Sunday, September 22, 2019

9/22/19 Report - $30,000 Find by Detectorist on Melborne Beach. Another Tropical Storm. Other Finds.


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

Eroded Melborne Beach
Photo by Jerry P.
I received this message from Jerry P.


I had an interesting day on the Treasure Coast yesterday. I found the conditions much as you described them in your Friday Post. The Big surf had beaten up the dunes pretty good, but it was mostly renourishment sand that was knocked down. Then because the waves were hitting square on to the beach, that sand wasn’t moved off the beach. I didn’t find any shipwreck items but did find the most expensive item I’ve ever found.  It’s a one-kilo brick of cocaine (See below.) that washed up on the beach in Melbourne. Not my best find but definitely the most valuable. After turning it over to the local Sheriff deputy, he told me the wholesale value is about $30,000! My jaw hit the ground😎

  

Regards,

Jerry P.


$30.000 Brick of Cocaine
Photo by Jerry P.

That reminds me of the morning I arrived to see three huge bales of pot washed up on John Brooks beach.  Each bale was a cube of about five feet.

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Plaque Washed Up On Melborne Beach
Source: FloridaToday.com


Talking of things washed up on Melborne Beach -

Bobbing amid then-Tropical Storm Humberto's swells, a wooden wall plaque bearing Jesus Christ's image reached the beach just as former professional surfer Bryan Hewitson and his daughter, Olivia, approached carrying bags of litter.
"It was still wet. It had just washed up," Bryan recalled from their beach cleanup walk shortly after sunrise Saturday...
Here is the link for the rest of that article.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/09/17/mystery-jesus-plaque-washes-ashore-near-melbourne-beach-tropical-storm-humbertos-waves/2343070001/

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My Friday Finds.

I've done more detecting in the past three days than I've been able to do in a long time.  I went out three times and spent an average of about an hour detecting each time.  I also spent time scouting beaches that I didn't detect, but I averaged about 25 modern coins per hour detecting by working eroded renourishment sand.  That is not what I'd prefer to hunt, but it was easy, and I was also getting to know the Equinox detector so I wanted to hit a good number targets.  If I had a lot more time I would have spent time detecting for shipwreck items too, but that didn't look like a good bet under the circumstances.

If you look at that ring shown above, you'll notice it is broken.  It gave a much weaker signal because of the broken band.

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Now a correction:  Yesterday I posted a photo of a watch that was like the one found by Joe D.  The way I mistakenly labeled the photo, you would have thought that the brand new watch was the one found by Joe.  It was not.  Joe's find was beat up.   Rather than taking the time make that clear in yesterday's post, I just removed the incorrectly labeled photo from that post.

Joe provided this handy link to a database on pocket watches, which provides detailed information on any watch that you can find in the database.  I've found a few pocket watches over the years that I have never researched, so when I get the time I'll be using that link.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/

And here is the link to the particular make and model found by Joe.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/hamilton/1752320

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John Brooks Beach Saturday Evening Near Low Tide.
Notice all the sand between where the waves are breaking and where the water is on the sand.

The beach is still mushy even though the water has been getting pretty high.

John Brooks Beach Saturday Evening Near Low Tide.

The coins I picked up Saturday were not the easy ones.  They were deep in wet sand where the water was still coming and going at low tide.  That makes recovery more difficult.


Now we have another tropical storm - Karen.  Looks like she'll pretty much follow Jerry.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov.


For the next few days the surf will be decreasing.


Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net