10/6/13 Report - Karen To Skirt Florida Panhandle, Shipwreck Spikes & More

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

National Hurricane Center Map 

Here is the projected track for Karen, now a tropical depression not a hurricane.

Her track east along the Gulf Coast might push high water onshore.  If that happens it could make for some good beach hunting at some of the Florida Panhandle locations including the Destin area where Honeymoon State Park is located.  I mentioned not too long ago that that park is one of the most visited state parks in Florida.


Some of the guys up that way write in occasionally.  Let me know what happens.  I'd like to see pictures of erosion and finds.

Some of you from the Treasure Coast of the West Coast of Florida who take day trips might consider checking that out too.  I always liked hunting the Panhandle area beaches when I was up that way.

On the Treasure Coast we still have very little surf and aren't getting any effects from Karen.  The surf will pick up a little, but not much, according to the predictions, around the middle of next week.

Karen probably won't survive, but could possibly cross the state and come out in the Atlantic.  I doubt it though.

Find and Photo
Submitted by William M.

It seems William is on quite a hot streak.

Two lessons are illustrated.  First, even when overall conditions are poor, there can be isolated spots that are producing.

And second, don't give up too quickly on an area that is producing.

I suspect that Karen, will create some good spots along the Gulf Coast, but it depends upon how the waves hit the beach, and it will hit the beach differently at different places.  The beach up there has a lot of curves to it, and one place will get new sand while another loses.

I used to always say, when sand is building one place, it is leaving another.  I usually tried to find the place it was leaving.

One way I put that is, "Follow the sand but don't catch it."  In others words stay behind it.   Trace back to where ever it is coming from.

 Sometimes the place the sand is coming from won't be accessible.  Perhaps from deep water.

Nice looking spike William!  Congrats.


Here is a great photo of a very nice collection of spikes submitted by Ken D. and posted back in my 5/5/13 post.

Photo Submitted by Ken D.

Notice the one towards the top just right of center where my arrow points.  It appears to be similar to the spike found by William M.

That is a really nice collection showing quite a variety of spikes, nails and tacks.  Thanks again Ken!

One thing to remember is that not all shipwrecks are treasure ships and there are wrecks from nearly every age period out there.

One Treasure Coast location where a lot of spikes have been found seems to be from a wreck or wrecks that are considerably later than the 1715 wrecks.

Here is the link to the post originally showing Ken's photo.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XZ56Og9iYQuXD3z-5eDGzwn9Rc7FRLIP2MICzv0rXgYmvEsoXB9OSFUOztvhkIRgybmevnbJkjE4eDGJo61GxMN-uYR6T4SjziZaM1mW2b-lRcxjOA_SMvp762ic2BEqR_hxYRMfGWnc/s1600/KenD.JPG

10K Signet Ring Beach Find.

Bernie C. says the October meeting for the St. Lucie Metal Detecting Club has been canceled.   Let him know if you want to get a hunt together or anything.


Occasionally you'll find a signet ring that doesn't have any initials on it.  Here is one of those.

If you hunt long enough, you'll find a lot of duplicates of more common ring designs.

Two very common ones are the lion head with stones in the openings for the mouth and eyes and the band with what appears to be screw heads spaced along it.  I think the later are probably one of the most common.  Those were so common that some people have found quite a few of those.  And of course, bands are very common, as are class rings.

Of the watches, those Gucci watches with the replaceable color plastic bands that go around the face are very common beach finds.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/8/12 Report - Silver Coins in the Florida State Collection & More

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



Can You Believe This Stuff?



The item shown to the right is from an October 2011 auction by Manor Auctions.  It has nothing to do with the Florida Collection that I'll discuss below.  Other similarly big gaudy items were also in the auction.

Here is the link if you want to see more of this item and other similar items.

http://manorauctions.com/auction-news/news/gold-shipwreck-treasure-coin-collection-heads-to-auction



I’ve seen a lot of misinformation circulating in the treasure community about the treasure coins in the Florida Collection. As you probably know, Florida collects a portion of the finds from the leased shipwrecks salvaged in Florida waters. The collection of silver cobs and treasure coins, as of the first comprehensive inventory in 1997, included over 23,000 silver coins, most coming from the 1715 Fleet.

This information is provided by James Miller, in the foreword to Alan Craig’s book Spanish Colonial Silver Coins in the Florida Collection, 2000. At the time Miller was the Chief of Archaeological Research for the State of Florida,

Earlier, Craig conducted an inventory and wrote a book on the gold coins of the collection.

It doesn’t seem to me that a taxpayer of the State should have to purchase an expensive book to learn about the state collection, but that seems to be the case. I’ve not seen how you can get access to information on the State Collection otherwise. Isn’t the collection gathered and maintained for the people of the State? Has anyone seen it? Maybe I just don’t know how to gain access to the database, and maybe it is possible to simply walk in and look at the collection. I don’t know. I’ve done a few Google searches, but haven’t found out how to access the State‘s database at this point. If you have seen the collection or if you know how to access the database or detailed information on the database, please let me know. The taxpayers pay to maintain the collection and should get some value out of it.

I wanted to give you some information on the silver coins of the Florida Collection today. Remember that this information is over ten years old at this point and presumably more coins have been added to the collection since the book was written.  I understand, though, that coins are not routinely selected in mass for addition to the collection these days unless they are somewhat unique and provide some additional numismatic information Unlike the early days when bags of coins were accepted by the pound, now the State is more particular in their selection of coins and artifacts.

Of the total of the 22,938 silver coins in the collection when Craig's inventory was conducted, by far the greatest number, 13,433, came from the Douglass Beach wreck. The second greatest number, 8637, came from undetermined wrecks. ( It seems to me that can mean a lot of different things. ) The third greatest number came from the Cabin Wreck, 199. And then the Jupiter Wreck, 198.

I am almost certain that the ranking has changed in recent years, and the Jupiter Wreck has been one of the largest contributers in more recent years.

The overly large proportion of coins coming from the Douglass Beach Wreck is surprising to me.

The book states that the easiest finds have already been made and the number of coins found in more recent years had decreased.

So does that mean that the large number of coins already found on the Douglass Wreck indicate that that wreck has been worked out to a greater extent than the other wrecks? That is what the book seems to suggest to me.

The greatest number of coins in the collection is the large denomination cobs. Of the coins in the collection at the time, 11,779 were identified as being 8 Reales, 5,366 4 Reales, 1,099 2 Reales, 2,573 1 Reales, and 1,161 halves. With the exception of 2 Reales, as the denomination decreases, so does the number found, or should I say, the number in the collection decreases.

It makes sense to believe that larger denomination coins were the most convenient for shipping large amounts of silver. Craig suggests that smaller denomination coins were kept for daily use in the New World rather than being shipped back to Spain.

Could it also be that smaller coins are not as easy to detect/find? Certainly that is true, but I don’t know how large that effect would be on the overall number of coins added to the State Collection. Maybe insignificant, maybe not.

I do know that a lot of detectorists were missing the small denomination coins on the beach back in the eighties. I have questioned the relationship of beach found coins of different denominations compared to sea-salvaged coins before.  I have also collected a little data on that in addition to my personal experience, which suggests a higher percentage of small denomination coins found on the beach as opposed to those salvaged from the sea.

I'll talk more about the coins in the Florida Collection again sometime soon.


The waves were higher this morning than predicted and expected.  There were actually a number of surfers out.  Nonetheless, beach detecting conditions remain basically unchanged.  The water was just a little rougher.

In the past, I used to frequently remind that my beach detecting conditions rating  goes from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating poor conditions and 5 excellent detecting conditions and that I start the scale with a 1 rather than a zero because even when conditions are poor there is still some chance of a cob popping up, no matter how slim.  I bring that up because even now there are a few scarce cuts and a few cobs and artifacts being found.
Sometimes you have to check a lot of beaches to find one good spot.  That is the case now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net