7/8/20 Report - Mel Fisher Expeditions and Finds. Quintessential Treasures. Digital Treasure.

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

Quintessential Treasures That Fortunately Were Never Lost.
See link below.

Not lost but still representing the kind of objects that any treasure hunter might dream of finding.  I'm sure that out there somewhere are lost objects that are as finely crafter and beautiful as these.

Click here to see more Sotheby's auction items like these.

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Down south, Mel Fisher's Expeditions are working on the the well-known Atocha and Margarita sites, but also the less well known "Lost Merchant" somewhere off the east coast of Florida, and another 1622 wreck that has yet to be found.

The Magruder went sifting for emeralds and then back to the area known as the Bank of Spain.  Their latest finds included a nice emerald, 1 complete silver candlestick, a piece of a silver plate rim, some pottery shards and half of a silver coin.

The Mel Fisher museum in Sebastian will be reopening on May 8.

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The nature of treasure is changing.  I guess it always did.  Wealth is becoming less tangible.  Most transactions no longer require coins or currency.  It is done digitally.  Digital currencies include cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies, central bank digital currencies and e-Cash.  You've probably heard of bit coin for example.

And you know about the scammers that do their own form of illegal digital treasure hunting by mining the digital information that resides on our computers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned Americans that the Chinese government’s theft of American information is taking place on so large a scale, suspected incidents make up nearly half of his bureau’s counterintelligence cases.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, Wray said that Chinese thefts amount to “one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history,” and that the American people are the victims...

See https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-wray-says-half-of-bureaus-5000-counterintelligence-cases-are-related-to-china

Yesterday I mentioned some of the products of our culture. If you thought China might be a place you could escape from our culture, the Chinese have been going to great lengths to become wealthy by stealing our Culture.  Can you believe they even have a Shanghai Disneyland Park?

Now that Crossfire Hurricane is over maybe the intelligence agencies can spend there time on more useful things.

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One great book that I think you'll enjoy is Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.  It goes into the invention or evolution of the things around us and how we live today.   It is really an very exceptional book on the history of most everything we encounter in our homes and lifestyles.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

There is a 60% chance that the system up by North Carolina will develop into a cyclone in the next 48 hours.  It is expected to continue to the northeast though. 

Most days now there is something developing somewhere.  I think we are supposed to get 20 some names storms this year.  It was upgraded some the last time I saw the forecast.

Looks like the page view counter will hit 2.5 million later today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/21/19 Report - New Salvage Finds Down South. Coins Found At Eroding Site. Metal Detector Testing and Noise Adjustments. Storm Scene.

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

Silver Ewer Spout Find.
Source: https://www.melfisherartifacts.com/

What do you think the object shown above is?  I'll tell you below.

Down south the crews of the Dare and Magruder recently found silver coins musket balls, pottery shards, a barrel hoop, and a possible carpenter's file.  

They also found an ewer spout very much like one shown above.  I know that the single view didn't give you much of a chance of figuring it out.  Multiple views are always helpful.

The spout shown above was found on the Atocha site years ago and is pictured in the melfisherartifacts database.   Entire silver ewers have also been found with the same kind of spout attached so there is no question of what it is.

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I got a few responses on John E's mystery object that I posted yesterday.

Joe D. looks like an aluminum sprinkler repair tool!

And Susan E. Plumber's multi-tool.

Steve M . says That is definitely an automotive battery connection cleaner.  I have seen those in the 70s but could still be in use today.   They cleaned the lead clamp inside and the lead post outside.

I think John will be able to decide which of those it is.

Thanks to all of you for the help.

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An archaeological site being eroded by the sea revealed Roman coins and pottery.

"The main problem is that everything is under a metre of sand and we're wondering if it blew in in the big storm in 1330 - so it looks like it's been buried for a long time and it's superbly preserved."

Archaeologists' initial estimations think the Roman pottery could be from around 200 to 300AD while the fort is thought to be from the Iron Age, which dates from around 800BC to 43AD.

"That's not to say Romans occupied the site but perhaps a tribe lived there that traded with the Romans," said Dan Amor, of the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust...

Here is the link for more about that.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-49397328

1. Luke 3:5 ⁵Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low...

--- Yesterday I described some air tests I did. It seems I can't do that without repeating the limitations of an air test, and the importance of not making too much out of the results. You have to start somewhere, and an air test is a convenient starting place when you are just starting to become familiar with a metal detector.  You can form some initial theories to be tested more effectively at a later time, but an air test will not tell you what you will get in the field with real targets. An air test is an OK starting place, but that is about it. If you want to compare metal detectors, the best way is to take those detectors out to the area you want to detect and compare signals on UNDUG targets. Don't dig the targets until after you have thoroughly explored the signals and all of the adjustments you might be interested in. It is important that the targets remain undisturbed in the naturally settled sand or earth to get a good test. If you are interested in the wet sand area, compare the performance of your detectors there. If you are interested in submerged areas, test there. Or dry sand, test there. Test in the same type of area you want to detect. Testing in dry sand for detecting in wet sand will give you very misleading results, but it will help you learn a bit about your new detector before venturing into the wet sand. Also, when conducting a test, you should sweep as you would naturally sweep when hunting. Since I conducted the air test in an area with a considerable amount of electrical interference, I wanted to make a few comments about that. The Ace 250 isn't bothered too much by electrical interference (much less than some metal detectors) but when you need to, you can turn down the sensitivity. The Ace 250 does not have other additional options for dealing with that. The Equinox has a frequency check function to find the best frequency for you. Besides that, you have several choices that you can manually select. You can choose multi-frequency or other specific frequencies. I found that both 5kz and 10kz worked well when I needed to adjust. Sometimes multi-frequency works well, but if you are getting a lot of noise, you can easily change frequencies. You can just cycle through the various frequencies and use the one that seems to work well. From my limited experience, I've been impressed by several things about the Equinox. I didn't expect the display to be as clear and easy to read. Also, for the variety of features that are available, the options are easy to understand and use. The human interface was well designed. Eventually I'll get around to testing it in the field on real targets. That is what really counts. ---

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Way to the north is Tropical Storm Chantal, and on the other side of the Bahamas is another system that could form. I'll keep an eye on that one. Happy hunting, TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/1/18 Report - Tips and Techniques for Finding Paper Money and Other Valuable Papers. News on the Atocha And Santa Margarita Sites.

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

Unidentified Paper Money Found in Pages of Old Book.

After Thanksgiving I told about finding a ten dollar bill on the floor of a restaurant.  I remembered that when I woke up this morning and started thinking about other times I found paper money.  There were actually quite a few, and there were even times when I set out to find paper money.

Of course, you don't do that with a metal detector.  There are, however, things you can do that will increase the probability of finding paper money.  One is being generally alert.  But there are also specific strategies for different times and places.

Finding paper money is one aspect of what I call eye-balling. Years ago I wrote an article about that for a treasure hunting magazine.  It was either Lost Treasure, Treasure, or Western and Eastern Treasures.  I forget which one right now.

I once found a twenty dollar bill while driving through the parking lot in front of a Bealls store.  You can find stuff while driving.  I once saw a watch on the street while driving.  I drove up to it, stopped, opened the door and picked it up.

I won't mention all the bottles, rings and other treasures that I've found visually, but will get back to paper money.  There are some places where you have a decent chance of finding paper money.

I always liked to search the grounds after a carnival, circus or fair. You could always find a good number of coins right after they left, and most of them would be on top of the ground so you could find a lot of them visually, but also there was also a good chance of finding paper money.

The best place to check at a fair grounds was the fence line on the down wind side.  Usually the fence line would also have a bunch of weeds that would help trap blown paper money.

At the beach I've found paper money in the seaweed along the seaweed line.

A lot of wind or big surf helps you chances.

There aren't so many of them out there anymore, but people used to leave cigarette packages on the beach.  I would always check out packages like that for any money.  There would occasionally be a folded bill stuffed inside.

I've also found paper money while metal detecting in the water.  I remember one time when a bill came floating by about a foot deep in the water.  It wasn't real easy to see.

There was also a dip in about six feet of water in front of one beach-side hotel where bills often collected.

Of course, paper money can be found in with coin caches.  

I used to stop at a thrift store to buy old and collectible books.  I once found a ten dollar bill in between the pages of a book I bought.

A lot of good things can be found in between the pages of old books.  Old calling cards, autographed papers, tickets, etc.

One of my favorites was the business card of Hoagie Carmichael Jr., which was in a book written by him.  I purchased the autographed book on building a fly rod for a dollar and sold it for around $125, as I recall.

I've also found very nice old photos in books, including one showing a some people in the old long bathing suits at a New Jersey beach.  It looked like it was from the twenties or thirties.  Also some nice wedding and other photos.

Old Photo Postcard Found Between Pages of An Old Book.

The clown postcard shown above was found in an old book.  It has the typical postcard look with the space for stamp and everything on the other side, but it also appears to have the name of the person (Charles H...).

Another favorite book find included a religious card with a small cloth relic attached.

Outdoors, consider the wind and water and where paper will evntually be trapped.

Indoors, consider anyplace where paper can be stuffed away for safe keeping.  Old books are one of my favorites.

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Recent calmer weather allowed a lot of salvage activity down around Key West.

The crew of the Dare has been trying to determine if there might be another debris trail on the Atocha site.  In the process they found a couple silver coins and a few EOs.

On the Margarita site, the Sea Reaper was searching for a missing section of the Santa Margarita.  There are about 22 chests of coins missing, including about 80 thousand pieces of eight.  They found a silver coin, musket balls and lead sheathing while searching.

Doug Pope has made an agreement with the Fishers, and the Polly-L be working with the Fisher organization again on the Santa Margarita site.  The Polly-L worked on the Margarita site back in the early 2000s and found a 40 carat uncut Colombian emerald.  It was the only emerald ever found on the Santa Margarita wreck site.  It was found in a conch shell.

Source: email from the Fisher organization.

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Let me know if you can identify the partial bill shown at the top of the page.

It looks like we'll have south winds and less than a two foot surf for a few days.  We might have something bigger after that.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/16/17 Report - New 1715 Fleet Find By Crew of Capitana. Search For Lost Merchant. Attitudes Towards Historic Items and Artifacts.

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

Capitana Diver Grant Showing His Recent Find
Photo submitted by Captain Jonah Martinez

As you know, salvage season is in full swing.  The crew of the Capitana has been finding artifacts, including the scale weight shown in the photo above.

Congratulations Grant.  Great find!

And thanks to Capitana captain Jonah Martinez for sharing the great photos with us.

Bronze 4M or Marcos Scale Weight Found by Grant Photo submitted by Captain Jonah Martinez

I'll post more recent 1715 Fleet finds probably tomorrow.

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The crew of the Dare has been working 24/7 looking for the shipwreck code-named Lost Merchant.  After surveying about 220 nautical miles with both a magnetometer and side scan sonar.  A number of targets have been identified for further investigation.

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Three New Areas To Watch.
Soruce: nhc.noaa.gov

Hurricane Gert is now well north of us, but there is a parade of systems coming off of Africa.  It is too early to know if they will affect Florida.  I'll keep an eye on them.

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Never RememberSource: CNN News Video

This historic Confederate statue was torn down.  I wonder how far this will go.  Could there come a time when confederate or other historic artifacts from other times or movements be treated the same?  Is this a sign of things to come?  Could there come a time when the Washington Monument or other statues or monuments, or even dug artifacts, will be similarly regarded or erased from the landscape and history?

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/16/17 Report - Small Gold Artifact Found. Gold King Mine Disaster. Shipwreck Wood on Beach. Two Tropical Disturbances.

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

Animas River After Gold King Mine Disaster.
Source: See Daily Signal link below

In August 2015, an EPA crew inexplicably dug out the rock and rubble “plug” to the long abandoned Gold King Mine, triggering a massive blowout that flooded the Animas River with 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage and, according to the EPA, over 550 tons of metals...

Click here to read more about that.

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Things have been going well down south.  The Dare recently recovered three silver coins on the trail of the Atocha.

The Magruder found a small gold artifact said to be a pendant.  It appears to be gold wire with a gold two-piece filigree bead and with a pearl near the end.  A similar one was found in 1985.

Here is a picture.

Small Gold Artifact Found by Margruder
Source: Personal email.

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Shipwreck Wood Washed Up on Beach.
Source: See Daily Astorian link below.

CANNON BEACH — What at first glance looks like one of the many logs that line Cannon Beach may be an uncovered keel of a boat from a possible shipwreck.

The wood object, which measures about 18 feet long and several hundred pounds, was found Wednesday afternoon on the beach close to the Taft Street access by Jeffrey Smith of Portland. Looking for a place to rest after walking with his wife, he noticed rusty square nails, notches and square cutouts in the log and decided to call the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum...

Here is the link for more of that story.

http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20170615/possible-shipwreck-debris-uncovered-in-cannon-beach

Cannon Beach!  Pay attention to place names.

Shipwreck wood occasionally washes up onto Treasure Coast beaches too.

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As I've been saying, "Its time to start watching for tropical weather."   There are two disturbances out there now.  Neither will likely affect the Treasure Coast much, but keep watching.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/3/16 Report - New Disturbance On Its Way. How One Beach Changed Last Week. Tracking Treasure. Fisher Action.

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

Source: nola.com

Hermine is gone, but all the action isn't over.  There is another disturbance approaching.  You can see it on the above chart.

Expect a small surf through the weekend.  Monday and Tuesday the surf is expected to be a bit bigger.

Even when you don't have a storm or anything rough, beaches change.  Below I'll show you what happened on one beach over the past week.  It is a good lesson.

Beach Illustration.

In my 8/27 post I showed the above illustration.  The illustration shows a beach that I hunted and where the coins and jewelry were.  That beach had a cut (shown in brown) and a distribution of coins (in the orange area), including a jewelry hole.  As I explained, this beach is a beach where mostly cheap items are found.  What I wanted to show is how finds get distributed on a beach.  It is not a random process, especially when the items have been lost a while and they have been sifted and sorted by the water.

I went back to the same beach yesterday.  That was about one week later.  As you know, we have been having mostly south winds and relatively small surf and decent tides.

Here is how the beach and target distribution had changed.

Same Beach As It Appeared Yesterday At Low Tide.

Last week the cut (light brown crescent) was about a foot high at the peak and tapered.  Yesterday the cut was not nearly as high (only about a half foot at the most) but it ran much farther (darker brown line).  Other than how that cut changed, there wasn't too much that was obvious.

The jewelry was found at a different location this time. Last week the jewelry was found at the blue circle.  Yesterday jewelry was found in the area of the blue rectangle. It was lower on the beach and was spread out along the wet sand in a narrow strip between the dry sand and water line.

It took me about fifteen minutes, at most, to find the new jewelry location and to find the items shown below.

Cheap Jewelry Found At One Beach Yesterday.

There were almost no coins found with the jewelry.  Just one penny and two bottle tops.

Although I wouldn't spend much time on a beach like this that produces almost exclusively cheap stuff, I wanted to illustrate how beaches change and how you can benefit by identifying and tracking different target areas.  Again, I didn't need discrimination because when I was in either the area where the jewelry was or the area where the coins were located, and there was almost no junk in either of those locations, and I also wanted to know where the junk was.  The junk can help you to define beach areas, and it can help to tell you where to spend your time or where to not spend your time.

The orange outlined area that contained coins last week, did not now produce any coins.  The coins were now farther south, just beyond the area shown in the illustration.  It was fairly compact or dense hole.  There was one unidentifiable piece of junk in the coin hole.  Again, no need for discrimination.

Besides that hole, which often appears on this beach, there is often another spot where concentrations of coins are found, but the second spot was not producing yesterday.

I wouldn't spend much time on a beach like this, but I did it primarily to illustrate how beaches change and how the distribution of targets on a beach will change.

Until you get to know a particular beach, you might have to do a few hunts just to become familiar with the beach.

Knowing where things were found last week helped me to find the productive area yesterday.  

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Down in the Keys, the Fisher boats were back in port, however before having to come in they made some good finds, including a few silver coins and an adze.  I discussed some tools from the Treasure Coast not too long ago.  A 4 inch square stone that appears to be onyx is a more curious find.  There was another similar one found on the Atocha site about thirty years ago.

The crew of the Dare has been exploring EM hits.  One was a bomb strap.  Another target that appears to be non-ferrous was missed after digging a large hole.  They'll return to recover that one.

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Keep watching the latest disturbance.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/25/16 Report - Invest 99-L Still Heading Towards Florida. Octant Find. Fisher News. IRC History Books.

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

Wind Prediction for Early Sunday Afternoon
According to wyndyty.com.

The biggest news for me is Invest 99L, a low pressure area, coming our way.  I ran the wyndyty.com prediction out to Sunday, and from that it appears that the storm could develop and come in around the Miami area, as shown above.

Notice that according to this prediction, the system has a nice tight center by Sunday afternoon.  Also notice that the strongest winds are to the northeast.

If this is what happens, we won't get very much wind from the north or northeast.  After it passes we'll be getting a lot of South winds.

Of course, this is just a prediction and things could change significantly.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Above you can see where things stand at the Thursday 8 AM update.  At this point, there is still just a 50 percent chance of the low pressure area becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours.  

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Here is a really nice artifact found by Darrel S. years ago.  He said, I have found some late 18th century items. I found the part to an octant south of Turtle Trail. Image (bottom) is from Sedwick's auction for reference.

Part Of An Octant Found by Darrel S.
Photos submitted by Darrel S.

Below is a picture of a complete octant as shown in a 2010 Sedwick auction listing.  You can see a part like the one found by Darrel on that octant. 

Source: Sedwick Oct. 23, 2010 Auction Listing.

That is the kind of item that an inexperienced detectorist might find and discard as being of no value. As I often say, if you don't know what an object is, hold onto it until you are very confident that you know what you have.  .

Very nice find Darrel!  Thanks for sharing.

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Recently I showed a chisel that was found on the Treasure Coast.  The J.B. Magruder recently found an iron chisel along with some other items on the Atocha site.  The Magruder will be moving down to the Atocha Main Pile to look for emeralds.

The Dare continues to explore targets identified by Dolores an the EM metal detection system.  They might move North to the Lost Merchant site.

The Fishers are adding Captain Dan Porter and his Sea Reaper to their Key West salvage operations.

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Here is something really useful.  It is a listing of Indian River County local history books in the Indian River County library system.

You'll find many more related books (hundreds) by using the following link.

http://www.irclibrary.org/genealogy/irchistorybooks.pdf

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/28/16 Report - Tropical Storm Bonnie Forming. Has It All Been Found? Fisher Airlift Video. 14.000 Year Old Discovery.

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

Diver Using Airlift.
Source: Fisher YouTube Video.  See link below.

You might not think this story has anything to do with you, but read on a little and you'll find that it does.

A series of prehistoric cave paintings has been uncovered in the Basque Country, northern Spain, in a discovery experts have called a "once in a generation" find.

The paintings, which include those of bison, horses and goats, were discovered by archeologist Diego Garate at a depth of 300m in the Atxurra caves, around 50km from Bilbao.

The paintings are between 12,000 and 14,000 years old and depict traditional hunting scenes, including a bison pierced "with over 20 spears" - which marks the cave painting of a bison with the most spear marks in all of Europe...

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

http://www.thelocal.es/20160526/ancient-art-gallery-discovered-in-basque-country-atxurra-cave-paintings

The reason I mention this article is that the paintings were there for 12,000 to 14,000 years and were just discovered.  They were there thousands of years before being discovered.

There are some people that think that there is not very much left to find.  They believe that it has all been found.  This article shows that you just don't know what might be under your feet or around the next bend.  There is always more, you just don't know what is still there.

The amazing gold coin finds north of Vero last year is a good example.  All of those gold coins were in shallow water just yards off of the beach and buried under just a few feet of sand.  Detectorists walked within yards of those gold coins hundreds of times never knowing the gold coins were there or how close they were.

That is the thing about detecting.  You never know what is there until you detect it.  When the detector beeps and you dig up what was causing the signal and see it for the first time, it can be a surprising discovery.  Of course, that also means it can be a bit of a disappointment too.  It is a little like unwrapping a gift on Christmas morning.   When you actually see whatever it was, it is a discovery, and sometimes it is a surprising and wonderful discovery.

In Alan Craig's book on the silver coins in the Florida Collection, James Miller, the State Archaeologist at the time, wrote, "The law of diminishing returns has had its way with the increasingly expensive search for the finite remains of the treasure fleets.  Each year more people try a little harder to recover that which is more difficult to find."

He goes on to say, "Between 1975 and 1982, ten separate salvage contracts resulted in a little more than five hundred coins being added to the collection."   That is just over 70 coins per year.  There were ten separate salvage contracts at the time, and Dr. Miller tells us that only four of those "added more than five coins to the collection."

Craig's book was copyrighted in 2000.  If the finite supply of treasure was diminishing to a trickle before the turn of the millennium, surely after another decade and a half, the flow of treasure on the Treasure Coast would now be down to almost nothing.  But that is not what we saw.  Despite Dr. Millers outlook, the 2015 salvage season produced amazing discoveries, both in terms of quantity and quality.

It is easy enough to accept the law of diminishing returns.  It is easy enough to accept the idea that it is getting harder and harder, and maybe it isn't even worth going out there any more.  If you've accepted all of that, you probably won't be the one to make the next big find.  What is in you is as important as what is out there.

It might not seem easy.  It might not come quickly.  I don't know that it should.  If it did, there wouldn't be so much joy in the success.

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Here is a recent video of a diver from the Dare using an airlift to uncover deeply buried barrel hoops from the site of the Atocha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-W-rylDTpU&mc_cid=ab461745d0&mc_eid=e9c86e5425

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Early Saturday the Treasure Coast will have northeast winds and up to a four or five foot surf as topical depression Two heads towards South Carolina. Tropical depression two is expected to become Tropical Storm Bonnie on Saturday night. Bonnie will bring bad beach weather to the coastal Carolinas and Georgia for the Memorial Day weekend, including rip currents, potentially heavy rain, and battering waves.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/23/16 Report - Treasures In Renourishment Sand. Jupiter Inlet Beach. Ring: How Old Is It? Dare.

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

Big Cut South of Jupiter Inlet
Photo by John B.

T,his cut is in renourishment sand, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is nothing good in it.  Although it doesn't happen often, very good things can be found in renourishment sand.  WW II items were found in renourishment sand at Fort Pierce.  Silver U. S. coins were found in the renourishment sand at Ambersands not too long ago. Even Spanish galleon materials have been found in renourishment sand.  It is good to know where renoruishment sand is collected, and it can be worth checking renourishment sand.  There are times when there will be tons of old aluminum cans and other junk, but sometimes there will be things that are millions of years old.

Same Cut Showing Layers of Shells Etc.
Photo by John B.

Check the face of any cut to determine what might be in the sand.  In the photo above, you can clearly see some layers.

Thanks for the great pictures John!

Very Nice Shark Tooth
Find and photo by John B.

Here is what John said.  There was a pretty good cut along the beach just south of Jupiter inlet but it was all renourishment sand.  Lots of small iron junk targets, shells and shark teeth.    

That is a nice tooth.  Notice the serrations.

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Yesterday I posted some items from the beach at Corrigan's.  That prompted Paul B. to send me the following email.

Hello, found this ring on one of the Ft. pierce beaches several years ago. I thought it was a more modern piece, but after looking at the pictures you posted today of the gold rings, now I'm not sure. It's silver with no markings and the stone looks as if it could be jade. What do you think? I'm attaching pictures.
Thanks,
Paul B.

Find and photo by Paul B.

What do you all think?  I have a hard time telling from photos.  Most modern rings would have a marking, especially if it is gold or silver.   

Paul provided a number of excellent photos.  Still there are some things I can't tell without actually handling.  It can be difficult enough even when having the item in your hand.

I'd appreciate any comments though.

---

The crew of the Dare is using Dolores (HAUV) to explore the deep mud at the south of the Atocha trail.

---

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/3/2015 Report - One Reason I Dig So Much Junk. CSS Pee Dee. Dare Back South. Remembering Dave. Better Beach Conditions Possible Next Week.

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

Here is one reason I dig junk.  This morning I was digging a big signal. The first thing that came up was a rusty big bolt or something.  It was nearly a foot long and completely covered by rust.  That object had a fishing line tangled around it, which was tied to a one ounce sinker. There was still a signal.  The next thing that came up was an encrusted nail.  There was still a signal.  It wasn't easy digging at this point.   I was trying to dig into shells and rock.  Finally out came this .75 troy oz. 14K ring.

The spot where I was working had a dip and some rocks.  As I said yesterday, it is one of the very few spots that I've been able to find lately where the sand has washed down to some older sand.

The eroded area moved farther south since yesterday.  I could tell that from the rocks and a couple of partly uncovered limbs or stumps.  Those things provide important markers.

While the north end of the dip that was there yesterday filled again, the south end extended farther to the south today.

Coins were found higher up on the beach near the foot of the cut.  Lower on the beach and down around the exposed rocks were a lot of corroded iron and junk.  I thought I might find a shipwreck spike, but failed at that.  A broken bronze spike was found right around there a year or two ago.

There was a lot of junk, it would have been an OK strategy to use discrimination if you just wanted to dig coins.  You would have got some coins and missed a lot of junk, but you probably would have missed the ring.

Strategic decisions always involve an associated risk.  If you want to discriminate, that can be a good strategy, but there is a definite risk.  You should be aware of the risks as well as the benefits when you make those kinds of decisions.

You never know what you missed unless you go back and check, but one thing you can do is keep good records and see if there is something missing.

My best example, and one that I've mentioned before, is from my early days of detecting, I was finding a lot of big men's rings but few small women's rings.  At first I thought women didn't lose as many rings as men.  Later, after I turned my discrimination down, I learned that there were a lot of small rings to be found, and I was missing them before.   Your records can give some indication about what you might be missing.

I have found lots and lots of watches.  I tend to think that a lot of people are discriminating them out.

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Before the weather turned bad the Dare surveyed an area 27 nautical miles along the coast and 6.5 miles wide with side scan sonar and magnetometer.  Although a couple of areas were found for further inspection the site of Lost Merchant was not positively identified.  With the weather turning bad the Dare returned to work the Atocha and Margarita sites.

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A team of underwater archaeologists from the University of South Carolina raised three Civil War cannons – each weighing upwards of 15,000 pounds – from the silty sediment of South Carolina’s Great Pee Dee River near Florence, S.C., on Tuesday (Sept. 29).

The two Confederate Brooke rifle cannons (11.8 and 12.25 feet each) and one captured Union Dahlgren cannon (8.9 feet) were artillery of the CSS Pee Dee, a 150-foot Confederate gunboat, a Macon-class gunboat built to patrol waterways and protect the coast...

To read more of that story here is the link.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/uofsc-archaeologists-raise-trio-of-civil-war-cannons-from-scuttled-css-pee-dee

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Concerning the memorial brick that I posted yesterday, Al C. sent me this email.

It jumped right out to me but I could be wrong. Dave Rust passed away from cancer several years ago. He was a long time treasure diver spending most of his time in that area. He had a few partners and worked with many of the old timers including Harold Holden. He and Chris Tisak, who is currently diving that area I think, were good friends and worked together for at least a few seasons. They were both good, generous guys and let me work with them when my schedule allowed.

Anyway, that came to my mind immediately.

Thanks for the blog and info and all of your effort. I read most everyday.

Al Coffey

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The waves are still hitting the beach straight on.  We have something close to a four or five foot surf.

The surf will be increasing, reaching up to possibly eight feet by Tuesday.  Now that is getting up there where you might expect some improvement in beach conditions.  The wind is also supposed to switch so that it is coming from the North beginning later Tuesday.  If we actually get the higher surf coupled with North winds, there is a very good chance that we'll finally get improved beach conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/18/15 Report - 18K Dug Gold Ring. The Dare and Magruder. Newly Discovered Shipwreck.

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

Two Treasure Coast Beach Pictures From Friday Morning.

As you can see, only the smallest surf.  Beach detecting conditions remain very poor.  Nothing much except for modern recent drops.

18K White Band.

There are few targets.  This band was the first target I dug yesterday.  After walking about fifty yards using no discrimination, it was the first signal I got and the first target I dug.  Very often I would have moved on shortly after finding that and doing a little more checking around unless something promising popped up.  There are times to move on.  I only detected a very short time that day anyhow.

I could tell that other water hunters had worked the area not too long ago, and as I was on my way to the car another water hunters arrived and started working the same area.

Sometimes there isn't anything to discriminate.  I want to know when that is the case.  Not only does that mean that there is no need for discrimination, but it tells me something important when there is no junk in the area.  It can tell you something about detecting conditions and it might tell you if there have been other detectorists in the area and what they were doing.

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The Dare has begun to search the Lost Merchant area, and the Marguder finished up with Emerald City and will be working the Quicksands.

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Newly Disovered Wreck Off North Carolina.
Source of photo: link below.

Yesterday I posted a photo of an piece of an olive jar with handle that was found by Au Dreamers on the Cabin Wreck site.

Notice the jar with handle at the top right of this photo

Marine scientists from Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of Oregon discovered the wreck on July 12 during a research expedition aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) research ship Atlantis...

Among the artifacts discovered amid the shipwreck’s broken remains are an iron chain, a pile of wooden ship timbers, red bricks (possibly from the ship cook’s hearth), glass bottles, an unglazed pottery jug, a metal compass, and another navigational instrument that might be an octant or sextant.

The wreck appears to date back to the late 18^th or early 19^th century, a time when a young United States was expanding its trade with the rest of the world by sea...

Here is the link for more of that story.

http://today.duke.edu/2015/07/shipwreck

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A couple days ago I posted some water hunting tips and tricks along with an illustration.  I wanted to follow up on that, but haven't done it yet.  When I get started on that, it might be pretty long.  Seems there is so much to talk about that I can't get it all in.  I'll pick up with that sometime soon.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/16/15 Report - Royals: Why Were They Made. Gold Figurines Found. Fisher Boats Waiting For Improved Weather.

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

One of a Few Gold Figurines Found In Burial Mound.

See source link below.

Maybe you haven't found one but you know what it is.  I'm talking about Royals - the most exceptionally well made cobs.  They are near perfect in design and manufacture - round, complete detail, and well struck.

But really what are they?  Why were they made?  It seems no one can answer that question in great detail.

You will often read or hear it said that Royals were made as special presentation pieces for the king.  And that could be true, but it seems we don't know that for sure,   Daniel Frank Sedwick says they became known as Royals when one fellow who had one for sale said they were made for kings, not the public.  In other words the origin of the term could have been the result of sales hype (See source link below.).

Sedwick suggests that it is unlikely they were made for royalty because first, there were too many made, and second, and more convincing (too me), most of them never left the New World.  Still the name stuck, and as Sedwick admits, there could be some royal connection.

There are a variety of possibilities.  Perhaps they were made for high ranking or influential individuals.

Maybe they were proofs.

Maybe they were made as examples to instruct apprentices or demonstrate skill or mastery.

A great majority are holed and some have gilded surfaces.  Were they a type of jewelry?

Maybe there was some type of church connection, such as was the case with the "Heart" cobs.

When wealthy individuals were required to convert ingots to coins, did those wealthy individuals want something finer than the average cob for their commission/

One thing we know is that Royals are beautiful examples and still highly desired.  And there might be one out there waiting for you.

Here is the link to Daniel Frank Sedwick's more complete discussion of the subject of Royals.

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/articles/royals.pdf

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 Here is the link to the article about the gold figurines, including the one shown above.

http://en.tengrinews.kz/science/Ancient-golden-artefacts-found-in-Almaty-258428/


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The Fisher organization didn't get the weather they were expecting and the boats are in port watching for the weather to improve.

As soon as they get a chance, one salvage vessel will be working on the Margarita "Main Pile."  The Main Pile hasn't been thoroughly detected.

The Dare, on the other hand, will be checking a few large magnetometer hits.

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On the Treasure Coast we have only about a three foot surf.    The wind is from he North.  Tomorrow the surf will be a touch higher.

There is at least one Treasure Coast beach that has a lot of shells now.

I'm confident we'll get improved beach detecting conditions sometime before long.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net