6/28/18 Report - Context On Treasure Coast Cob Finds. Mexico Minted Half Reale. Arcadia Mills Archaeology Dig.

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

Mexico Minted Half Reale.

Let me put some things in context today.  Recently I've been showing some cob finds.  There were days when several were found.  That doesn't mean that it was typical to walk out on the beach and find that many.  I was living in the Fort Lauderdale area when I started hunting the Treasure Coast.  That means that I had to drive up to hunt without knowing what beach conditions were like on the Treasure Coast.  There was no Treasure Beaches Report.  In fact people didn't have the internet - or cell phones.  There are some advantages you have today with the new technologies, detectors and information sources.

There was no good way to know what beach conditions were like without going to the beach and taking a look.  For me that meant driving a couple of hours.  I would drive two hours often to find nothing but a crummy looking beach.  I made a lot of those trips before I ever found a single cob.  I was getting discouraged and didn't think that I would ever find one.

People tend to think that because there were days when several coins were found that it was always good in those days or that it was much easier.  You often hear people say that it has all been found or there isn't much left and it is much harder today.  I completely disagree with all of that.  It is very much the same now as it was thirty or forty years ago.  It wasn't easy back then, and it isn't easy today.  That is why I have so much to write about.

The one big thing that I think has changed is the frequency of beach renrouishment projects and the amount of sand being dumped on our beaches.  I do believe that has had an effect.  The dunes are protected and don't erode when they otherwise would if it weren't for the renourishment sand.  And the renourishment sand in the water protects the beaches to some extent.

Still, there are good days and bad days.  Some years are better than others.  And some decades are better than others.  Nature has the biggest effect.  There are times when you get a lot of rough weather and erosion.  There are also times when you get a lot of accretion.  Just like the normal winter and summer shifts.

Winter typically makes for better beach hunting than summer - other than tropical storms and hurricanes.  Sand tends to accumulate on the beaches in the summer and the rougher winter weather tends to strip it off.  I've long said that the best treasure beach hunting, with the exception of after good summer storms, is September to April.  And November to February is the peak for treasure beach hunting.  My records of finds confirms that.

There are both long term and short term trends.  There are days, months, and years when things either improve or deteriorate.  If you get a long-term trend of erosion in one area and then get a few good days on top of that long term trend, you have a real good shot.  The same few good days on top of a long-term trend of accretion or towards the end of a summer of southeast winds and accretion, won't likely produce much of anything.  A few additional feet of erosion on a beach that has already been losing sand will produce more finds than the same erosion after a few weeks, months or years of accretion. (For this discussion I'm not taking into account shallow water conditions.)

When you pile sand up in one place on the beach where nature was taking it away, it will erode faster than ever.  It creates a vicious circle.  Not all erosion is the same

I've never detected after the hurricanes that produced some of the best detecting and biggest finds.  I've missed those times when the hunting was at its absolute best.  For example in 2004, I had a lot of other responsibilities that were more important.

In the past few years beach hunting has been slow.  It is a combination of things.  There has been a lot of beach renourishment and the weather hasn't been helping either.  That is one trend, but it won't last forever.  You have to take a long term perspective.  Some times its hot and other times its not.

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Philip Monogram on Same Half Reale Shown Above.

This is the same half reales shown at the top of the post.  It is one of those that was not completely labeled so I don't know when it was found.

This one is on the thin side and has a lot of surface area.  It is pretty much as found and could use a little cleaning.  You can see some shells and crust.

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 ... “And, in excavating it, we found a big iron concretion, about fist size, with turtle shell fragments sitting on top of it,” said Walker, noting that they had the iron X-rayed in the UWF lab. “It looks like it’s a perfectly circular item, about 2 and a quarter inches wide in diameter.”

Walker believes the metal object could be associated with ritual or religious activity by the slaves. They expect to have a better idea in a few weeks, after conservation and cleaning in the electrolysis tank...

Here is the link for the entire article about the dig at the Arcadia Mill site.


http://wuwf.org/post/uwf-researchers-build-story-arcadia-mill-homestead-find-slave-cabin-chimney

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/12/15 Report - Time Saving Metal Detecting Tips. Modern Coins Abound On One Treasure Coast Beach.

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

Beach This Morning Near Low Tide

Same Beach Looking South

People sometimes mention using discrimination as a way to save time.  The obvious theory is that you will save time by not digging junk.  I've shown before that discrimination does not always save time.  I looked at one video and using the video timer actually counted how many seconds it took the person to get a reading before deciding if the item was junk or if he would dig it.  The amount of time spent reading the display and making the decision often took longer than it took him to retrieve the item.  I think he would have been surprised to see that the number of seconds he took reading the display was greater than the number of seconds he took to recover the item.

If you have good retrieval skills and are working where you can do a quick sift, such as in dry sand or in the water, recovering a typical item should not take more than a few seconds.  Of course you still might save frustration and effort by discriminating even if you don't really save much time.

In any case, there are other methods for saving time.   One comes from learning to use your detector well enough that you can get a very good idea of an item's location and depth without switching to a pinpoint mode or reading a display screen.  The better you know your detector, the quicker you will be able to pinpoint the item and get a good idea of the depth of items from the auditory signal alone,  That can save you seconds on typical items.

Accurate pinpointing and depth analysis will save you time by cutting down on scooping or digging too.  Don't dig a deeper hole than necessary.  Very often items will be in the top few inches of sand.  When you can tell that is the case, digging a deeper hole will cost you time.  The more sand you get in your scoop, the more you will have to sift, unless of course, you don't get the item and have to dig again.  There is a skill to it.

Here is another time saver.  When digging on the beach, especially in wet sand, don't move the sand farther than necessary.  Keep it close to the hole.  That makes it easier and quicker to kick the sand back into the hole.

When working on a slope in wet sand, I like to have the sand right next to the hole just to the uphill side.  That makes it very easy to kick the sand back in the hole.

I've noticed that a lot of people don't sift when working in wet sand.  As you know, wet sand doesn't sift quickly.   They just dump the sand on the ground and spread it out so they can see the item.

If the water is moving nearby, let the moving water rush through your scoop.  Be careful to do it so the item is not washed out of the scoop.  That means not over-filling the scoop, and having the scoop oriented so the rushing water goes into the open end of the scoop.  Put the tip up a bit. A little shaking will help the item settle into the scoop.

Small items can wash through the holes of the scoop and into the water.  Again, it helps to be able to read the detector signal so you have a good idea if the item might be small enough to wash through the scoop.

I was reminded of most of those things recently when I was digging a lot of coins in wet sand.

Some Coins Dug In Wet Sand One Morning.

I was actually getting tired of digging coins.  There were a few other items.  All of the coins were recent.  Some were not discolored despite being in the wet salt sand.

Very Small Item Dug Same Morning.

This is the type of item I was talking about.  It appears to me to be a bead.  It would easily slip through most any scoop.  It is small enough to sit on Roosevelt's face on a dime.  I picked it up somewhere between the coins shown above,

Some of the ear rings these days are huge.

Here are a couple of those that were dug along with the coins and bead.

The largest one would fit around a child's neck.

Both of these ear rings are junk.

I need to get some good photos of the better finds.

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Here is a good bargain.  You can get a 24 pack of AA batteries very inexpensively at Harbor Freight, if you have one of those near you.  In fact you can get a 24-pack free with any purchase May 22 to May 55.

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I've been taking my time perfecting use of a detector that I got this year.  I never took that much time and really studied a detector to that extent before.  I'm thinking of when we finally get some good conditions and want to really exactly what it will do.

On the Treasure Coast it looks like the surf tomorrow will be about the same as today's.  By Thursday and Friday it will start to increase a bit.  Nothing exciting though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/8/15 Report - First Named Storm of Season. Jacksonville Beaches Ripped. Making Coin Rings. Dig Site You Can Join.

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


Gold Found by Shannon F.
Photo by Shannon F.

Shannon F. wrote the following.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with my area. My local beaches back in the 70's experienced a full dune replenishing project adding 15+ft of sand to the ENTIRE area. As far as old things go there were none to find. Period. It was all hidden out of range of a detector. This past weeks storm finally changed that by digging a river like cut 10ft below the high sand. After detecting the area for years with no luck for "older" finds this cut made a brief window. I found 3 1940's nickels and out popped some old gold. Moral of the story is that it's all there hiding under the sand. Just out of reach 99% of the time.

While the recent storm didn't do much for our Treasure Coast beaches, it evidently did the beaches up north some good.   That is a great tip.

What Shannon says is true anywhere.  Although we haven't had good beach conditions locally for quite a while, there is still plenty of stuff hiding under the sand just waiting for the right conditions to uncover it all. 

I know some of you will lose patience, but it will pop out again. 

Thanks for sharing Shannon.  Nice find.

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1905 Barber Half For Sale on eBay.

Yesterday I showed an old coin ring that I discovered after cleaning it off.  After looking at it in various lighting, I discovered a date on it.  The ring was made from an 1905 half dollar.  I can barely see the date, but looking at other parts of the design, I can match it up with a Barber half dollar.  Notice the leaves overlapping the word TRUST in the photo.

Russ P. spotted the Barber half quicker than I.  He could see the signs from the photos that I showed yesterday.

Good eye Russ!

Here is a picture of a 1905 Barber half like that used to make the ring.  Not only can I see where the leaves overlap with the word TRUST on the ring but also the stars and other features of the coin.

There are plenty of youtube videos showing how to make rings out of coins.  You might like to give it a try if you have some old silver coins you are willing to sacrifice.

Here is one to get you started.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo_wUYktz-U

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Trying to think up something new for a different and exciting for a summer vacation?  How about digging a Mayan archaeological site?  You can!

Archaeologists of the Maya Research Program (MRP) plan to field a crew beginning in June 1, 2015, to excavate an ancient Maya elite residential complex and other sites in northwestern Belize. Though less than a month away, the team leadership still has some available positions in the opening session to fill with willing students and volunteers to help them investigate large residential structures and a large shrine north of the site core of Xnoaha a medium-sized Maya center in Belize not far from the border with Mexico.

Here is the link if you want to learn more.

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/spring-2015/article/archaeologists-offer-special-deal-to-dig-at-ancient-maya-site

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We now have the first named storm of the season off of South Carolina - Ana.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/ana-tropical-system-atlantic-us-east-coast-north-south-carolina-rough-surf-rain/46764807

On the Treasure Coast we're back down to a two-three foot surf again.  It is going to be down to a one foot surf in a couple of days.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/10/14 Report - Fascinating Newspaper Clipping, Alternative to Metal Detecting, How Objects Sink in Sand & 17th Century Shrine Excavated

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

Super 1918 newspaper article showing a couple of fellows who sifted for treasure on Coney Island, reportedly with enough success to buy cars and houses.

Vintage newspaper clipping submitted by Bill T.
 

I want to blow up a few of these to focus in on them.

First notice how crowded the beach is.  Of course there will be more targets on a more crowded beach.  A lot of targets are required for several things besides simply producing a large number of finds.

If you detect on a beach with a lot of targets you'll learn much faster about target distribution patterns that can be found in the wet sand or water.   On some beaches, like many found on the Treasure Coast, the typical target density is simply too small to be able to easily identify coin lines and holes a lot of the time.  It takes more than one or two targets to make a line or hole apparent.   If, on the other hand, you run into a line with tens or hundreds of targets, the distribution pattern becomes much easier to see.   Not only can you see the where the coins were deposited, but you can also see how the pennies are distributed near the borders and quarters near the middle etc.  If there are not enough targets, that will be impossible to see.  That is just one of the many advantages of learning to detect on busier beaches.

These fellows in the newspaper clipping constructed sifters out of boards and wire.  There are times when you can productively sift without detecting.  Remember, detectors are basically pinpointing devices.  When you have enough target density, it is faster to cut out the detecting.  

Maybe you have heard of the Merkitch sifter.  It is a sifter on wheels with a handle much like that of a lawn mower which you drag through the sand.  You don't dig but sift the sand by pulling or pushing the sifter.  I can tell you it is a lot of work. 

I wonder if these guys were digging for clams or something when they discovered they could find coins?

Remember, there are alternatives to detecting, but it usually takes a special situation and high target density to make all the work worthwhile.

Notice the shells in the sifter with the coins.

Also notice that they are digging right around the post in one picture.

People tend to talk about coins and things sinking, which of course they do, but on a beach that it is not done by gravity alone.

Besides gravity, think about how the sand moves.  I once showed an illustration of an experiment showing how an object steps its way down a sand bank when a current is moving up the slope.  The current removes the sand from the front of the object until enough sand is moved that the object "steps" down the slope.  The object moves in a series of small steps.  When it moves down the slope, it is stopped by sand that has not moved yet.  Then the current rushing around the object moves enough sand that the object takes the next step down the slope.

Water rushes around objects like air around an airplane wing.  That moves the lighter sand away from around the heavier object and the heavier object then descends into the vacancy where the sand was.

Objects sink in sand very much because of the movement of sand, not just the force of gravity on the object.

I showed how that works back in my 3/10/14 post. 

Watch how the currents move the sand when you are on the beach.  Watch how the sand bars move.  It is easy to see that on some of the beaches right now in the shallow water and low tide area.  You can see ripples in the sand and how the sand is flowing.

When the currents are strong enough to move sand but not strong enough to move heavier objects, the objects "sink," if you want to use that word, quickly.

Thanks for sending me the great clipping Bill.


According to the Tampa Bay Times, Rick Scott supports a private funded rail project from Miami to Cocoa that would use existing rails and would later connect to the Orlando Airport.  The paper reports opposition to the project based upon noise and harm to the standard of living on the Treasure Coast.

If you ever traveled by train in Europe you know how convenient that is, and I fail to see how a passenger train would create a mere fraction of the noise of those freight trains filled with gravel.   Personally I'd like to be able to get to the Orlando Airport by rail if it was fast enough.  PBI has few direct flights anywhere anymore.  For me, one draw back of living on the Treasure Coast is the distance to a major airport.

Read it and decide for yourself.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/gov-rick-scott-supports-controversial-rail-project-on-floridas-east-coast/2183293



ST AUGUSTINE — "America's Most Sacred Acre" — the name given to the tranquil, shaded waterfront cemetery and grounds of the Nombre De Dios Mission and Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche — has been the center of activity and attention for six weeks.

...

 

All to uncover the foundation and inner walls of what experts say is the first shrine ever built in the New World to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ.

 

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20140607/ARTICLES/140609779?p=5&tc=pg



On the Treasure Coast we still have a one to two foot surf.  Wind is mostly from the South.  The tides are the slightest bit bigger.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net