7/8/19 Report - Another Old Button for ID. Prisoner of War Camps in Florida During WWII. Megalodon Tooth Find. Viking Boat Burials.

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

Unidentified Button Find.

As you can see, this button has a crown on the front and the back is too corroded to show much of anything.

I haven't done the research on it yet, and would appreciate any help.

I had a cup with old button finds that had accumulated over the years.  Unfortunately I didn't label them, so I don't know when or where they were found.

The button I posted yesterday has the words "EXTRA FEIN" on the back.  In German that means extra fine. I thought it might have been produced in Germany for another country because I didn't think it was very likely that I would have found a German button, but I guess it is possible.  Susan E. thought it might be a WW II German button but hadn't found the exact one yet.

I started wondering where I might have found a German WW II button.  The first thing I thought of was the German spies that came ashore during WW II, but it seems extremely unlikely that would be the source.  It seems more likely to me that someone just lost a souvenir or something.

Then I remembered that I used to do a lot of metal detecting down south in an area where there was a WW II prisoner of war camp.  I found some lists of Florida WW II prisoner of war camps, and there were a few, but they didn't list any in the area that I was thinking of, so I started wondering if I remembered that correctly.  Finally I found that I was right about that.

Since the 1920's, the Detroit-based Miami Beach Heights Corporation (headed by industrialists Robert C. Graham, Walter O. Briggs, and C.T. Fisher) owned 245 acres of undeveloped, partially swampy land that stretched from the bay to the Atlantic. Mr. Graham assumed the duties as the developer for Bal Harbour. In the 1930's, city planners Harland Bartholomew & Associates were called in to design the Village. The company made several plans and they were submitted for review to Miami Beach Heights. In 1940, World War II began and the plans were put on hold. As a goodwill gesture to the government, Robert C. Graham rented the land to the United States Air Corps for $1 per year. The Air Corps used this land to train their soldiers and established a Prisoner of War camp. The ocean front area was used as a rifle range and the barracks were set up on the west side of Collins Avenue. The camp for prisoners was located where the Bal Harbour Shops are presently... 

(Source: https://activerain.com/blogsview/484718/the-history-of-bal-harbour--florida----paradise-found----miami--fl-33154)

I used to spend a lot of time hunting in that area.  If the button I posted yesterday is a German WWII button, there is a very good chance that is where I found it.

While doing the research I learned a lot.  Did you know, there were over 425,000 prisoners of war in the United States during WW II?

I found a few Florida POW camps listed on Wikipedia.  The Bal Harbour camp was not in that list or other lists that I saw.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_prisoner-of-war_camps_in_the_United_States

Once again I'll remind you to keep good records of your finds.

---

A middle school girl stumbled upon a buried treasure while spending her spring break on a beach in North Carolina.

Avery Fauth and her family love to scour the sand for shark teeth whenever they’re on a beach. But Fauth attributes her recent prehistoric find — a megalodon shark tooth — on North Topsail Beach to luck...

Here is the link.

https://nypost.com/2019/04/19/girl-finds-megalodon-shark-tooth-buried-in-sand-at-beach/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_4028701

---

Source: click2houston.com.

See link below.

Two Viking burial boats are being uncovered in Sweden.


In this sort of burial, the person was placed along with his or her riches in a boat that was then put into the ground.

The archaeologists also found a sword, an ornate comb, a spear and part of a shield in the intact boat.

The identity of the man remains unknown.

The other of the two boats did not hold up as well.  It was probably damaged during work on the land in the 16th century....

It's been 50 years since the last burial ship was found in Sweden...


Here is the link.


https://www.click2houston.com/lifestyle/2-rare-viking-burial-boats-uncovered-in-sweden


---

Expect continued small surf on the Treasure Coast for at least another week or so.

Let me know if you find any information on the buttons I posed yesterday and today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/12/14 Report - Jupiter Inlet Dredge, 1875 US Postal Card and Time Flies

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

Looks Like A Dredge Just South of Jupiter Inlet
Photo submitted by Goldnugget or NC

Last night I was looking around at some of those web sites that show where ships and boats are and what they are doing.  Those sites can be pretty interesting.  They are much like the web sites you can use to track airplane traffic.  Anyhow while looking at one of those nautical sites I noticed a dredge just below the Jupiter Inlet.  Then just this morning Goldnugget sends this picture.  There it is.  It looks like there will be more sand dumped somewhere real soon.

Web Site Showing Nautical Activity.

Here is an example of one of those web sites showing nautical traffic.  On the web sites you can generally click on the object and get additional information, such as the name of the vessel, its speed, etc. etc.

I'm not sure  now if the track I'm showing here is the one I found for the dredge, but you get the idea.  It might be the track for the dredge, but I'm not sure.




There was another vessel that was running in and out just below the Jupiter inlet.  That was interesting too.  Could have been someone doing a mag survey or just trolling for fish in a very systematic way.  I wasn't looking for that at the time.


I like ephemera.  You can often finding interesting information in old newspapers, maps, pamphlets, posters, photos, etc.

I found this post card a few years ago.  It was written in 1875 by a theology profession at Bethany College in West Virginia and sent to a fellow in Ohio wanting to know about the classes that were going to be offered.

What I recently discovered is that the first US Postal Cards were made in 1873.  Here is soe of the information I found by using this link.   http://www.metropostcard.com/guidepostals.html

Notice the spatters on the postcard.  Black ink turns brown with age.

You can go to the web site if you want to learn more about those early postcards.  I had no idea that this post card was one of the earliest.

If it was written and postmarked in 1875, it could have been created earlier.  I haven't narrowed that down yet.


Here is the obituary of the fellow that sent the postcard.  He was somewhat notable.


The internet is a great research tool.  Amazing what you can find.

For a while I taught at a West Virginia State College just a few miles from Bethany so the post card and history was a little more interesting for me.



-----------------



If any young people are reading this I wanted to post a warning to them today.  Here it is.  It doesn't take very long to go from being a young pup to an old dog.

I woke up from a dream last night.that made me think.

You know how dreams are - they don't always make much sense.  Well in this dream it seemed I was in the selection process for the US Military with a group of fellas and we were shooting rifles.  In the dream I didn't do very well.  My first shot missed the mark, and my second went through the window of a truck.  By way of excuse, I told the fellows that I had been collecting social security for three years, and the last time I was drafted was fifty years ago.  That was in the dream that I said that.

I woke up, and being that the dream was on my mind, I calculated to see if it had been that long since I was drafted in real life.  It hadn't been that long.  It was back in, mmmmm,  probably 1970 that I actually reported for my physical. 

Being in graduate school in Louisville Kentucky at the time I received my notice, I and a bunch of other young fellas loaded the bus in downtown Louisville and was chauffeured out to Fort Knox.  I remember that well.  The mood was sombre, like we had just won a free trip to Viet Nam.

I remember that I blew the top off the charts on my hearing test.   I had ears like a dog and could hear high pitch frequencies that not many people could hear.  I think listening to a constant threshold tone in my detector ear phones might have done some damage to that, but maybe it is normal aging.

I remember standing in Fort Knox in my underwear and the fellow who was inspecting us stared at my feet and wrote something down.  I thought at the time that he was noting my flat feet.  I'm not so sure that was what he was writing about now. 

I also had a trick knee at the time.  Sometimes it would lock and other times give way without warning.  That was my greatest reward from high school football.  One doctor thought I should have surgery on my knee, but there is no remaining evidence of that problem today.  I flunked my physical for some reason or another and received a 2Y draft status, which was not as bad as a 4F, if I remember those things correctly.

Anyhow, after waking up I calculated that it had only been about 43 years since the time I was drafted and not fifty something.  That isn't that long.  Nonetheless I've definitely changed from a young pup to an old dog.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge even though it doesn't seem like it has been all that long ago.  I've been a lot of places and done a lot of things in those 43 odd years.  In many ways it seems that I'm a totally different person now.

I can only feel blessed to not be much worse off for the wear.  In a lot of ways I'm better off than when I was a young pup even though I might not look like it.  The amazing thing to me is that it all took so little time.

---------------------------

On the Treasure Coast the tides are now pretty flat with less than 2.5 feet of variation.

The surf is running about three feet. 

I'm hoping that by Easter we get another good chance to get some older things.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net