5/26/20 Report - Encrusted Objects and Mystery Item. Beach Dynamics Resources.

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

Three Small Encrusted Objects.

I decided to investigate a few small encrusted objects this weekend.  The item on the left is a broken or repurposed spike that is partially encrusted.  The item on the right is still totally encrusted.  When I shook the totally encrusted object, it rattled.  It sounded something like a small lead ball within a cavity.

I soaked the broken spike head in acid for about a day and little progress was made.  I should have removed some of the crust mechanically before using the acid.  That is my normal procedure, but I neglected to do that this time.

I decided to just break open the totally encrusted object.  Here is a closer look at it.

Small Encrusted Rattling Object.

Below is what I found when I broke it open.

Copper Casing Within EO and Shell Removed From Casing.

Maybe someone can help me with this, but it looks like what I would call a double-cased shell.  Is that right?  Below you can see the lead core at the tip and butt of the bullet.

Lead Bullet Core At Point (left) and Butt (right).

And below is the outer casing for both sides of the bullet.  The two halves of the outer casing are still stuck in the encrustation.

Two Ends of Casing With Bullet Removed 
(Butt end left and point right.).

 I wouldn't think there would be that much room between the outer casing and the bullet so that it would rattle like that.  Maybe that was caused by corrosion, and maybe someone that knows more about bullets and casings can tell me about that.

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Yesterday I posted the mystery object shown below, which was found by Bill M.  It gave a detector reading.  I thought it looked like it could be an EO.  SuperRick, who hunts meteors and nuggets, gave the following informative response.

Mystery Object

Find and photo by Bill M.

The photo is just a river rock better known as an igneous rock! A lot of rocks will have iron in them to prove me wrong take a file to a high point on the rock and file it. If you see shiny metal then take it to your bathroom toilet and lift the cover and rub your rock on the inside part of the [tank] cover.

If your rock leaves a streak you have what I said it was just a rock. You can also use a rare earth magnet to see if the rock will jump to it! 

If your rock doesn't streak and the magnet makes the rock jump to it you might have found a meteorite but all kinds of rocks are what we call hot rock when we are hunting for meteorites! Those rocks will hit on a metal detector and you have to know what you are looking for! ...

Thanks Rick.

It is always good to hear the knowledge of the various experts that read this blog.  He suggested some good tests too.

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If you are interested in learning more about beach dynamics, here are a variety of excerpts and abstracts from a number of studies.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/beach-profile

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Looks like some more small surf for this week.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/25/20 Report - Coastal Range Monuments and Changing Treasure Coast Beach Profiles. Mystery Find. Snoop Drone.

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

Turtle Trail Coast Line With Survey Monument Markers Identified.

There are range monuments all along our coast.  Maybe you've seen some of them.  They have brass caps with location information on them.  The one at John Brooks beach is just to the right of the walkway near where the walkway opens to the beach.  I think you might be able to see it now.  It has been uncovered for a while but could have been covered again.

The above map shows the location of the range markers along the Turtle Trail area.  The Turtle Trail parking lot is between markers R-51 and R-52.  R-52 is south of the parking lot.

The following shows the beach profile at R-52 on Nov. 1972 (blue) and Sept. 2007 (green).

The waterline in 2007 at the mean high water was about fifteen feet farther out than in 1972, but at mean low water, due to the more gradual slope, the water line was thirty feet or more farther out than the 1972 water line.

Here is a closer view so maybe you can see it a bit better.

Of course the slope of the beach is not as steep as it appears in the illustration.  Each square represents fifty feet.

Notice how the 1972 profile has a steep front slope and drops off quickly in the water.  The 2007 profile, on the other hand has a lot more sand in the shallow water.  Because items in shallow water were covered by less sand in 1972, the likelihood of items being washed up onto the beach would be greater at that time, although they could also get pulled back into the water more quickly due to the steeper slope.

Here is what the beach in front of the R-52 monument looked like last Thursday - gradual slope with only some of the renourishment sand remaining at the dunes.

Just South of Turtle Trail Thursday Near Low Tide.

You can see the face of the dunes and the white renourishment sand from the last renourishment project at the back of the beach.

Here is an illustration showing various beach profiles at R-13 for seven different times between 1999 to 2008.  R-13 is a little less than about halfway between the Ambersands beach access and the McLarty Museum.

Frances and Jeanne hit us in September of 2004.  You'll notice a profile taken in August of 2004 (before those storms) and in October of 2004 (after Frances and Jeanne).

On the beach front it looks like the beach was cut back around ten feet after the storms.  But remember by that time some refilling had already happened.  The biggest difference between the August and October profiles is closer to the dunes.

You will see a bump in the October profile about 40 feet back from the waterline, that would probably where a lot of the sand that washed back in piled up forming a new berm.

In the five to ten foot elevation range, the June 2003 profile shows the beach being higher than it was during both before and after 2004 storm profiles.

The July 1999 profile shows the beach front at that location eroded farther back than at any other time.  I would expect the best metal detecting around July 1999 and January 2003.  The front beaches were eroded back and the shallow water had less sand close in.

There is a lot you can learn from these beach profiles, but it helps to know when the beaches were renourished and when major storms occurred.

I could go on for a long time about this type of data, but I'll leave that to you if you are interested.

You can use this link, which was sent to me by DJ.

https://www.ircgov.com/Departments/Public_Works/Coastal_Engineering_Section/Documents/Sector_3_Environmental_Assessment.pdf

Besides the beach profiles you'll find a lot of other information about the beaches and the renourishment projects.

Thanks DJ.
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Bill M. sent me the following.

On Friday I spent most of the day detecting Amber Sands beach.  Going north about a mile, I got into the area where there are lots of iron flakes.  Going further north, I found the item below.   

Mystery Object

Find and photo by Bill M.

It rang up as metal, is only slightly magnetic, is heavy at 9.3 grams, and has what looks like flakes of metal in it.   I've been detecting for years and never found anything quite like it.

As I was working my way back to the stairs, I noticed a large shadow in front of me.  I thought it was a bird, but it seemed to be following me.  I looked up and there was a large drone hovering about twenty-five feet above my head.  It was much larger than a DJI Phantom and had a glass dome over the camera.

I couldn't see anyone nearby operating it but did notice a salvage boat offshore.  I wonder if they were the ones who launched it.

Two mysteries in one day!

What do you think of Bill's mystery find?   An EO perhaps?

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A person wearing a facemask on a wide open beach might at least be reducing the risk of skin cancer.


If you believe Governor Cuomo, the exaggerated and  inaccurate predictions of the IMHE model and agencies were responsible for a good number of the coronavirus deaths in New York.  He said it was because of the dire predictions of an over-whelmed health care system that he demanded the nursing homes accept infected seniors, and that is precisely where a big percent of the deaths occurred.


Expect a two to four foot surf along the Treasure Coast for the next week or so.



TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/18/20 Report - Higher Surf Recutting One Beach. EO and UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). Random Thoughts

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

Large (Approx. 7 ft. long) Fender(?) On Beach.

I saw this item rolling in the surf Friday.   The size, I would guess, is about 3 - 4 feet high (as it lies) and about seven feet from end to end.  From how it moved I would guess it is empty.  It does have metal eyes on each end.  I didn't get real close to it, but it looked like it might be made of a thick, but hollow, flexible rubber like material, and the ends had a yellowish color, looking like brass or bronze.  I'm guessing it is a large boat fender or air bag.  It looks more heavy-duty than anything I've found online so far.  What do you think?

John Brooks Friday Afternoon.

As of late Friday afternoon, from the few beaches that I saw, it looked like the wind and surf had not yet improved beach conditions significantly.

The cut at John Brooks looked like it was being recut, but the cut was not nearly as big as it was when I increased my beach conditions rating to a two.

The beach in front of the cut was soft and mushy.

John Brooks Friday Afternoon.

Frederick Douglass Beach Friday Afternoon.

The front beach at Frederick Douglass appeared to be building.

Frederick Douglass Beach Friday Afternoon.

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A couple days ago GC was working the shell line at Fort Pierce South Jetty and picked up the usual light stuff along with an interesting EO, which is circled in the photo of finds in the photo below.

Wednesday Objects From the Shell Line

Photo by GC.

Here is how he described it.

Went to FP South Jetty Park on Wed. I see that the dune is cut back further than I have ever seen, but not as tall and vertical. So I guess any goodies are still buried under the renourishment. Lots of shells, and that shell line is where I dug up a curious object 2-3 inches in deep in sand.

     It gave off a very loud signal on my highly technical BH Time Ranger. All I did at the time was check it with my magnet because it was quite heavy. Not at all magnetic. Checked again at home with stronger magnet. Nope. When I tried, perhaps too vigorously, to chip off some of the encrusted material it broke, pretty much in half. The inside material appeared to be carbon, maybe charcoal like substance, in all appearances. and properties. I certainly have no level of expertise in identifying artifacts, but it occurs to me that it is a container or flask of some kind, possibly made of lead. In cross section an outer layer of some metallic substance, and what could possibly be a neck. That is my best guess to explain the heaviness and that layer. There are 2 areas, marked A and B, located within the outer layer, that appear to be shiny and metallic. They could be the inside surface of the container. But A has a very definite circular edge that seems quite different from B. I'm guessing that it was either round, and flattened somehow, or was a very thin, maybe pocket sized thing. The round thought is based on seeing what appears to be a crack at the outside edge in vertical photos.

      Any thoughts, ideas, guesses, would be greatly appreciated...

Two Views of EO

Find and photo by GC.

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You know you are getting old when -


you can't even remember the last time anyone asked about your schooling or occupation, which seemed so important at one time.

you are the only one who remembers the times, places and events of your childhood days.

the only people your age, or near it, that still look half way good are unrecognizable because of an extremely talented plastic surgeon.

you know more dead people than living.

you remember a day when the people you knew seemed to be united by a common view of things.

you realize that you were once just as stupid as you were young.

you realize that you didn't understand what your elders were going through and perhaps weren't as kind and considerate as you should have been.


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The wind was still blowing early Saturday morning but shifted.  It now is coming more from the south.  That means a change in how the beach was forming.

 The surf will peak about 9 AM, just after low tide.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Like I said, I'm not increasing my beach conditions rating, but I haven't seen the Vero/Sebastian beaches, so could be missing something.  As of yesterday afternoon, the South Hutchinson Island beaches that I saw weren't encouraging.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/4/20 Report - Outlaw Remains Identified. Messages From Ancestors. Ephemera. Hand and Ink. Bigger Surf.

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

Source: See CNN link below.

(CNN)Bones discovered in an Idaho cave in 1979 and 1991 have been identified as the remains of Joseph Henry Loveless, a man who escaped from prison more than a century ago after being arrested for killing his wife. 

The identification, confirmed by the Clark County Sheriff's Office Tuesday, was initially made by non-profit volunteer organization DNA Doe Project, which said in a Facebook post that the "remains were preserved in the Buffalo Cave for as long as 63 years."...

Here is the link for more of the story.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/01/us/man-identified-100-years-later-trnd/index.html

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I mentioned how I am going to send a selection of old foreign coins to a child that seemed to be fascinated with a foreign coin that he found.  Susan B. commented on that and how she was affected by a gift of stamps that she received as a child.

Here is what she said.


When I was young, my father introduced us to stamp collecting. In my stamp book were black and white pages of pictures of stamps for all the countries in the world, and I remember the thrill when I placed my live stamp over the print one. There was a song I’d heard whose first verse said, “Far away places with strange sounding names...are calling, calling me.”

I’ve never lost that interest in what’s out there. That’s the gift you can give by sharing your collections.

Susan B.

Thanks Susan.

When I was once in the hospital as a child, I received a bag of unsorted stamps and a album to put them in.  I still have that stamp album as well as a few more.

Stamp collecting is very much like coin collecting.  Many of the same things apply, such as the importance or rarity and condition.  I found a couple inexpensive and partly filled stamp albums in thrift stores over the years.  I like old postcards too.

I guess I was a collector or treasure hunter long before I became a detectorist.  I liked looking through barns, sheds and attics and basements to find forgotten or lost treasures, and I found a lot of things that I treasure today, including a good selection of post cards, most of which document ancestors and family members that I never knew or only knew as a very young child.

Here is a small selection of New Year postcards that I picked up many years ago.  All were sent to one of my ancestors over one hundred years ago from his relatives.

New Year Post Cards Posted 1910 - 1913.

Today many of us can easily document our family tree by doing a little internet research.  We can get our DNA interpreted, but old post cards, letters and photographs give a more personal touch and add something you can't get any other way.  Like the coins we dig up, they allow us to touch a piece of the past.

Postcard Postmarked Dec. 29, 1912.

It appears somebody removed the stamp from this one.  I wonder if I did that.  Could be.

There is a movement in education to stop teaching cursive handwriting.  I know people will be using electronic signatures and typing on electronic devices rather than writing, but there are benefits to learning cursive.  Among those benefits are the aesthetic element, personal expression, developing eye/hand coordination, and being able to read old documents written in cursive.

Ink well to fountain pen and then to paper, you see the flow of hand and ink, then delivered from one rural home to another for one cent.

I feel fortunate that things like this postcard were saved rather than discarded.  I rescued some of them myself many years ago.  It provides detail to the family tree that DNA can not.

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John M. found this clump a couple days ago on a shipwreck beach and wondered what it might be.

Encrusted Clump Found by John M.

I told John I think it is probably an EO, encrusted iron object, and the iron might be pretty much dissolved.

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Sourcea: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Looks like we might be getting some higher surf before long.  The tides are flat today.

I'm still hoping someone will be able to learn something about the symbols on Steve's ring.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/25/19 Report - Musket Gun Barrel Mold. Cleaning Coins. Benefit of Metal Detecting. Gold Prices. Way to Remove Rust.

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

Encrusted Musket Barrel as Found.

Find and photo by Will R.

If you saw yesterday's post early, maybe you didn't see the link I added later in the day.  That link was to a old post in which Will R. talked about some nice finds and how he made a mold of the gun barrel shown above.  Here is what Will said.

I love your last post. I ran into a similar situation last year. I was detecting a private site on the intercoastal when I found a brass butt plate, then the side plate and one of the ramrod tubes. Then it hit me... where's the barrel? Soon I found the barrel because it had one of the ramrod tubes stuck in the EO chunk. I took it home and did as I do with most EO's and put it in a tub of fresh H2O. The next day I noticed the end of the EO was oozing sludge. I figured this was the end of the barrel. I gently flushed the end of the EO with water and then I knew I had rare opportunity. This was a perfect mold of the metal barrel that once was there. I carefuly flushed the rest of the mud and sludge out and made sure it was clear of all metal. Now here's where the fun began. I used fiberglass resin and made a perfect mold of the barrel. Here are some pics of it. You're welcome to use them if you like.

Finished Copy Made From Mold.

By Will R.

If you used the link yesterday, you might have already seen this, but I thought it was worth posting again for those who might have missed it.

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Surfaces on Recently Dug Dime and Quarter That I'll Be Cleaning.

I'm going to use diluted Muriatic acid.  I'm doing four dimes and three quarters, all having a black patina very much like the dime and quarter shown in the photos above.  Some are a little worse than others, but all are similar.

You hear that you should never clean coins.  There is no danger with these coins since they have no collector value other than the melt value.  They are already damaged beyond what any body would pay a premium for.  Therefore there is no danger of actually hurting the value.

Make sure you know that is the case before you clean any coin.  In the case of possibly valuable coins, definitely don't clean them until you know for sure.

I hope to have some photos for you as things progress.

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I heard another way to remove heavy rust from iron objects.  On the Antiques Roadshow it was said that a fellow found a clump of rust and buried it in his barn in horse manure.  It looked like it did a good job of removing the rust from what turned out to be a medieval key.

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The price of gold has been really flying for the past week or two.  It went up another $28 per ounce in the past couple of days.  That puts it close to $1430 and moving.

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I've commented about some of the fake elements of some of the "reality" treasure shows.  I realized the other day that I actually hope that some of the other so-called reality shows are fake.  It would be sad to think that people are actually like that.  I could list a number of shows that I've seen enough of to actually hope that they are really fake.

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It's been established that people who spend more time in parks and other natural settings tend to report higher levels of health and happiness, but new research shows there's actually a magic number for it.

According to a study published this week in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, spending 120 minutes a week strolling a tree-lined street or sitting by a lake can greatly enhance a person's overall sense of well-being. Less time didn't yield any significant benefit, the research showed...

Here's the link.

https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/People-who-spend-more-time-outdoors-lead-more-14025910.php

As always you can quibble with the conclusions and details of the article, as I'm so prone to do, but isn't that one thing we all like about metal detecting or treasure hunting.  You have to be out there.

There is something about feeling the sun, wind and rain.  I like being barefoot.  I like feeling the grass or sand beneath my feet, and will accept the risk of fire ants or other dangers.  I like when it is stormy and nature is getting a little frisky.  You feel nature even more.

On the other hand, there is the garbage and pollution littering the out doors.

Millions of tons of plastic enter the oceans every year, polluting our seas, littering our beaches and endangering wildlife.

Plastic can take centuries to break down, and instead of quietly disappearing beneath the waves, it has a way of coming back to haunt us.

Almost 1 million shoes and over 370,000 toothbrushes were among more than 400 million pieces of plastic recently found washed up on a remote group of islands in the Indian Ocean.

Great chunks of plastic have been found inside the stomachs of everything from seabirds to whales, while tiny microplastics are eaten by fish and other sea creatures, ending up as part of the food chain...
See https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/24/health/plastic-pollution-rivers-oceans-scn-intl/index.html

The litter makes me a little sad.  It intrudes on nature, and makes it a little less "natural."  Litter seems to intrude upon nature and removes some of the healthy-giving and aesthetic benefits.

One of the side benefits of the dig-everything and take-everything philosophy that I encourage, is that it leaves the environment a little better than you found it.

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The price of gold continues to rise, going up another $28 per ounce in the past couple of days.  That puts it close to $1430.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/24/19 Report - Encrusted Objects (EOs), Clumps and Conglomerates and Their Contents.

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

Photo of Terry holding the EO before cracking and what was in it. The canvas and hemp rope was still in intact.

Find by John C.  Photo submitted by Jerry P.

I received the following email with photos from Jerry P.

“IF YOU DON’T KNOW DON’T THROW” This is a lesson I learned from John C. One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started hunting the Treasure Coast was throwing unidentified objects away. One day Terry Shannon and I were hunting the Vero Beach area and I heard a good target sound off on my GT. I pulled up an encrusted object aka an EO. I walked over to have Terry swing his coil over it and he agreed it sounded like a good target. At the end of the day I decided to crack it open in the parking lot and inside was a copper/brass grummet from a tarp, or at least that’s what I assumed it was. I gathered up the pieces and threw it in the trash can. When I got home I called John C. to give him the beach report and told him about the grummet EO. He congratulated me on the find and I thought he was joking and I told him that I threw it away. I will never forget what he said. “Excuse me Jerry, did you say you threw it away?” He texted me a photo from his private collection and it was the exact some copper/brass grummet partly encased in coral. He explained that it was in fact a brass grummet from a canvas sail probably 1800’s and don’t you know the rule, if you don’t know you don’t throw? Sick to my stomach as I came from a long line of sailers and that piece would look great in my collection. I asked John if he could do me a favor and trash dive first thing in the morning to retrieve the EO. He was there as the gates opened but after going through multiple cans he couldn’t locate it. Since Terry was going there a bit later that morning, and he seen me throw it in the can, I ask him if he could retrieve it. Both Terry and John scuba dive but a true measure of friendship is dumpster diving first thing in the morning, thank you both! Besides meeting new people and making new friends a large portion of the fun is the research and learning the story behind each object. If you don’t know don’t throw.

I would love to see some good EO’s, please share.

Jerry P.

Photos submitted by Jerry P.

Thanks for the email and photos Jerry. That is a good lesson that bears repeating.  I couldn't agree more.  Very good topic suggestion too.

I looked back through the blog and found quite a variety of encrusted objects, including such diverse items as coins, a gun barrel, cannon ball, sword hilt, and gold ring.

Here is one good photo showing and EO before and after cleaning.

I used electrolysis to clean this spike after removing some of the crust mechanically.

In order to keep the broken iron spike from rusting again, you could add a protective coating.

Coins can be totally encrusted too.  I had some that looked like nothing other than a ball of sand and shell bits.  I can't find of photo of that right now, but here is a cob that was partially encrusted before being cleaned.

Same Half-Reale After Some Cleaning.

Here are a couple encrusted objects that I've posted before and I still don't know what they are.  Here are a couple more EOs that I haven't opened or cleaned yet and do not know what they are.  I can tell they are partially hollow.

The biggest hollow one is about seven inches across.

Here is another than seems to contain a blade-like object.  It is about seven inches long and one inch wide.

Seven by One Inch Encrusted Object.

Here is a flat one, that has an intriguing coin-size bump on it.  The surface coins are for size only.

Thin EO With Bump.

You can see the bump near the upper right of the object.  Here it is from the side.

Bump on Flat EO.

I curious about the bump.  It could be a bolt or something like that, but that one will not be easy.

Some EOs contain a void where the object used to be.  A cast can be made the shape of the void.  I had a post showing a cast of a gun barrel made from such a void but can't find that post right now.

Two EOs.  
Top One Showing Square Void From Spile or Something Similar.

I had another post on using X-Ray to determine the contents of an EO.

The next clump is composed mainly of melted lead that stuck to sand and shells.

Melted Lead in Conglomerate.

Some clumps contain interesting things besides metal.  Here is a photo of a nice calcite fossil shell sticking out of a clump.

Clump With Nice Calcite Shell Showing.

And here is a clump containing a fossil tooth.  It is the brown nearly rectangular object near the center bottom.

Fossil Tooth in Conglomerate.

Here are links to some previous posts on EOs.  The first one is about an X-Rayed EO.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2018/08/82918-report-another-conglomerate-x-ray.html

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2017/12/121217-report-clumps-conglomerates-and.html

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2016/12/121516-report-key-find-appreciating.html

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2015/07/7815-report-more-treasure-finds-from.html

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/101014-report-subtropical-storm-fay-and.html

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2012/12/12812-report-wreck-of-la-belle-and.html

Here is a good one I was looking for a just found.

Will R. found gun parts and was able to make a mold of the barrel.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2012/12/12912-report-encrusted-objects-again.html

Send me your photos of EOs and the objects found inside.

A lot of mine haven't been opened yet.

Sometimes I think it is better to leave some of the matrix intact.  Makes a nice display.

I have a lot of heavy-duty coin cleaning to do.  Maybe I'll get some good examples from that.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net