Sunday, September 16, 2018

9/16/18 Report - After Florence. A Couple Finds. Muntz Metal and Copper Sheathing.


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

Gold Band Found a Couple Days Ago.


After all the weather, it looks like the things on the Treasure Coast are pretty much back to normal.  Although we got some good water, I didn't see hardly any erosion.  Still finds were made.

One gold band was found, but there were some older things found also.  Those shown below are among the oldest.

A Couple Treasure Coast Fossil Finds.

I think both of the fossils are turtle fossils.  The one on the left, I think is from the plastron - the flat part of the shell under the turtle.

I always enjoy finding interesting non-metallic items while detecting.

I haven't cleaned the encrusted objects yet.

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Yesterday or the day before I posted a picture of a fake coin and a piece of copper found by D. Renken, and then below that I posted a picture of a nice wall display made of shipwreck finds.   James F. sent me an email and pointed out that what I referred to as copper might actually be Muntz metal instead.  

Muntz metal is an alloy of copper and tin.  I think James is probably right about the large piece in the wall display that bears the marker's mark.

In my 4/16/14 post I gave a link to a page about the use of copper in maritime history that tells about G. F. Muntz patenting his new brass alloy of 60% copper and 40% tin, called Muntz metal.  That patent was registered in 1832.

Here is that link again.


I posted a nice find of Muntz sheathing that showed a patent mark in my 4/19/14 post.  Since Muntz metal wasn't patented until 1832, that, of course, means that if it came from a shipwreck, the shipwreck would not be no earlier than 19th century.

In the area where D. Renken found the fake coin and the item I called copper, I know there is an 1800s  era shipwreck, but there is also an early 1600s or late 1500s shipwreck almost within a stones throw from there.  And not too far in the other direction is a possible 1715 wreck in an area of an exploratory lease that was investigated in the summer of 2017.

I have personally found a lot of copper, including some fairly large pieces, in the same area where the recent finds were made by D.  Renken.

Thanks to James F. for the note about Muntz metal.

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What is the best thing you ever found?  I hear people ask that all the time.  I always have a hard time answering that question, and try to avoid it anyhow.  I think when most people ask, they are really asking what is the most valuable thing I found.  That isn't easy for me to answer either, and I'm not interested in saying anyhow.

One thing that makes answering that question more complicated, is that I don't always immediately know the value of things.  There were things that I thought weren't worth anything that I later found out were worth a lot more than I thought, and there were things I thought would be much more valuable than they actually were.  In the days before the internet it often took a lot longer to do the research or get good estimates of value.

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There is nothing left in the Atlantic that is likely to affect us much.  Joyce and Helene are no threat to North America, and Florence seems to be heading north.

There is one wave down in the Caribbean that could develop.  I'll watch that one.

Source: magicseaweed.com

As you can see the surf will be decreasing throughout next week.

I'll be happy to get some nice fall weather.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net