10/25/19 Report - Avoiding Deterioration and Preserving the Value of Coins. Pre-Contact Images Found. Jamestown Graves. Storm Forming.

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

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Can you believe it?  It looks like there might be another storm developing in the Gulf.

The surf will be up to around three to five feet today, and the tides will be high too.

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It is rare to dig up a coin that is in near perfect condition.  Most coins that you dig will have been in circulation for a while and buried in dirt or sand or worse.  That means that the coins value will already be reduced, but even though detectorists are seldom handling the most pristine of coins, it can still be helpful to be aware of the things that can harm coins and reduce their value.  I recently received an email from Joe D. in which he mentioned that coins he had stored in a cardboard folder were corroding.  Even if you purchase a near mint coin and keep it in a coin folder or something, there are many ways that a coin can be damaged and reduced in value.

Here are some things that can damage coins even if they are carefully stored.

Humidity.  That is a big problem for us in Florida.  Some companies market "air tight" holders, but they aren't guaranteed to be airtight.

Acids.  Coin collecting supplies made out of paper or cardboard can cause damage.  I just received an email from Joe D. telling how coins he stored in a cardboard folder had corroded.  Copper and silver coins are especially vulnerable to toning from household acids or even vapors emitted from cooking.

Chlorine.  "One of the main sources of this are flips made from plastic that contains PVC.  Additionally, vapors from a hot tub or pool can seep into the area where you store your coin collection."  You'd think that coin holders sold for the purpose would be safe, but not all of them are.

Air Pollution can also damage coins.

Improper Handling is one of the biggest causes of coin damage. Of course dropping or improperly cleaning coins will damage them, but acids and oils on your hands can also cause damage.  Gloves can be used.

Coins can also be damaged when sliding them into and out of coin holders.  Coin collectors use the term "flip rubbing."

Here is a link that will take you to an article that more fully describes the above sources of damage and how to store your coins safely.

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-safely-store-your-coins-768295

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… Federal Reserve banks receive coins at face value because they are obligations of the United States Government. The Banks store the coins until they need to fill orders from the commercial banks in their district. The Federal Reserve banks fill these orders from their vault stocks of both new and circulated coins. Also, they fill the orders without regard to date or mint mark. Coin shipments leave the Federal Reserve banks by armored car, registered mail, or express.

If a commercial bank has excess coins on hand, they may return the coins to the Federal Reserve bank. It then sorts the coins for fitness. They return badly worn or bent coins to the United States Mint which melts them down and makes them into new coins. Also, the banks remove foreign and counterfeit coins from circulation. According to Federal Reserve sources, over 20 billion coins valued at well over $2 billion pass through their coin processing units each year..

Here is the link for more about the US Treasury

https://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/distribution.aspx

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Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have found 11 pre-Hispanic images in a tunnel in Ecatepec, México state, that is part of a dike system that dates back to colonial days.

Among the images discovered on the sides of the 8.4-meter-long tunnel are petroglyphs and stucco relief panels, INAH said in a statement.

The tunnel is part of the four-kilometer-long 17th-century dike system known today as the Albarradón de Ecatepec.

A war shield, the head of a bird of prey and a “paper ornament” are among the images carved into the walls of the tunnels while a teocalli, or temple, is etched into the central stone of the arch entrance. The temple is dedicated to the rain god Tláloc, the INAH archaeologists concluded...

Here is that link.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/archaeologists-find-tunnel-with-pre-hispanic-images/

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Archaeologists are digging up 17th century graves at Jamestown.

https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-jamestown-grave-1019-20191022-qlypvf4xm5dedm4eptzt3hmcua-story.html\

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Send me your beach reports and photos.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/26/18 Report - Early Graves. Rough Edges. Mel Fisher Days. Van Stan's Bottle. Pontil.

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

Edges of Two Kennedy Half Dollar Coins.

It seemed that the photos of the Kennedy Half Dollar that I posted yesterday were not good enough to show what I was talking about.  Maybe this will do it.  Here are two coins: the one I was talking about yesterday as being unusual (top coin) and a more normal Kennedy half dollar for comparison (bottom coin).  You will have to look closely to notice the differences.

Notice how the edge of the bottom coin is smooth. The ridges in the copper center are filled and the surface is flat.  However on the top coin the ridges on the copper core are rounded and not filled in between.  And look closely at the thin layer of clad on top.  It is paper thin and sticks out considerably more over the valleys in between the copper ridges.  You can feel the sharpness of that thin clad layer.  The top coin also has a very slightly smaller diameter.

To sum it up, the bottom coin has a typical smooth edge, while the top coin has a very rough and sharp edge.  It appears that some material is missing.

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ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – More burials of what could be St. Augustine’s first colonists have been discovered. They are within inches of where burials were found during an archeological dig in 2017.

This time, they were found while construction workers were working on Charlotte Street in downtown St. Augustine. The city archeologist was monitoring their work and ordered construction be halted as soon as a bone was found...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/st-augustine/more-colonial-burials-found-under-st-augustine-street/77-566791195

You might recall that we discussed the almost total absence of graves found on 1715 beaches, so that remains a bit of a mystery.

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This year Mel Fisher Days will be July 12 - 14 in Key West.

http://melfisherdays.melfisher.com/

Activities will include tours of the conservation lab and boat tour out to a wreck site.

There will be a fee or those activities.

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Van Stan's Stratena antique bottle.

Circa 1890.


This is a small embossed bottle for Stratena, which was an adhesive (See advertising card below.).

You can see many bubbles in the glass (right).

Van Stan's Stratena Advertising Card.

I placed this bottle along with more company information in my TGBottleBarn.blogspot.com.

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Just one more bottle related item today.  I've found very few rough or unsmoothed pontils, but this looks like one.  It is a recent find.

Pontil.

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The predictions are for a continuing one foot surf on the Treasure Coast for at least several days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/2/18 Report - Big Surf Coming. Rain Uncovers History. Ancient Burials in Gulf. Button Links.

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

Predicted Wind Direction Early This Afternoon.
Source: Ventusky.com

Here is the big news.  A front will start coming though this afternoon.  You'll see a wind shift.

MagicSeaWeed was down this morning but the last time I looked the predictions still looked very interesting - 9 - 13 feet by Sunday.  I'll update this later today.

Surfline.com is predicting a 5 - 7 foot surf for Central Florida Sunday AM, and 8 - 12 feet Sunday PM.

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Anytime earth is moved, especially in places there was a lot of activity, something good and old might be found.  Here is a story about how a rain after a drought uncovered historic ruins.

The heavy rains that hit Iraq over the past two weeks have not only put an end to the dry season, which has almost dried up the historic Tigris River, but it also helped uncover hundreds of historical ruins that were washed away in Babylon, one of the country’s most important archaeological sites.

Hussein Fleih, Babylon's director of antiquities, said in a press statement: "Among the findings were pottery utensils, coins and metal pieces."

"The discoveries will be examined to determine the exact historical period they date back to," he added, suggesting that they belong to the Parthian and Islamic eras.

"Last year, 1,000 pieces were discovered this way, which proves that the ruins may be close to the surface and not always buried deep in the ground," Fleih said.

Such discoveries after heavy rainfall are not rare in Iraq.

https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1189666/rain-iraq-ends-drought-uncovers-historic-ruins

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A fossil hunter while on a dive in 2016 reported possible human skeletal material off the coast of Manasota Key in Charlotte County, Florida. State officials explored the site in the years since and announced Wednesday, Feb. 28, the site is, in fact, a 0.75-acre Native American burial site in a peat-bottomed pond, according to a news release. 

The only known examples of submerged offshore prehistoric burial sites are known to be in Israel and Denmark.

Researchers say the water level in the Gulf of Mexico 7,000 years ago was about 30 feet below compared to today. It's likely the pond at the time was on dry land about 9 feet above sea level...

http://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/florida/unprecedented-native-american-burial-site-discovered-off-floridas-gulf-coast/67-524076059

A fossil hunter discovered and reported this site.  He isn't described as an archaeologists. He wasn't a looter.  That was one of the things I was saying the other day about the public discovering and protecting archaeological sites in my post on the problem with archaeology.  The public must be trusted and become a bigger part of the solution instead of being alienated and treated as the problem.

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A few days ago I showed a button that I was wondering about.  As I said, I thought it was probably modern decorative.  Mitch King confirmed that and pointed out that the shank was modern.  I wasn't absolutely sure of the shank because it was crusted over and I wanted to clean it.  Well, the cleaning didn't go well.  When the crust was removed, there wasn't much left of the back, as you can see below.  That can happen.  I would have been more careful if I thought it was likely to be something good.

When trying to ID a button, the back can tell you as much or more than the front.  The shank is important, and you might also find other important marks on the back.  Remember that when sending photos for ID.

Here are some good links that will help you ID buttons.

http://nationalbuttonsociety.org/Home.html

http://www.buttoncountry.com/WorkSheets/Glossarys-FF.pdf

http://www.buttoncountry.com/BackTypes2.html

What Remains of Button Back.

As Mitch pointed out, the button back can provide good information on the age of a button.  That is something to remember.

Another thing that stuck out to me after I thought about it a while, is the small differences on the front of this button and the picture of the one that Alberto sent.  The differences seemed to be nonsensical.

Mitch found several sites where similar vintage blazer buttons were sell on the internet.  Some were said to be from the 80s, which makes sense because the pile of coins I was cleaning probably came from back around then.

Here is one of the links Mitch sent.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/566969846/mens-vintage-jos-a-bank-blazer-buttons?ref=pla_similar_listing_top-1

Thanks Mitch.

Here are a couple other things that I cleaned that were in the pile of encrusted coins.

Heavily Encrusted Objects After Acid Cleaning.

The silver ring is corrodes and very thin now.  Both are probably from the eighties or not much older.  I think the other was an earring.

There was also a flattened thimble in that group of finds.  You don't see many thimbles around anymore even though they were used for centuries.

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We could get some good hunting soon if the surf and wind predictions have been right this week.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/1/18 Report - 9 - 13 Foot Surf Predicted For Next Week. Counterfeit Coin Ring. Cannons Found. Eroding Graves.

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

Counterfeit Morgans Made in China.
Source:TheSpruce.com (Link immediately below.)

Yesterday I posted a link to a very good web site that tells how to identify counterfeit and fake coins.  Here is a link to an article about a Chinese counterfeiting ring.

https://www.thespruce.com/chinese-coin-counterfeiting-ring-4071202

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The following excerpts provide a reminder of the continual effect of erosion, and it relates to something else I've mentioned a few times lately.

There have been more than a million people buried in the mass graves on Hart Island since 1980, but since the damage of Hurricane Sandy, that’s become a gruesome problem...

“The cliffs of Hart Island are sort of exposed and bones are washing up on Long Island Sound – that hasn’t been repaired yet,” said Melinda Hunt, the founding director of the Hart Island Project which identified more than 67,000 people buried there.

Most of the problem is in the northern shore of Hart Island where there is a steep bank heavily damaged by the 2012 storm.

“If you are in Orchard Beach, which has lots and lots of New Yorkers, it’s what you are looking at directly,” said Hunt. “That’s where are bones are washing up into the sound.”


http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/02/26/bones-from-hart-island-mass-graves-washing-up-in-local-communities/

After one reader brought up the question, I've been asking about 1715 graves that have been discovered.  I've received reports of one or two being discovered, but that is about it - nothing like you might expect from the number of deaths.

My thought has been that the dead would have been buried as quickly as possible by people trying to survive in the summer heat and humidity after a hurricane.  The graves at Hart Island were being eroded and washed out.  I suspect that the same thing might have happened to the survivor graves on the Treasure Coast.  Of course I have no evidence of that - just a theory.

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Source: TheStar.com (See link below). 

GEORGE TOWN: Archaeologists in Penang discovered twin cannons buried 1.2m below the ground beside Fort Cornwallis at the Esplanade here.

The 2.2m and 2.35m-long cannons, which are believed to be at least 200 years old, were discovered during the excavation of the fort’s moat and outer defensive structures at around 2pm on Monday.

Penang chief archaeologist Datuk Dr Mokhtar Saidin said the discovery could change Fort Cornwallis’ history as a “peaceful fort.” 
Here is the link if you want to read the rest of the article.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/02/21/double-ang-pow-discovery-in-penang/

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Here is the really big news.  March might actually march in like a lion.  The predictions have been very consistent for a few days now.  After a few weeks of summer-like weather and beach conditions, this big surf might actually happen.  Its only a few days off now.  Time to check out your equipment and get your batteries charged.  Not only will the surf be big, but the predictions are showing a north wind along with the big surf.  We also now have some nice big tides.