5/30/19 Report - 137 Year-Old Gun Found. Slave Cabin Excavation (?), Painted Rock Craze.

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

Source: See link below.

A 137-year-old rifle found five years ago leaning against a juniper tree in Great Basin National Park in Nevada is now part of an exhibit dedicated to the “Forgotten Winchester” at the park visitor center near the Utah border.

The weathered Winchester Model 1873 is in a case designed to capture the way it looked when park archaeologist Eva Jensen stumbled across it on a rocky outcrop above Strawberry Creek during an archaeological survey.

Based on its condition, experts believe the weapon might have been abandoned in the forest more than a century ago. But nearly five years after its discovery, park officials still don’t know who it belonged to or why it was left against the tree. No sales or ownership records have been found...

 

https://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/MiamiHerald/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TMH%2F2019%2F05%2F27&entity=Ar9E2&sk=03879AA3&mode=text

If you are out and about, you never know what you might find.

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A possible slave cabin and/or station on the underground railroad is being excavated.

Once again a "possible" religious item was found.  This time it is a whetstone in the shape of an axe "possibly" meant to ward off lightning strikes or something like that.

Here is that link.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-cabin-archaeology-20190522-story.html

You see the religious or gaming interpretation often when the identity is difficult to determine.

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A day or two ago I posted a photo of a painted rock I found.

Mitch K sent me a few links to sites about painted rocks.  One site calls it the "creative project sweeping the nation."

The site continues...

Have you been so lucky to find any painted rocks hidden in your town?

Have you wondered what the craze is all about? Or maybe you’ve never heard of this creative trend towards kindness yet.

In short, the painted rocks are a creative project that has taken the nation by force, with the number one goal to make someone smile and brighten their day. When some one finds a rock, they can be sure it’s been painted with love from anyone ranging from little bitty kiddos to skilled artists,and everyone in-between.  Participating is something any one of any age can do, all you have to do is find one! The rocks will usually have a hashtag or Facebook page written on the back. This shows where the rock came from, and often with directions to post a pic to that area’s painted rock Facebook page or hashtag. You can either keep the rock or rehide.

That is from the JustALittleCreativity web site as well two others.

https://www.justalittlecreativity.com/2017/06/painted-rocks-creative-project-thats-taking-world-storm.html

https://www.gorock.com/

https://www.parentmap.com/article/painted-rocks-treasure-hunt-kid-craze

Thanks Mitch.
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Due to a sudden and very unexpected passing of a member of the family (not my elderly mother, but a younger member of the family), my posts may be interrupted or abbreviated for a while.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/14/19 Report - Spanish Fort Site Excavation. Bottles and Movement of Submerged Objects.

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

An excavation at the site of a Spanish fort has yielded artifacts spanning centuries, including the medicine bottle shown above.

In 1626, the Spanish Empire dispatched a fleet of warships from Manila to the northern tip of Taiwan and established a small colony called Spanish Formosa.

The San Salvador fort was built there to counterbalance Dutch power in southern Taiwan and to safeguard Spanish interests in the shipping route between China's Fujian province and Manila in the Philippines.

However, Spain's rule in Taiwan ended in 1642 after years of battling and the fort was ceded to the Dutch... 

Here is the link for more about that.

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/afav/201905110003.aspx

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Dan B. found the following bottles and would like any ideas about the broken neck, which was new to him.

Finds by Dan B.

Photo by Dan B..

Here is Dan's description of these finds.

Bottle on left just has an N on the bottom, is dark green, and has a seam.

One in middle says 54. 

The one on the right is a Lea and Perrins Worcestershire that I looked up and seems to sell for 15$. Its neck is slanted and is a nice color green. 

He'd like information on the bottle piece.

You might ask why he would care about that piece.  One reason is that if he can identify the piece he might be able to better identify the age range of the things he can expect from the site as well as the type of bottles.

I know of one good bottle site that has some interesting history.  Back in the day, a professional baseball player lived along the Indian River and would sit out on the dock drinking and throwing the empty bottles into the river.  Of course a lot of liquor bottles found there, but they aren't real old.  That doesn't mean that there are no older bottles found there, because bottles were collecting there before that happened, and bottles can be moved a lot.

It obviously helps to know the history of the area.

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I was going to talk some about the movement of objects today anyway, but bottles are a bit of a special case, so I decided to talk on how old submerged bottles move in water.  I'm sure that some people won't be much interested in how bottles move, but understanding that will help you understand how objects in general move, which of course will help you know where you might find those objects.

Some people just want to know where to go or where other people are going and having luck. I'm thinking of calling them "X marks the spot" hunters.  They just want to know where the X is  They will hunt mostly the same spots over and over unless they get word that another place is producing. They mostly want to know where people are hunting and what is being found. That isn't me.  I like to figure things out - not that I don't appreciate a helpful tip.  But if you can figure things out for yourself, that will help you adjust to new places and different circumstances.

First off, bottle movement is more complex than the movement of an object like a coin or ring.  Why?  Because bottles come in various shapes, can be capped or uncapped, and can be empty or full, and filled with different things, such as air, water, sand or mud.

Normally when you find a flock of surface bottles near shore, most of them will be laying parallel to the beach.  I think I could go out this morning and take a photo of about fifty moss or seaweed covered bottles in a small area just like that.  I've checked them multiple times before and have picked up the older or more interesting ones.  They are where I found them over a year ago.

Most bottles will not be capped and will be filled with water.  They'll lay on the bottom.  Occasionally whole bottles will get buried.  That occurs when the bottle is full of something like maybe mud or the bottle gets trapped somehow.

When a bottle lays in an area where barnacle and moss or seaweed attaches, it can become heavier and won't move as much, eventually getting covered and settled. Otherwise rounded bottles will be very mobile.

But not all bottles are rounded.  Many older bottles are more rectangular, such as old medicine and pharmacy bottles.  They obviously won't roll around as much.

Once a bottle gets covered it will take a lot for it to move.  The sand can accumulate over it and the seaweed can hold it all in place, however those bottles can get uncovered by periods of rough water.

Bottles of different shapes can get sorted and accumulate together just like coins or other objects.

More mobile bottles can move in and out from shore, but once weighed down or trapped, can stay in place until something more dramatic happens to move them.

When bottles are filled with water they are close to neutral and will be much more mobile than coins or rings, but how they move in water and where you will find them is determined by the same basic factors - density (combined) and shape.  In a way they are something like watches because there can be trapped air that keeps them near the surface and makes them more mobile than would be the case if there were only the density of the materials and shape of the object to consider.  Rounded bottles filled with water are similar to waterlogged wood, and you'll often see cut limbs laying on the bottom with the bottles.

A year or two ago a lot of the seaweed died and bottles started showing up next to shore.  I think the death of the vegetation allowed the sand to move and the buried were freed.

What I like about bottles that they will show up during conditions that do not produce much in the way of coins or gold.   Like I've often said, when conditions are not right for one kind of treasure there will be something else that you can find.

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Nothing but small surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/28/18 Report - An Old Advertising Token Find. Early Elongates. Excavation of a 17th Century Site.

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

Old Standard Oil Company Token Find.

One of the better things about getting older is that you learn a few things.  I was a totally different person as a youth, and a real fool for a long time.  I can see that now.

I'm probably still a fool, but just haven't reach the point that I fully appreciate it yet.  If I live long enough, I'll probably realize how big of a fool I am.

As it relates to metal detecting, you can find things and have things around that aren't very interesting or don't mean much to you, and then you learn a bit more of the story and they become more interesting to you.

This token was one such find.  It is not worth much, but probably worth something to a collector of petroliana.

It is an advertising token of the Standard Oil Company - a fact I recently learned.  I don't have an date or age on it, although a token collector told me it is probably from before the 1940s.  I suspect a little research on the logo might narrow down the age

Maker of Standard Oil Company Advertising Token.

It was made by the Bastian Brothers Company. That company began in the late 1800s and are still in the business of manufacturing tokens.

It was found years ago up north on my family's land and could have belonged to a great grandfather that was an auto mechanic or my father who worked for a while at a gas station.  Both of those fellows are now gone, so I'll probably never know if it belonged to one of them.

Back of Same Token

The back reads, "I BRING GOOD LUCK, CARRY ME."

I'd appreciate it if some one can help me identify the age of this token.

I don't know if anyone carried it for good luck or not.  If you detect much, you've probably found a few good luck tokens.

The reason I posted this is to illustrate how if you hang on to things over the years, you might learn more about them and with the new found story, something that was very interesting can become more meaningful and interesting.  It is amazing how you can have an item for a long time, and then the item becomes more interesting when you learn more about it.

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I posted the tecnews.org link that will take you to The Elongates Club newsletter.  People to collect those elongated coins that you can make at various tourist locations, such as DisneyWorld.

I just ran across an illustration from a company that sells or lease the machines that make elongated pennies.

The illustration above shows some early elongates (left) that were made in 1892 - 1993 at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  Those must be some of the earliest.  I didn't know they were made that long ago.

There are a lot of different things like tokens or elongates that can make a nice collection if you accumulate a few and organize them.

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CHATHAM -- A team of archeologists is taking a big step backward, to 1656, with a big dig in Chatham on land that was once home to English setters William and Anne Nickerson, and their children.

That was the year William Nickerson bargained with the Monnomoyick tribe to acquire a parcel of land at Monomoit (now Chatham)...

Here is the link for more about that.

http://chatham.wickedlocal.com/news/20180824/big-dig-in-chatham-finds-17th-century-settlement

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There are no storms to now and none are expected in the north Atlantic for at least the next 48 hours.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/29/16 Report. A Few Beaches. Fort Excavation. Kennedy Mansion Auction. Little Pocket Mystery To Some.

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

Typical Beach Friday Near High Tide.

The wind was from the west today and will be shifting to become a north wind Saturday.

Above is a typical Treasure Coast beach - no cuts.  I saw another beach before I took this picture, but forgot to take a picture.  The first beach had a lot of sand on the front beach, but a lot of shells at the high tide line.  I saw two detectorists working the shell line.  No one else was on that beach.

Every car in the parking lot at the above beach (there were about 10) was from another state.  The locals weren't there.

Jensen Beach Friday Afternoon.

I had not been to Jensen Beach for a long time.  Notice how few people are there.

North End Jensen Beach Near High Tide.

I stopped at three different beaches, and this is the only place I saw any significant erosion.  This area has eroded back quite a bit over the past month or two.

The wind will shift tomorrow, but there will still be little surf.

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From Kovels Kommets:  The furnishings of the Palm Beach house once owned by the Kennedy family were auctioned on January 23, 2016. The house was built in 1923 by the Wanamaker family, sold to Joe Kennedy in 1933, and used until the Kennedys sold the house and furnishings in 1995 to Mr. and Mrs. John Castle...

Some items had been part of the house for 21 to as long as 93 years. A set of William and Mary style tables estimated at $500 to $700 brought $10,625, and an Italian painted hall bench estimated at $3,000 to $5000 went for $9,375. Both were in the 1923 house. A pair of Venetian glass mirrors estimated at $2,000 to $4,000, perhaps in the house since 1933, was $38,750. The walnut twin beds used at various times by Joe Jr., Jack or Jackie sold for $20,000. A 1963 photograph of President Kennedy with his wife and children at Easter was $6,350.

Click here to go to the original article.

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"Just inside the walls of the fort we encountered what we call essentially a 1750 walking surface. That would be the level of the Earth that the British soldiers were walking on after the construction of Fort Lawrence and it's a very thin deposit but there are sufficient amounts of material in it to indicate that we are looking at that 1750 to 1755 era when the fort was occupied."

That is from an article about discoveries made at a fort site near the Nova Scotia border.  Here is the link for the rest of the article.

Here is a link to the rest of the article about discoveries at a fort site near the Nova Scotia border.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/fort-lawrence-beausejour-charles-burke-1.3421687

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That little pocket in the pocket of your jeans is the subject of a story that is circulating on the internet.  It seems people started wondering what that little pocket is for.  The thing that amazed me is that so many people didn't know.  I've never wondered about it at all because I what it was for ever since I was old enough to wear jeans.

In case you didn't know, it is a pocket watch pocket.  Why they still have them is a bit of a mystery, but it never occurred to me that someone might not know that it was originally for a pocket watch.

I suppose there are a lot of things like that which - like TVs with knobs.  Younger people don't know about l I'm sure a lot of them don't know there was a time when you had go to the TV to switch channels. A list of things like that might be interesting.  I've seen lists like that before.  It gives an idea of how much things have changed in recent years.


http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/fashion/style/news/a40820/small-pocket-inside-pocket-jeans-use-whats-it-for/

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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