2/19/18 Report - Examples of the Lost and Found Service Provided by Detectorists. Lions Club Eye-Glass Program.

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

Nearly Five Gallons of Lost Keys.

Have you ever lost your keys?  If so, you are not alone.  I've found tons of keys.  Those shown above are a small portion of those that I've found.  Today I'm going to talk about just a few of the things that were found and returned to the original owner.  People don't hear about many of the items that are found and returned by detectorists.

People often ask detectorists what is their most valuable find.  One answer I give is this one about the time I found some keys.  I was in the Florida Panhandle doing some consulting for the Naval Air Station and after work went out to a remote beach to do a little metal detecting.  I encountered a family just leaving the beach.  No one else was around anywhere.  When they got to the car, they discovered they had lost their keys.  I won't tell the whole story because I told it before.  But they told me they lost their keys, and I followed their tracks to where they had their blanket and found their keys in short order.  This is in the days before cell phones, and if I wasn't there to find their keys, I don't know how long it would have been before they could have got a locksmith or whatever.

I remember only two times that I received a reward for finding an item for someone.  I never asked for a reward and usually don't accept a reward even if it is offered, however there was this one time when I was offered fifty dollars if I could find the keys for the beach concession business at the Fountainbleau hotel.  The fellow lost the keys before he opened the business that morning.  It was a big bunch of keys.  He was out of business until the keys were found.  It didn't take me long to find them, and I received the fifty dollars.

Many of the hotel keys have been replaced by magnetic cards, so there aren't as many keys out there to be found.

Of course there are other kinds of things that I've found for people. Over the years I've found buckets  of eye-glasses too.

I was metal detecting in the shallow water in front of another resort one day when a fellow told me he lost his eye glasses.  He was a tourist staying at the local hotel.  I looked for the glasses and found them.  The surf was rough, and it took some time though.  The fellow offered to buy me a drink, but I thanked him and declined.

Tourists don't realize how easy it is to lose their glasses to an unexpected wave.  And glasses are light enough that they'll drift along the bottom in a rough surf.

Here is something you should know about.  Eye-glasses can be recycled.  The Lions Club has boxes at various locations where you can leave used eye glasses that they will pick up and recycle.  I dropped the eye-glasses that I found into a box at a local hospital.  They have a web site that tells how they can use your old eye-glasses to provide sight for people in need.  Here are a couple sentences from their web site.

If you have used eyeglasses you no longer need, you can donate them now. Lions accept prescription and reading glasses, sunglasses and plastic and metal frames. Children's glasses are especially needed. 

You can use the following link to learn more about the Lions Club program and how you can donate used eye-glasses to help someone in need.

http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/how-we-serve/health/sight/index.php

Sometimes the lenses will be scratched up from the sand.  I don't know if they can regrind those or not.  It doesn't matter if the frames are messed up.

I've been asked to help find a lot of things.  One day I was asked by young girl if I could find her dental retainer that she lost in the water.  That is something I knew nothing about.  I asked her if it had metal on it and she said yes, so I gave it a shot but was unsuccessful.

As you know, people also lose coins and jewelry.  I'll talk about some of those some other time and give some additional tips.

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With the beautiful weather and snow-birds in town, there is a good chance you'll be able to find something for someone.

The surf remains around two feet.  There will be a moderate low tide.  The wind is coming out of the east/southeast.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/3/17 Report - Some Common and Some Strange Beach Finds.

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

You can find almost anything almost anywhere.  When I hunted the shallow water of South Florida I found some strange things.  One thing I found a lot was glasses, both sun glasses and eye glasses.  I'd say hundreds

The eye glasses I often donated.  The Lions Club had collection boxes around the community and if you donated used eye wear, they would recycle them and give them to people who really needed them.  That was a good thing.

I never liked to find eye glasses in the surf, knowing that someone's day was probably ruined when they lost their glasses, especially if they belonged to a tourist from out of town.

I remember finding a few pairs for people who asked me to look for their's.

Sometimes I told people wearing glasses in the surf that they needed to be careful.  Some resented me trying to help them.   I never really understood why some people were so insulted when someone tried to help them.

Sun glasses were found even more often than regular eye glasses.   Some were expensive brands worth a hundred dollars or more.  Some were destroyed.  Often they looked ok at first glance, but the lenses would be terribly scratched by being tumbled in the surf.

The ones shown below were found recently.  If you were to buy them new they would run near $100.

Costa SunGlasses

Glasses were common finds, while other things were more unusual.  Some of the less common finds included things like dentures, pool balls and bowling balls, brass knuckles and guns.   I actually found a few of each of those in the surf.

Why there were pool balls and bowling balls in the surf, I don't know.  I guess you can imagine some different scenarios, but none of them seem real likely.

Very little would really surprise me now.  You might find almost anything.  The surprises can be fun.

I remember finding a silver casino chip enclosed in a clear plastic case at the water's edge.  Why would someone carelessly carry around something like that?

You can find almost any kind of coin on Florida beaches.  Finding an old coin doesn't mean it was lost long ago.  People sometimes carry around old, collectible and valuable coins, and occasionally lose them on a beach.  I've found a number of old coins, some of which were obviously recent drops.  It is sometimes difficult to figure out how and why they ended up where they did.  There were some that were lost in a shipwreck hundreds of years ago then salvaged, sold, and lost and found again.

Bullion coins are one good example.  One silver bullion coin I found not long ago was found on a very deserted beach.  I could only imagine what happened there and why it was lost.

Things can end up on a beach in various ways.  Years ago, early in the morning, three huge bales of  of marijuana were found on a 1715 Fleet beach.

That brings up another point.  Items found on a beach can be intermixed with items from thousands of years.  Million-year-old fossils and Native American artifacts can be found in the same shell pile with space debris.

Those are just a few examples of common and somewhat unusual finds that you might or might not expect.

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As you know, the Super Bowl is Sunday.  Sunday the surf will increase but not much.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net