7/30/18 Report - One Find. Database of Ancient Finds. How To Identify Valuable Modern Coins.

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

1899 Barber Dime
Found on the Treasure Coast

Silver 19th century coins are often heavily worn like the one shown above.  It seems they were kept in circulation a long time.  As you might guess from its appearance, although it is a Treasure Coast find, it was not found on the beach.  

In this condition it might be worth around four dollars.  If it was in much better condition, it might be worth over a hundred dollars.  That doesn't seem like much when you consider how long it was lost and the difficulty of finding one in the field.  

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Here is an interesting British metal detecting club web site including a database of interesting ancient finds.  There are many individual finds along with some hoards.

http://www.colchestertreasurehunting.co.uk/H/hoardandtreasure.htm

I think someone sent me this link back a while ago.  Sorry I forget who now.

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I found a very good pdf document about how to identify valuable coins.  You can find them in pocket change or in your goodie box.

Here is the introduction just to give you an idea what it is about.

Almost everyone has a box, can, jar, or piggy bank full of spare change. Who knows what treasures might be found in this change? And how do you tell the difference between ordinary change and a collectible coin? Is it possible to find something worth more than face value? Yes, it is! Even better, you might be able to make some money from your pocket change.

Numismatics is the study and collection of various forms of money throughout history. It is an intriguing and rewarding hobby. Numismatists can do well given the opportunity by examining many different coins to notice differences — including comparisons among coins with the same denomination. There are subtle variations — even among coins with the same year and mintmark — and recognizing these distinctions can pay off handsomely.

A numismatist becomes skilled through years of study, but eventually the effort becomes worthwhile and it’s possible to find real treasures in your change. New collectors may become discouraged if they don’t make exciting finds right away, but patience has proven to be a valuable trait toward becoming a successful collector. Many treasure hunters say it’s not about having the treasures, it’s about finding them – the thrill of the hunt.

The guidelines provided here are intended to assist the beginning collector.

Here is the link if you want to read the rest of the 26 page document.
https://www.money.org/uploads/treasures/TreasuresPDF.pdf

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The mind is amazing thing.  There are rare occasions when you can recall the smallest details from the most distant times.  As crazy as they might seem, dreams seem to play an important roll in taking you places in thought and feeling that you don't normally go in normal waking consciousness.  I often awake and see things differently or feel differently about things after reflecting on my dreams.  Sometimes I'm motivated by dreams, like when I wake up from a dream of finding a lot of treasure of one type or another.

Last night I dreamed I was at grandmas house, where I spent my first five years before my dad and mom built their own house.  It has been a long time since I was there and grandpa and grandma are long gone.  Grandpa and grandma were there, of course.  I hadn't seen them in quite a while.  A couple of their friends that usually visited on holidays were also there and sitting on lawn chairs in the back yard, as they often did.

It wasn't one of those real crazy dreams - just a nice visit with the past and some of the people I miss the most.  It was a little strange - but not very, as dreams are judged.  More than anything, it brought back memories.   It is surprising how much detail is stored away deep down in your brain somewhere.  You normally just can't recall a lot of what is there.

As I entered their house, I went to turn on the light over their driveway.  There were two light switches beside the cellar door.  At first I hit the wrong switch and the cellar light came on.  That is the exact position where those two switches actually were.  I remember that now even though if you asked me before the dream, I would never have been able to remember that.

So what does that have to do with treasure hunting?   No matter what the task is, you have more knowledge than you realize.  Some of it is unconscious.  You can use that.  Some people call that intuition.  It is based upon unconscious or subconscious knowledge.  There is a difference between the two, but that isn't important now.  My point is that your dreams can provide deeply moving experiences and provide greater access to knowledge and provide insight and intuition.  And secondly, you probably know more than you think you do if you can only access it.

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Nothing new with the beach conditions.  I'll keep watching for storms or changes.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/12/18 Report - Two Types of Metal Detecting Mistakes and Which Is Worse. Marx FIT Lecture. 54th Foot Button.

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

Pewter British 54th Regiment of Foot Button

The above button years ago in the West Indies.  It was found near a battle site where the French and British fought in December of 1788.  I'll talk about that more below.

The 54th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army. Originally formed in 1755 as the 56th Regiment of Foot, it was renumbered as the 54th when the 50th Regiment and 51st Regiment were disbanded. It was renamed as 54th (the West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot on 31 August 1782.

I've made a lot of mistakes and expect to keep making mistakes as long as I walk this earth.  I expect to make mistakes but I try to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

There are two types of mistake that I want to talk about today.  They are opposites.  One is thinking a find is not a good when it actually is, and the other is thinking an item is good when it is actually not.

The first example of the first type of error that comes to my mind is a musket flint that I found.  I detected a very twisted rusted piece of metal that I uncovered, but paid no attention to.  I then saw the flint.  This was my first time that I detected a site like that.  I was accustomed to digging gold rings in those days and didn't know much about hunting artifacts.  I can remember that experience precisely today: where I was, uncovering the rusty metal item, etc.  And I regret to this day that I didn't recognize the twisted piece of rusty metal and flint.  I'd appreciate them much more today than I did then.

Not only do I wish I had kept what I later realized was a musket hammer and the flint, but the failure to appreciate the find in the field resulted in not hunting the immediate area more effectively. Who knows what else might have been found where those items were.  I did find several other nice finds during that hunt including grape shot, soldier art and military buttons ( including the one at the top of this post ) but I still wish I had picked up the flint and hammer.

That is an error caused by not recognizing the possible significance of a find when it was found.  If I had taken the item home but still didn't realize its significance, I could have still lost it or damaged it through improper cleaning.  If you do not treat an item as potentially significant until you prove otherwise, a good find can easily be lost again or damaged beyond repair.

The area had already been studied by archaeologists but the park ranger was interested to see what I could find near the ocean where the archaeologists couldn't excavate.  They had a small museum there, and they kept a grapeshot that I found.

Another example would be a medallion from a  1715 Fleet beach that I did not recognize because when I dug it up it was encrusted and didn't look like anything other than a common coin.  I kept it for quite a while without really studying it and eventually put it in a tumbler with a bunch of modern coins.  When I took it out of the tumbler, it was clean enough that I could recognize it as a religious medallion and it still had some silver gilt on it.  After that it was studied, but the damage was already done.

I could give you more examples of times when I made the same type of mistake, some of them involving even nicer items, but the point is that treating a find as being nothing significant before you know for sure can have disastrous results.

If, on the other hand, you make the other kind of mistake - that of treating an item as valuable or significant when it is nothing - the results aren't nearly as bad.  The biggest thing with that type of error is that you end up getting disappointed when you learn that the item is not as good as you hoped it would be.  That is why I recommend trying to avoid the first type of error even if it means making the second kind of error.

Here are two recommendations that I often repeat.  First, never throw away an item until you KNOW that it is nothing good.  Don't be hasty.  And second, if an item has any chance of being good, treat it as if it is.  As I've shown in the past, it can take a long time to be absolutely sure.  You might never solve the puzzle.  It is better to think a find might be good even if it is not, than to make the mistake of concluding that it is no good and then finding out too late that it is better than you thought. I learned the hard way.  Some of my biggest regrets are the result of not appreciating an item enough to care for it properly.   My advice is that when there is any doubt, keep it and study it until you are absolutely sure.

To give just one example of when I thought a find was good when it wasn't, I once found what appeared to be a gold escudo.  That was back in my early days of detecting.  It would have been my first gold escudo, and it came from a treasure wreck beach, so it seemed possible.  It was encrusted and so I tried to clean it.  I took great pains to carefully clean it.  I got it fairly well cleaned and was confused by the fact that I couldn't identify it.  This was before I was experienced with testing metals, and I didn't have the reference books that I have today.  Eventually I figured out that it was a fake.  Yes I was disappointed, and I wasted time in trying to carefully clean it, but I learned a lot.

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There will be a free Robert Marx lecture at FIT on February 20.

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Civilized people should be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/17/16 Report - Foot Fanning and Expanding Holes. 12.5 Karat Diamond Ring Lost and Found.

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

14K Ring That Gave Penny ID
Submitted by Robert H.

Here is one more example of the dangers of going totally by target ID meters.  This ring rang up as a penny on the CTX 3030.   There is simply no perfect target ID system.  You can use it as much as you want, but beware of possible mistakes and make your decisions accordingly.

Thanks much to Robert H. for this example.

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A 12.5 karat diamond ring was accidentally thrown in the trash but was found in tons of trash by a waste company worker.

Here is the link.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/west-county-woman-s--carat-diamond-ring-tossed-in/article_e57fe788-cbef-5072-9eb1-c1d7ef1db01d.html

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I hope you took the time to look at the report on the Vasco da Gama ship.   It has a lot of very good information and a lot of hints for the detectorist or treasure hunter.  It talks a lot about the location of the wreck and distribution or artifacts.  Here is that link once again.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12175/epdf

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I like to find areas with a good concentration of good targets.  There are times when a hole just keeps getting bigger and bigger and produces more and more targets.

Here is one example of when I found an excellent shallow water spot.  The bottom was covered by rock and sand.  The rocks were close together and there was enough sand on and between the rocks that it was impossible to dig with a scoop.  It was almost like pavement.  I used one of my favorite techniques, foot fanning, to make holes.  I've described it before.

By fanning with my foot, the sand would be lifted from over and between the rocks and the rocks would then come up.  The targets would also eventually pop up out of the hole a lot of the time.

After the first hole was made and the first target retrieved, I then scanned the hole with my coil to see if there were any other targets in the hole.

In this example there was one in the side of the hole, so I fanned again to the side of the hole, which made the hole larger.  The second target was retrieved.  Then the hole was scanned again and another target located.  This was repeated over and over and the hole got larger and larger as it got both wider and deeper.  That continued for quite a while.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of good targets were retrieved.

In the simple illustration above, the brown circles represent rocks, The black dip is the first hole, the orange is the second hole, the purple is the third hole the yellow is the fourth hole, etc.  Targets were between and under rocks.

When you get in a good area like that, make sure to detect the sides and bottom of the hole after you remove sand and rocks.  As the hole gets bigger and deeper, more targets might be detected.  Take advantage of the additional depth you get by making the hole deeper.

I'd have to find my records, but I know a lot of coins and gold was found in that area.  It kept me busy a couple of days.

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The surf will increase a little today, reaching 3 or 4 feet by tomorrow, then not much more.

Happy St. Patricks Day,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/17/15 Report - Lead Bullet Find I'd Like To Know More About. Good Old Bullet Web Sites. Managing Errors.

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

I've been showing some things that I recently found on a trip up north. To me one of the more interesting finds was this lead bullet that was found along a path not far from some coins.  Old items such as a crotal bell and old horse shoe were previously found in the same area.

This bullet has a very concave base.  It is a touch less than 3/4 inch long.

I don't know much of anything about old bullets, but from what I recently read, it seems to me the ridge with the hash marks near the bottom of the bullet is for connecting a cartridge.  I think that means it is older, but I don't know that.

I'm sure there is someone out there that can give me an idea of the age of this bullet.  I also found a small lead strip that could have been used to make bullets.

I think what intrigues me as much as anything is the unknown.  I don't know much about this bullet.  I suspect that it might be old, but I might be wrong.

I guess it is the story that might be there.  The story hasn't emerge yet and maybe never will.  But in the scratches and scars there is a lot to think about.

I'd really appreciate it if you can give me an age range for this bullet.

Here is a good view of the indentations on the end.  How did that happen?  What do you think?

I ran across a couple excellent web sites on old bullets.  Here are the links.  They provide a lot of excellent pictures and information.

http://sgtriker.com/bullets.htm

http://www.tennesseelead.com/

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Mistakes are inevitable, but they can be intelligently managed.

It pains me to go back over a post after I think it is done and find a lot of mistakes.  It happens all the time.  It seems I never publish a perfect post.

The only way to completely avoid mistakes is to not do anything, and that is the biggest mistake.  If you get too tied up with making things perfect, you won't get much done.

In metal detecting there are different types of mistakes.  One type is the false positive.  That is when you get a good signal, but when you dig up the item you find it isn't any good.

Another type is the false negative.  That is when you get a trash signal or no signal at all when there is actually something good there.

Detectors aren't perfect and neither are the people that operate them.  You will get both false positives (when there is a good signal but no good target) and false negatives (when you do not get a good signal but there is a good target).  Of course it isn't really quite as simple as that in reality.

You can adjust your detector settings so that you get very few false positives, but that will probably increase your false negatives.  Or you can adjust your detector settings to eliminate false negatives, but that will probably increase your false positives.

To put it another way, decreasing sensitivity and increasing discrimination will cause you to miss more good targets, while increasing sensitivity and decreasing discrimination will cause you to get more false signals.

If you are aware of the trade-offs, have specific goals and a good idea of the probability of different types of targets, you can manage your errors effectively.

I'll talk about that more in a future post.

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The most interesting thing to me today is the surf predictions for the Treasure Coast.  This week the surf isn't supposed to get much bigger, but beginning next week the surf is supposed to increase up to 6 - 10 feet by Thursday.  That is interesting.  Too bad the long range predictions on MagicSeaWeed, especially when they predict a big surf, are not very accurate.  90  percent of the time the predicted big surf does not occur.  We'll have to wait and see how it develops this time.

Just added Tue. afternoon:  They already bumped it down to seven feet.  That isn't bad, but more decreases won't be surprising.

I'd still like to get information on a couple of the things I preciously posted as well as the bullet I posted today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/2/14 Report - PCGS Top 100 Modern Coins, Century of Gold & Silver Prices, National Geographic's 10 Fascinating Metal Detector Finds

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

Hundred Years of Gold and Silver Prices.
Source: http://www.macrotrends.net/1333/gold-and-silver-prices-100-year-historical-chart

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One of the pages provided by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) web site, is a page showing what they consider to be the top one hundred modern era coins.

Here is the intro.   The modern coin era began in America in 1965, the first year the U.S. Mint produced copper-nickel "clad" coins as replacement for silver coins, ending an unbroken, 173 year tradition. For many collectors, this was the death-knell for collecting, as the coins would no longer have any intrinsic value and mintages would be huge. Collectors perceived the modern coinage as a vast desert of ultra-common, mundane, unattractive and boring coins. So without further adieu, here is the TOP 100 MODERN COINS.

http://www.pcgs.com/top100/details.aspx

While many of those are so rare there is very little hope of finding one, some are possible.  It is always good to be aware of coins that could be worth considerable more than face value. 

Really inspecting coin finds can add both fun and value to the hobby of metal detecting.

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Gold prices moved sharply lower Tuesday, giving back nearly half of the prior session’s gains and returning to below $1,200 an ounce.

Gold for February delivery dropped $18.70, or 1.5%, to end at $1,199.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange

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If you want to get the most out of your gold finds you need to sell at the best times.  The price of both gold and silver has varied widely over the last hundred years.  (See chart above.).  Silver has gone up and down pretty much along with gold and both have huge spikes that would be very difficult to time.

In the early eighties the Hunt brothers monopolized the silver market.  You can see on the chart how it peaked at over $110 per ounce and then plummeted to around $15 dollars an ounce.  Few people that ride an investment to a peak are able to sell while prices are still high.

Over the last few decades the price of gold has been a really wild ride.

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Here is National Geographics list of 10 fascinating metal detector finds.  You won't want to miss this.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/diggers/articles/10-fascinating-amateur-metal-detector-finds/

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It looks like we'll be having a somewhere around a four to six foot surf for a few days on the Treasure Coast.  The trouble is that the wind will be mostly out of the East.  I'm not expecting any real improvement in beach detecting conditions for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

7/1/14 Report - Tropical Storm Watch on Treasure Coast, Massive Gold Nugget Found, Transpositional Errors on Cobs & Pot Shard

Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.




Source: Link found below.

Some fourth of July firework shows could get rained out.  Tropical Storm 1 has formed and a tropical storm watch is in effect from Fort Pierce to Flagler Beach.

I'm enjoying the cloudy weather.  It's nice that the sun isn't beating down all day.

Yesterday we had some nice north winds for a little while.  I'm afraid we won't really get much surf from this storm because it is north of us and the wind we get from it will be coming mostly from the south and west.

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/tropical-depression-one-20140626

Expect a lot of rain the next few days.

Here is a massive 14.7 pound gold nugget that was found in Siberia named the "Devil's Ear."

The sifting machine kicked it out as a rock.  That, of course, set off a search for more.

It was found on what the miners thought was a very unlucky time, Friday 13 and during a full moon.

That is very good bad luck.

Below are a couple of links to that story.



http://blog.gainesvillecoins.com/2014/06/24/massive-nugget-siberia/

http://www.odditycentral.com/news/gold-nugget-dubbed-devils-ear-weighs-6664-grams-was-discovered-on-friday-the-13th-on-a-full-moon-night.html


Archaeologists have discovered evidence that torture occurred near Durango, Colorado 1200 years ago.  As hard as it might be to believe, it wasn't the white men that did it.  

http://archaeology.org/news/2269-140630-colorado-torture-evidence

If you ever get to Durango, take the train up to Silverton.  You'll enjoy some of the most awesome scenery as well as the historic mining town of Silverton.  It's like stepping back in time.


Odyssey Marine stock made a good move Monday after a lot of analyst downgrades and a long decline.  They must be expecting improved 2nd quarter results.

And GoPro which went public at around $28 a few days ago is now up to over $46.  I mentioned them a couple of days ago and their plan to become start a media channel.


Spanish colonial cobs like modern coins occasionally show errors.  One common error that you might see is a transposition.

The castles normally appear in the upper left and lower right quadrants on the cross and shields.  However you will occasionally find the position of the lions and castles reversed.  That is a transposition error.

Some assayers seemed to be more prone to making those types of errors than others.

I'll discuss more cob anomalies in the future.

A few days ago I mentioned shards being found north of Vero.  Here is one.

This one was found by Philip I.

Thanks for sharing Philip.


I'll be taking a look at some beaches to see what is going on and will post some photos.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net