6/6/20 Report - Bent, Flattened, Squashed Finds. Another Digging Mistsake. Cristobal Now in Gulf.

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

Bent Coins.

There are always those unanswerable questions.  Maybe they aren't really unanswerable, but they seem that way at the time.

I've long wondered about the many bent coins I've found.   I probably found 50 or so, and most of them were found in South Florida, but that is where I found the largest number of modern coins.  The vast majority were found in the shallow water or low tide zone near the water line.  A lot of them came from areas where I found a lot of coral rocks packed together, which led me to think they might get caught in the rocks and bent that way.  Another possibility that I considered is getting bent in beach cleaning machines, but some of them come from areas where I've never seen beach cleaning machines.

I've found most denominations bent like that, some more bent than others, but looking at the dime above, for example, it would seem to take a lot of force and although people could do it, it wouldn't be easy.

I don't know why someone would bend a coin like that, but there was a superstition that a bent coin could change one's luck.  Another tradition is that carrying a bent coin in a purse would keep the purse full.  And then there were "witching coins" and love tokens.  So I guess there are several possibilities.  Many of the bent coins were found in areas where Santeria and other religious items were occasionally found.

But it isn't only coins that get bent.  On the Treasure Coast I've found other items that are bent, folded or squashed.  For example this United States Air Force ring was squashed.

Squashed Air Force Ring

It is not silver or gold - just some fairly soft metal.

I left it the way I found it for a long time but eventually got curious enough that I tried to open it to see if there were any marks inside, and it broke.  I found no marks due to the heavy crust and corrosion.

Broken Piece of Ring.

It looks like it was plated at one time.  The metal was brittle.

I can't remember if I've found bent coins on the Treasure Coast, but if I have, it wasn't as many as I found down south.  Other bent and folded metals are found on the Treasure Coast in good numbers though.  This year I've found folded pieces of lead and other metals, but they are much easier to bend than coins.

Folded and Bent Dug Metals.

I still don't have my answers.  I don't know how coins get so dramatically bent, and don't know if it is done by man, nature or both.

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Bill P had an example of the type of mistake I described yesterday.  Here is his.

I remember one (of many)mistakes that occurred while beach hunting. A couple asked me to search for a diamond bracelet they had just lost. I found it quickly but in my haste, cut it in half with my shovel, oops. Needless to say they weren't thrilled about me even though that could have been repaired easily by a jeweler. 

Thanks Bill.

That made me think of chains, which can be difficult enough to get in your scoop, but you can also dig into them.

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Cristobal sat over land for a few days but is now out in the Gulf and headed towards Louisiana.  Here is what the NHC is saying.

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We'll have a one or two foot surf for the next few days.  Now we're having some nice big tides.

Remembering D-Day,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/27/19 Report - A Couple Recent Treasure Coast Gold Finds. Reflections On My YouTube Videos.

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

14K Gold Pendant With Nice Looking Stone.

I've mentioned a few times that I've been on the ring trail lately.  I have been finding a lot of rings, but they've been junk.  Finally I got off of that trail and found a couple better items.

I also mentioned that I've been finding beaches with good numbers of modern coins.  They've been the non-shipwreck beaches.  While I haven't found any tightly packed coins spots or holes, there have been good numbers of coins scattered over beach front areas.  When you pick up enough coins eventually you'll get something better.

The pendant is marked 14K, but I don't know what the stone is yet.

When you find a pendant, look for the chain.  It might be broken.

I also found the following bracelet.

14K Bracelet Find.

I was trying out my new waterproof ear-phones that I got for Christmas.  They seem to work fine.

It reminds me of one year after I picked up a new Sovereign in Orlando, and on the way home stopped to test it out and found a gold crucifix just north of Ambersands.  Always nice to find gold the first day you have a new detector out.

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I made a few YouTube videos, but not many.  One of the first, if not the first, I posted back in 2011.  I forgot about it but yesterday was notified of a comment.  The title of the video is Beachcombing for Fossils and Sea Glass.  The description is, "A walk along the beach on the Treasure Coast of Florida where a few fossils and pieces of sea glass were found."  I just wanted to show how you could walk along the beach and eye-ball interesting things.

After forgetting about the video, I was surprised to see there were 11,854 views, as of yesterday and 49 thumbs-up and 48 thumbs-down.  I was really surprised to see how many people had viewed the video, especially since  I didn't do anything to promote it.  11,000 isn't really very many, but for something I pretty much forgot about, it seemed like a good many especially considering that it certainly wasn't very good.  I just wanted to try it out, and I failed at one big thing I attempted to do with it.

Not having made any videos of that type before, whenever I bent over to pick up a fossil or piece of sea glass, my camera veered away from whatever I was picking up.  I didn't know that was happening and didn't intend for it to happen, but one person thought I was being intentionally evasive.  I wasn't.  It was just my first attempt to do something like that, and it was difficult to keep the camera focused on the target while looking at the object and bending down to pick it up.

Despite my crude first attempt at point-of-view videography, the video received what I would consider a lot of views and a few comments, mostly negative, but there were 49 thumbs up and 48 thumbs down.  It seems that some people saw some value in the video even though I failed to show the fines well.  I don't know exactly what people liked, but some evidently enjoyed something about it.

Cloverfield is a movie I like, mostly because of the innovative P.O.V. way that it was shot.  It was shot from the point of view of one of the characters using a personal video camera to capture what he saw just like a normal person would under extremely stressful circumstances.   It didn't have the feel of most movies, which have carefully planned shots, and I liked and admired the different approach.

All I intended to do was do was show what I saw as I walked along looking for fossils and sea glass.  I succeeded in that to a very limited extent, but completely failed to get the closeups of the finds.  Perhaps the careful viewer could get a glimpse of some of the fossils or sea glass, but it was difficult at best.

I suspect that some of those that gave a thumbs up to my video liked the walk along the beach, and perhaps getting a look at a Treasure Coast beach with some shells and other things scattered along.

I found out that there were many similar videos of people walking the beach looking for sea glass, but they were able to clearly show what they picked up.  Maybe being in with that group of videos is what drew so many viewers to my video.  I don't really know much about YouTube, especially promotion, but since I didn't promote it much, it seems that views can come easily if you just have something out there.

I do not think I understand most of those who made comments.  Maybe a few were trying to be helpful.  Obviously they didn't find what they were looking for, but I don't know why they were expecting much more than what they got, if they were.  No one asked them to watch or told them to watch.  There was no cost to watch.  Not even an ad.   It was their choice alone, and I don't think the title or description was deceptive. So I just can't say what they were looking for - other than something for nothing.  I think some of them must be like the people that like to honk car horns.
They just like to be heard or something.  In any case, the comments seem to be emotive more than informative.  Maybe they got something off their chest.

Another interesting thing to me is how the thumbs-up and thumbs-down were almost equal in number.  People see things differently.  Different people will see the same thing different ways.  They bring their own perspective and predispositions, to the video or post and that determines what they get out of it.  It takes two to tango, and at least two to communicate.  A message requires both a transmitter and receiver, and the originator of the message can not determine the interpretation or how much the recipient will get out of the message.

What I learned is that YouTube videos can accumulate views by just being out there, and that some people will enjoy a video while others will not.  That part was not new to me, but I was actually trying to figure out what people liked about a video that in my opinion wasn't very good.

Maybe in the future I'll try to make more videos although I generally prefer text.  I seldom find a video that I like, and when I do look at one, I usually find myself quickly skipping over most of it.  But that is just me.

I might make some more videos in the future, but they probably won't be what most people want to see.  I do have about a dozen videos on YouTube but haven't paid too much attention to them even though I think some of them could be informative or helpful.

Here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpBoxVBmVWiTF2h_r3RwBCA?view_as=subscriber

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The surf will be decreasing for a few days, but the high tides are still high.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/23/15 Report - Ancient Gold Bracelets Found. Clay Pipes. Beach Sand & Movement. More New Finds Made On T. C.

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

Gold Bracelets.
Source: See scienceinpoland link below.

I know you enjoyed looking at the recent finds made on the Treasure Coast by the crew Capitana lately.  I'm sure you'll be seeing more of those very soon.

Here is a fascinating find with an interesting story, but it isn't from the Treasure Coast.

"During field work near Jasło, a farmer found three gold bracelets tied with golden wire" - told PAP archaeologist and Krosno museum director Jan Gancarski.

The archaeologist said that "the finder acted very honestly and informed the conservation services, which in turn transferred the finds to the museum in Krosno". "His attitude is commendable. I hope that he will receive an adequate award from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage" - added Gancarski.

Same Bracelets

Preliminary dating places the bracelets from 1600 to 400 BC.

http://scienceinpoland.pap.pl/en/news/news,405517,35---2-thousand-years-old-gold-objects-found-near-jaslo.html

I don't know if they are bracelets, but maybe.

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In the list of dissertations that I mentioned yesterday there was a nice study of clay pipes.

Below is a figure from that study.

If you look at that illustration, it looks like that as pipes became more modern, they first got larger bowls and then later more upright bowls.

Here is the link for the dissertation and the figure shown above.
http://anthropology.tamu.edu/papers/Fox-PhD1998.pdf

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I once did a short series on reading beaches.  One thing to watch is the sand of different grain sizes.

On the surface of the back beach and in the dunes, you'll see a lot of fine grain sand.  The wind blows fine sand to form the dunes.

Around the water line there will also be a lot of fine grain sand, which is easily moved by both wind and waves.  Fine sand can be washed up by very small waves.  That is what we've been having a lot of lately, and that is why the beach fronts are building.

Fine grain sands also can be washed up the slope easily.

As you go out into deeper water, there will be more larger grain sand.  Normally at around ten meters or so, you'll see a rapid increase in medium grain sand.  Then when you get out around maybe thirty feet deep or so, you'll see more course grain sand.

When the water gets deeper, even large waves don't affect the bottom much.  At that point you'll normally then see a predominance of fine grain sand again.  The less easily moved coarse sand will pile up just before that where there is some winnowing from the waves, but not a lot - enough to move the finer sand towards shore or out into the deeper water.

Once you get into that deep water where the fine grain sand piles up again, mud will also start to settle out.

Of course there are times when you'll see different layers of sand piled on top of each other.  In the high energy zone of the front beach and shallow water, big waves will move larger grain sands in and out and sometimes lay layer on layer.

If the waves are small and only fine sand is moving, like has been the case much of the time lately, other objects aren't being moved much either.  Things will however get covered by the moving fine grain sand, maybe more quickly than you would think.

The highest energy zone lately has been in between where the waves are crashing and the shore.

Watch not only the water as it heads to shore, but also as it washes back. It goes both ways.  And watch what happens to any shells or sand in that area.

Trigger points are important and vary for different types of items.  I've talked about trigger points in the past.  What I'll call the "drop" or "settle" points are also important.

Clay, for example, even though it is very fine, is difficult to dislodge but won't drop or settle out until the water is very calm.

This is all part of the picture that will help you to understand beaches and where to hunt.

I'll have to continue with that some other time.

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I'll have more pictures of finds from the Capitana in my next post.

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On the Treasure Coast we are expecting more days of calm surf.

That is not great for beach hunting, but it allows the salvors to keep on working.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net