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

9/27/15 Report - History of "Money Digging." Tropics More Active. Rare Coins On Auction.

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

A Couple Fine Coins From An Upcomng Sothebys Auction
Source: See Sothebys link below. 

Have you ever heard of money diggers?  That is how they described treasure hunters in the early days of our country.

Treasure hunting was much practiced in the U. S. long before there was a United States.  Religious and other leaders of the day participated, as well as the common folk. Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, was a money digger.

I found an article about the Joseph Smith's treasure hunting activities.  The article talked about Joseph Smith, but it also tells a lot about the history and superstitions associated with money digging.

Thetitle of the article is The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting.  It was written by Ronald W Walker, and was originally published in BYU Studies, back in the 1980s.

Here is one paragraph from that lengthy paper.

From colonial times to at least the age of Jackson, Americans dug for magical treasure.  There were hundreds and probably thousands of these "money diggers," all seeking troves of fabled coins, mines, jewels and other valued prizes. They worked from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi hinterlands, and in a few localities heaped up tailings that rivaled those of the later forty-niners.  Yet for all this prodigious toil their finds were as rare as Merlin's transmuted gold.  What made them persist, relying on an immemorial but now forgotten world view, the money diggers placed faith in conjuring, elemental spirits, thrice spoken dreams, seeric gifts and enchanted treasure that could slip and rumble through the earth as easily as a fish moving through the deep.  The modern age will probably never fully understand the diggers strange compound of treasure seeking, religious feeling and intense psychological devotion to an old but fading way of life.  Theirs was another world which we can speak of but hardly enter.

 Here is the link if you want to read the entire article.

https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/BYUStudies/article/viewFile/5447/5097

Treasure hunting is an activity that inspires superstition.  Treasure hunters seek the unseen.  They depend to some extent upon luck, no matter how scientific and thorough they are.  Intuition can be a  big part of it,  Guesswork is also a part of it.  Despite all of the hard work and diligent effort, the outcome is uncertain, and success and failure begs for explanation other than pure chance.

Few of us share the superstitions common among the money diggers of the 18th century.  There are some that still use dowsing and other methods that do not have the support of science.  For the most part metal detectors have replaced dowsing rods, but many treasure hunters still experience the hunt as being somehow mystical, if not religious.

As Ronald Walker's paper details, treasure hunting has a long and deep history in America.  No wonder!  It is as instinctual as curiosity.  It is as natural as work and progress.

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If you watched TV the last few days it would have been difficult to miss the throngs of people that gathered excitedly to see the Pope.  It just goes to show how much of a hunger there is for the virtues characterized by the Pope and the Faith.

People of all faiths, as well as those of no religious faith at all, had good things to say about the Pope.  Many were moved to tears.  Congress, where leaders often rail for separation of church and state, seemed to have forgotten about their common cry for that separation.  Politicians of all stripes appeared to be deeply moved by the Pope's character and presence.  None had anything bad to say about him. News anchors, who usually are either hostile or at the very least show no friendship to religion, were also moved.  Nobody that I saw had anything critical to say about the man, including the aetheists, anti-religious, and those that are typically against religion.

It seemed to me that I was seeing a different side to the world.  Not in the Pope, He did not surprise me.  Nor did those of faith.  It was the politicians and media that surprised me.   It was those who make decisions for us and present the world to us.  It was also the unanimous, or what appeared to me to be the unanimous, interest, excitement and over-whelmingly positive reaction to this religious leader.

It appears to me that there is a deep world-wide hunger for authenticity and virtue and leadership. For a few days, on the TV news at least, conflict, hate and evil did not dominate.

Security was evident at every turn.  That shows that there is still evil in the world.  Maybe it was crowded out for a time - at least off of the TV screens that present so much of what we take to be the world.  Maybe what they normally present, with their continual emphasis on conflict and tragedy, gives us a lop-sided view of things.  I'm sure it does.  Maybe the imbalance swung the other way for a few days, and we'll soon be back to normal.  My hope is that it was not an illusion, and that in some small way we and the world were permanently changed for the better.

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I recommend spending some time with the https://www.windyty.com/?swell,30.477,-80.112,6 web site.  Not only will it give you a animated map showing the wind, but also the swell and waves.  Also if you place the cursor on any specific location it will give you detailed information for that location.  Give it a try.  Great  tool!

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Here is a site where you can see some great photos of some great coins.  The two coins shown at the top of this post are from this web site.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/stacks-bowers-rarities-auction-n09385.html?cmp=email_N09385_1015_2_CATexample1_event

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The past couple of days, I did a little detecting on a flat beach and found a good number of coins.  I didn't test any of the steeper beaches.

There are now two tropical disturbances in addition to Ida.  Ida doesn't seem to want to go away and is lingering out in the Atlantic.

There is one disturbance in the Gulf and one East of the Bahamas.  The one in the Gulf has a 10% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours, and the one out East has a 20% chance.  Both are affecting our wind patterns.

For the next few days we'll be having something like a 3 - 5 foot surf.  There is a chance we will eventually get some significant beach improvement.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/5/14 Report - Barber Dime, Small Gold Ring, $40 Million Chicken Cup, Wood Butter Bowl & Multi- Million Dollar Chicken Cup

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

As you know the beaches haven't been great lately, but like I said yesterday, things are still being found. 

William M. has been off-beach and making a lot of very nice finds.  Here is one.

Photos by William M.

1907 O Dime Found by William M.

Good detail.  Nice condition.   Obviously circulated, but while that might reduce the price, the smoothing from handling makes it all the more charming to me.

Here is a good table of Barber dime values.

http://values.hobbizine.com/barber-dimes.html

It isn't nearly as old as some of the shipwreck cobs you might find, but it as valuable as some cobs.

Way to go William!




When the beach conditions are poor I often revert to hunting modern items.   That hasn't been too good on Treasure Coast beaches lately either, but when beach conditions are poor water hunting can be fairly easy even though the spots that aren't buried in sand can be hard to find.

Here is a very small 10K ring that was found yesterday.  It must be a child's ring. 

It is only 1 gram of 10K gold.  Gold rings that small are often missed by many detectorists, especially if they are using too much too discrimination, and it doesn't take much to be too much.

I like the nice delicate design.  As I've said before, I like finding the small items.  If you are finding the smalls, your detector settings and technique is probably pretty good.

The ring has a little sand encrusted in some of the depressions yet.




I ran across a web site the other day that I wish I could find again.  A fellow was showing a collection of old items that had been repaired long ago.  The repairs were old repairs and it was fascinating to see the old techniques of repairing things.   These days most things just get thrown away instead of being repaired.

If anyone knows the web site I'm talking about or a familiar one please let me know.

For example, they had a copper kettle and showed how it was repaired.

Below is an old wood butter dish.  I would say it is 19th century.  I really like it even though it is needs a lot of help.  In the picture it is sitting on an old sewing cabinet.

Old Wood Butter Bowl.

 Notice the cracks.  It has some gunk on it that needs cleaned off.

Below is a close-up of an old repair that was made to the bowl.

They drilled a hole on each side of the crack and threaded a wire through the hole and twisted it tight.  That was evidently done a long time ago.







Close-up View of Wire Repair on Cracked Wood Butter Bowl. 

When I grew up most of the local families out in farm country still had a butter churn even if they didn't use it anymore. 

I don't doubt that this bowl was actually used for making butter.

The fact that it was heavily used and repaired makes it all the more charming to me. 

You can see how it was worn by much handling over the years - more interesting to me than an unused mint item.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is a "chicken cup" being sold by Sothebys that was made in China just before 1500 AD that is expected to sell for tens of  millions of dollars.

The reason I mention the "chicken cup" is that people sometimes find shards on the Treasure Coast, including occasionally some Kang-Xsi porcelain which was carried on the 1715 Fleet.  You therefore might want to know something about how to identify items like that.   It can be difficult to identify shards, but there are some easy-to-identify features of fine Chinese porcelain.

Fine Chinese Porcelain "Chicken Cup"

There are only four authentic "chicken cups" known to exist and that is one reason they are worth millions of dollars.   There are many fakes.

When I saw the picture of this "chicken cup" I could immediately see many of the features that are common to fine antique Chinese porcelain including Kang-Xsi. 

If you study examples like this you will be better able to identify them if you see them on the beach.

Most of the pieces of Kang Xsi you might find will be blue and white.  Pieces with additional colors can be more valuable. 

Notice the shade of blue.  That is typical.  So are the flowing hand-painted lines.  They have a distinctive look.  Also, porcelain like this will be very thin and delicate looking and very white. 

With a little practice you can learn to identify pieces like this pretty well.  

Inexpensive 19th century pottery  is typically much thicker, of courser grain and if broken is yellowish or beige instead of white on the broken edges.

I'm definitely not an expert on this and might not be using the correct terms but from observation have learned how to tell the difference between common colonial ceramics and Chinese porcelain.

I did a few posts on beach dynamics.  I received some correspondence on that, but I don't know how helpful it was to you all.   To me it is very important knowledge and helps me to quickly tune into the hot spots on a beach.  It isn't easy to explain, but it is very important.


I also hope you appreciate the bibliography on Spanish colonial America that I posted.  That to me is very valuable.


On the Treasure Coast the winds will be mixed today.   The surf will be up around three or four feet this weekend, diminishing next week.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net