1/11/18 Report - Finds: Sight and Otherwise. Dutch Warship Found. One Reader's Success Sifting For Silver.

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

14 Inch Spike Found On Treasure Coast Yesterday

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Divers in the blue waters around the Yucatán Peninsula have discovered three historic treasures: a sunken lighthouse and the remains of an 18th-century Dutch warship and a 19th-century British steamer, according to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

The battered wrecks were found near the coastal town of Sisal, Mexico, a modern beach destination that was once a bustling port in the 18th and 19th centuries...

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

https://www.livescience.com/61378-shipwrecks-yucatan.html

I've long suspected that old wrecks could be responsible for the shape of some of the Treasure Coast.  The wrecks were covered with coral and then in some cases, sand.

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A couple days ago I was talking about a couple kinds of sloth.  One reader responded to that post as follows.

After spending a few hours on the sifter today, your entry resonated today!

I am on a new site or at least a new site using the sifter.  It was a small lot with the house removed two years ago.  I hand dug, then detected, repeat, most of the lot as it was extremely trashy, with good success:  tons of marbles and at least 13 silvers, including some barber dimes.

There was a fifteen foot wide stretch at the front next to the sidewalk that had a very overgrown Camphor tree that I did not work.  Finds had diminished as I approached anyway so I wasn't too worried about it.  A week ago they cleaned all of it up and it has perfect sifting soil (mainly, no grass) so I decided to give a sample of it a shot with the sifter (after hitting with the detector and finding nada, I might add).  I might have sampled the best spot that first day with 19 marbles and a Merc and some wheats, but the finds have continued.  I've spent about ten hours and have two Indian head pennies, two V-nickels, 10 or so wheats, war nickel, two mercs and, the highlight, an 1892O Barber quarter.  I should also include the 40 marbles.  If you want to build a marble collection, sifting is the way!  I probably find 200 a year, including a bunch of clay, using the sifter.

Now I regret not sifting the entire lot, just digging.  I'm sure I missed some dimes, nickels and probably IHP's.

Anyway, not many want to hit sifting hard.  It is a lot of work.  But if you want to find the older coins, do it!

Thanks for all your blogging efforts.

Russ

Sifting isn't easy.  Most people won't put in that kind of work, but if you do, you will definitely find things that you would miss with a detector - including coins.  Did you catch how much he found with the sifter after having used his detector first?

Thanks for sharing Russ!

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I often visually scout areas before deciding to detect.  Good sites will often show evidence that something might be there and maybe even give you a good idea of the kind of things that might be there.

I decided to check out at a spot along the Indian River Lagoon, and found the two following items.  They were both sight finds.  I consider eye-balling to be a speciality of mine and enjoy finding things that way.  These two items aren't worth much but they do tell me that the area is probably worth checking out with a detector.

Cork Top McCormack's Bottle.

Even if this bottle was in great shape, and it isn't, it wouldn't be worth much, but it does tell me that some older things might be found in the area.

Vintage Earring.

This earring, like the bottle above, was a sight find.  Both were found in an eroded area.  The area was eroded much like the near ideal cut that I talked about a couple days ago.

The earring tells me that there might be some more jewelry in the area,

Such sight finds are common if you know how to read sites.

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We're supposed to have a 4 - foot surf and a south wind today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net