Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
 |
Coin Cache
Source: See SofiaGlobe.com link below.
|
Archaeologists have found a valuable gold treasure in the town of Devnya, about 25km from Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna.
Fifteen gold coins were found on September 29, along with more than 20 bronze coins, and another gold coin, with the image of Emperor Theodosius II and dating from the fifth century, was found on September 30.
This brings to 16 the number of Theodosius II gold coins that have been found. Also found was a gold coin with the image of the emperor’s cousin Valentinian III.
It is though that the hoard was hidden during an attack by the Huns on the ancient city of Marcianopolis in the fifth century, according to Dr Hristo Kuzov of the Regional History Museum in Varna, a statement by the municipality of Devnya said...
Here is the link for more about that.
---
Yesterday I listed the metal detectors that I've owned and used. For me the detectors tell a lot about my metal detecting journey.
The first metal detector I ever used was the Radio Shack detector. It wasn't a very good metal detector and I didn't have much success with it, but that was partly because I knew nothing about metal detecting at the time. I didn't know what was out there to be found, and I didn't know the metal detector's capabilities. I didn't know what I was doing. I hadn't even read about metal detecting. That was several decades ago. It was long before the internet and I knew nothing about the hobby.
Radio Shack was founded in 1921 and published their first catalog in 1939.
My grandmother purchased the detector and we took it out to the remains of the old home site where she grew up. As I recall we found a horse shoe and some door hinges or something like that. Later I discovered that the detector would not detect coins very well, if at all. I didn't know back then what I always preach in this blog - get to know your metal detector. Now I know that I should have tested it out before going out to hunt.
The old Radio Shack detector would and did detect iron, which is an important topic for me today. My most recent metal detector has the capability of giving an audio and visual signal in response to iron, but you can set it to NOT give an audio signal to iron. Obviously metal detectors are more sophisticated today.
The topic of iron is still an important one. Today we often can either detect or discriminate iron, but which you do depends upon a variety of factors.
I always recommend having specific goals. You can be much more effective if you define your goals well. If you don't have well defined goals, it is difficult to measure or evaluate success, and measuring success will definitely help anyone improve. You have to know if you are on target and if not, how far off you are and in what direction. Specific goals will help you develop effective strategies and improve performance.
On my first metal detecting outing, I lacked awareness of the situation. I did not know the detector and had no strategy other than to take it out and wander around and see what I found. It is no wonder that I had little success and my metal detecting was set back ten or twenty years as a result.
I want to address the iron issue today as an important example. Many people hate iron. They do not want to hear it, and they don't want to dig it. But there are many interesting iron objects out there to be found. So you really want to pass up gun parts, swords, knives, cannon balls and iron shipwreck spikes? Maybe you do, but there are still reasons that you might want to know if there are any iron objects in the area.
Iron objects can be interesting artifacts. Iron objects can tell you something about the site, whether it is a beach or inland site. And iron objects can mask other objects - even gold.
I like to know where iron objects are, whether they are bobby pins, nails, or other more interesting things. I might or might not dig them. That depends upon my goals and strategy. But I like to make those decisions intentionally, strategically and with as much information as I can get.
When I got my Garret pulse induction machine, the first thing I did was detect an inland swimming hole. It was one of those places that had a bit of a beach, but also grassy areas. There was little or no water action there so things stayed pretty much where they were dropped. Things weren't sifted and sorted like they would be on an ocean beach. The result was that there were a lot of bobby pins and other small bits of iron and junk laying all over the bottom. At a site like that, the junk doesn't tell you as much as it would at some other kinds of sites.
The Garrett pulse induction detector loved those bobby pins and was not a good choice for that location. One strategy I might use at a place like that would be to remove the junk bit by bit in stages - not all at once. Anyhow, the Garrett was not the best choice for beginning to clean out that swimming hole. I forget now what I used to clean it out, but I think it was either a Steve Noga or Herb MacDonald modified Nautilus. Both of those nulled on iron but were very good on small gold.
I also remember using the same Garrett pulse detector to dig the deepest ring I ever dug. I was in the water at an ocean beach in North Miami and dug a base metal class ring very deep out of a sand bar. I regretted digging so long for a base metal class ring. Had it been gold, it would have been another story.
Iron objects can be interesting and they can tell you a lot, but it is your goals and strategy that will determine how you want to treat them and what kind of detector you want to use. I generally want to know where even if I don't want to dig them.
---
It is one of those days that I call "beachy." The wind is blowing and it is a little cloudy. I didn't expect to see so much wind this morning. I looked at the National Hurricane Center map and saw a yellow X out in the middle of the Atlantic. I suppose it is the remnant of Lorenzo or one of those storms.
It looks like the surf will be building up to Monday. A 4 - 7 foot surf isn't bad, but the tides are near flat. Looks like the wind will be from the south. I haven't checked the beaches or swells yet.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
