner.  I was using a Fisher Aquanaut 1280 at that time, I think.  Maybe I had started using a modified Nautilus.  I'm not sure about that.

When I arrived at the beach, I noticed a good bit of erosion.  It wasn't what you usually see.  The erosion was right at the front of the beach.  There was no slope between the cut and the water.  The cut was right at the waters edge.  The front of the beach had been cut back and the sand spread out in the shallow water.  Very often there is a cut farther back on the beach and then a slope down to the waterline.  In this case the cut fell off into the water.  It was more like the beach had been moved back a few feet.

Red angular line shows surface after erosion.
Grey line shows target distribution.

I stepped over the cliff and into the very shallow water.  It was only up to my ankles or lower leg.  I mostly hunted in shallow water back then.  I moved my coil.  Bingo.  Good target on the first swing.  I dug it up.  Blackened coin.  Without moving on, I took another swing,  Bingo again.  Another blackened coin.  There were targets everywhere.  I'd say every square foot had a target.  In the next four hours of the hunt, I picked up twenty dollars in quarters alone.  I remember telling somebody (Kevin Reilly) that, which is why I remember that number.  But it wasn't only coins.

The targets were not deep - at least not the ones I was digging.  I don't remember digging any big holes.  I didn't get around to that.  There were so many targets that I never got to the deeper ones that day, if there were any.  

I don't know what the total face value of the blackened coins was that day, because  I only recorded the nice jewelry finds and the general location.

Below is what my notes show for that day.  The notes are pretty much as they are written, although they were scribbled and not real easy to decipher.  Maybe that was intentional. 

2/4 -  at North picnic area below new play equipment - blue star sapphire ring, 2 gold ear rings,"SC" signet ring, and 10k band in water  Also silver double heart ring.

2/4 - middle picnic area just south of walkover -  14 k black pearl and diamond ring, also silver and turquoise ring.  In water.

2/4 - south picnic area by life guard station by turtle cage in water - silver love knot ring, silver and turquoise ring, gold religious charm, 2 class rings, 1 14k band.

What I recorded for that four hour hunt was 10 pieces of gold jewelry.

I left after about four hours.  I don't know why I left (maybe I had to do something), but I'm sure I dug less than 20 percent of the available targets in the area that day.  I was going to return the next day, and I did.  I have a couple entries for 2/5.  

I didn't record how many coins I found.  When I first started metal detecting, I recorded the number of each denomination of coin that I found.  From those records I knew when my Aquanaut paid for itself in clad coins, which it did in one year.  It cost me something over $600 for the detector, if I correctly recall, and I knew when I found enough change to cover the cost of that detector.

If I encountered the same situation today, I would do some things differently.  First of all I would try to hunt as long as it took to clean the area of all targets.  If for some reason I couldn't do that, I would  try to cherry pick the gold.  At the time I didn't have the skill to do that very well.   I'm sure the second approach would have meant missing some gold because the target density was so high.  You'll find more than you think after you clean out a lot of the louder targets, so the best practice would have been to spend the time to clean it all out properly even if it took more than one day.  Problem with that is that you never know when conditions will suddenly change and it all disappears.

As an aside, the only problem I ever had with the 1280 was, after I first got it, I kept breaking the plastic things that the upper forearm fit into.  They finally sent me metal ones to replace the plastic ones.  It was very reliable.  Fisher did a tune-up on it for me once.  I sold that detector after a few years and got nearly the purchase price for it.

I'm glad I have my records for that hunt.  They helped refresh my memory so I could tell the story.  It was a long time ago but a time to remember.

It s funny how some details stick so vividly in memory while other fade.

The second day I don't remember as well and my records do not seem to be as complete, but I do have entries showing an 18k charm, a crucifix with gold chain, a 10K band, a Jesus and Mary medallion, and a 14k nugget band.  I don't know what other coins or what else was found.

The one big thing I remember about the second day, and I remember it very clearly, is the end.  As I walked back to the car I looked up and noticed a weather front coming in.  A thick layer of clouds was arriving from the north.

The next day I returned to the same spot, and quickly found that it was all over.  No more targets at all.   It opened up suddenly and closed just as suddenly.  That is the way it goes, and why it is so important to make hay when the sun shines.

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The cold front definitely arrived to the Treasure Coast.  The wind has been out of the west and north. We have some nice cold air.  The surf is small.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net