9/25/18 Report - The Complete Beach Hunter. Treasure Coast Surf to Decrease and Then Increase Again.

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

There are times when I spend a lot of time and thought selecting just the right word or phrase.  There are other times when I make less of an effort to be as precise as possible. On those occasions I put it out there and hope that the reader will get the gist of what I am trying to say.

Yesterday I used a a few words that were very carefully chosen.  You would never guess how much thought I put into choosing those words.  They don't seem like anything complicated or special, yet a a lot of thought went into choosing them.  The words I'm talking about are "complete beach hunter."  There were a lot of other choices.  And maybe some of those other choices would have been good choices, but I don't think they'd be as good.  I won't get into all of the reasons leading to my choice, but I want to elaborate a little on what I meant by "complete beach hunter."

A complete beach hunter is a person who does not look for one kind of treasure or a limited number of types of treasure.  The complete beach hunter is open to whatever type of treasure might be there. He has a very wide and continually expanding breadth of interests, including metal objects of various types and ages, but also an equal interest in other things such as fossils, shells, sea glass, bottles, Native American artifacts, antique toys, and basically anything of interest or value that might be found on a beach..  As I've said many times, you can find almost anything on a beach, and to appreciate the value or significance of those things can be a never-ending educational process.  In my opinion, it is impossible to be informed on every type of treasure that might be found on a beach.

I find myself after many years of beach metal detecting, still  learning as much as I ever did, and  perhaps more.  I need to consult those who have more knowledge in various areas, and continue to conduct research on items years and even decades after they were found.

I like finding fossils, for example, but am very far from being any kind of expert on fossils.  I consult those who are experts and appreciate their help very much.

As a detectorist (what some people would call a "coin shooter") I've run across a lot of things on the beach, and simply do not like the idea that I might have overlooked the most valuable thing I saw all day simply because I was ignorant about that type of item.  I know I have done it, and people do it all the time.  Its unavoidable, but if you continue to study you can minimize that type of mistake.

You probably heard stories about people on the Treasure Coast picking up what looked like black flat stones after a storm and skipping them back into the ocean.  Some were actually throwing away pieces of eight.  That might seem incredible, but I have no doubt it is true.  They were throwing away treasure.

I once saw a couple fellows with a metal detector looking for silver cobs.  I showed them what to do and where to look, and they found their first.  That was probably thirty or forty years ago.  They picked up the half reale, and with a puzzled look on their face, looked at each other.  They expected to see a nice shiny silver piece of eight.  They couldn't believe that what they were looking at was actually a three-hundred-year-old coin from a sunken treasure ship.  I'm sure they would have tossed it if I didn't tell them what they found.

I've also told the story about my first silver find on the Treasure Coast.  When my wife took it out of my scoop, she started to toss it.  It was a what some would call a "razor," which is a flat thin piece of silver without any markings.  I didn't know for sure it was silver until I took it home and tested it.  Today I'd quickly identify most pieces of silver - marked or not.

People always really like one or more types of treasure and target those.  That is natural and unavoidable, but the complete treasure hunter is open and always trying to learn about more kinds of treasure. As a result they find more and come to realize the significance and value of more things.

It seems I'm learning as much or more after a decades as I did as a beginner.

It wasn't until fairly recently that I started to learn about modern US coin varieties and errors.  I'm still very much a novice at that, but have learned a lot.  I found valuable error coins that I would never have identified a year or two ago.  Some of the coins I found long ago and kept because I thought they might be valuable, were not, and some of the coins that I didn't think were anything special, were.

The same thing goes for other types of treasure.  There is a lot to learn.  You'll never learn enough to completely avoid making the mistake of passing up perfectly interesting or valuable treasures.  You'll never be able to recognize everything of value or interest that you might find on a beach.  And you'll undoubtedly pass up things of value, just because you don't know enough about them.

I enjoy eye-balling as much as metal detecting.  To me, you aren't a complete beach hunter if you aren't using your eyes as much as you listen to your detector.  Only some detectorists who work the beaches are complete beach hunters.  It would not be uncommon for a detectorist to unknowingly trample underfoot treasures more valuable than those he seeks.

Being a complete beach hunter is a matter of attitude.  It requires being open and appreciative of a broad range of objects.  It requires continual learning.   Much of it occurs in the days and years after the finds have been made.

----

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Things have turned out pretty much as expected.  Unfortunately the system out to the east of Florida hung around and is now going north to dump more rain on the Carolinas.  That was predicted by the wind maps of Ventusky.com.

According to the surf predictions, the Treasure Coast surf will decrease and then increase again in a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/20/14 Report - What You Can Learn About Beach Detecting From Hunting Gold Nuggets, Great White and Magic Grapeshot

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


The higher surf didn't help conditions any.  It was hitting the beach straight on instead of at an angle, which resulted in more filling.  It wasn't that much higher anyway.

One Treasure Coast Beach Just After High Tide Monday Afternoon.

I showed this beach the day before yesterday.  There isn't much left of the cuts now.  Notice the sea weed, which indicates that the beach is filling.

Another Similar Treasure Coast Beach Monday Afternoon.

This one is filling in too.  Again, notice the sea weed.

It just goes to show once again that the direction of the surf is as important as the size of the surf.


I've often said how good it is to try different types of detecting.  Most people who read this blog detect beaches or shallow ocean waters a lot.  Although I know there are some, most of this blog's readers do not hunt gold in streams, however, if you ever get the chance or opportunity, try it out, because you'll have some fun, might find something, and perhaps most importantly, will learn something that will open your eyes to new opportunities and supply you with new useful skills.

There are many web sites dealing with hunting gold in or around a river or creek.   Here is a little one that in a few short paragraphs provides some helpful tips.

http://voices.yahoo.com/where-look-gold-streams-5724340.html?cat=11

I'll summarize a few of the key points from this article that apply to beach or shallow water ocean detecting.

1. Look around bends in the stream.  Why?   Because the water slows and gold will settle and collect there.  

Notice any familiar principles?   Yes, the same thing happens on a beach.  Where the water slows, gold and other heavy items will settle. 

Understanding the movement of water and where things will collect will help you on a beach too.

2.  Work the banks, not just the water.  Why?  The stream bed and water level will change over time and flood waters can drop gold on the banks.

That happens on a beach too.  The same basic forces are at work, the force of moving water, changing water levels, and don't forget gravity.

3.  Hunt around obstructions, such as boulders or cracks in the bedrock where gold will accumulate. 

Do the same in the shallow water or on the beach, especially in the wet sand or where the water has once been.

In the water or on a beach, rocks or other obstructions such as jetties or sea groins will also collect targets.

4.  The article also says, The most important step in panning a stream for gold is to develop a plan. Looking for gold in random place after random place can be frustrating and is an inefficient use of your time.

That is something I always teach here.  Randomly hunting is what many beginners do, but if you are going to become more effective, you'll develop a plan that guides your hunting.   As you hunt more, your plan should become more detailed and systematic.

I know the above web site is not the best site in the world for giving the details on how to find gold in a stream, but it quickly shows how one type of hunting can help you better understand forces and develop techniques that will help you become more productive no matter where you detect.


Here is a video of diver who encountered a Great White Shark off of Vero.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/Scuba-diver-takes-on-great-white-shark-in-Florida/260293699851/Comcast/TopVideos/?cid=sf_vidtray


Here is a web site showing the excavation of a 1700s pirate hangout up the Belize river called the Barcadares.   This is a new piece in LiveScience but is actually a rehash of previously published material.  Nonetheless, you might want to take a look.

http://www.livescience.com/15865-photos-pirates-caribbean.html


Magic grapeshot?   Archaeologists imagine that 18th century grape shot found buried in post holes under a foundation of a Caribbean plantation were magical in nature.  That seems unlikely to me.  What do you think?

Get the details here.

http://www.livescience.com/45696-artifacts-unearthed-in-caribbean.html


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

10/16/13 Report - Treasure Coast Cache Found, Hunting Old Sites with Junk & More

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

Cache Recently Found on Historic Treasure Coast Property

There are a lot of books on treasure hunting, but there are few on cache hunting.  One that I know of was written by Glenn Carson.

Glenn, by the way, put together a treasure hunting group, I think it was in the eighties, that I was a part of, and some of the individuals in the group invested in a silver mine in Mexico.  There was a newsletter.  I don't know if I still have my copies.

Anyhow, cache hunting is very different from beach hunting.  There are caches that have been found on the beach - including a cache of cobs buried in an olive jar, and of course treasure chests, although the typical typical treasure chest is often not what you might think, but just as often the container is something else, like a cannon, for example.

I've seen some very impressive caches found by treasure hunters.  One cache was a number of large silver bars.  Another was a chest of cobs found down in the Keys.

Yesterday I gave a link to some good history on St. Lucie County.  There were a lot of clues to the history of the area on that web site.

I always recommend participating in different types of treasure hunting, since you always learn something when you do something a little different.

The cache shown above was found on a Treasure Coast land site along Indian River Drive.  It was on private property.

The cache includes twenty Kennedy half dollars and three Eisenhower dollars.  Obviously that cache isn't nearly as old as some of the early settlements of the area, but it does show that there are caches to be found.

The container is a Presto canning jar with metal lid.

Coins Found in Jar

The cache was found in a junky area where broken glass, iron and junk covered the ground.

Below is a photo of a place where there was once an old Cabin.  This photo isn't from the Treasure Coast.  In fact, it isn't even Florida.  It is in the Rocky Mountains.   But I like the photo and the stove and wanted to show how the ground can be littered with all kinds of junk that can make detecting difficult.

Old Cabin Site.

If you look closely, you can see the tin roofing and other metal scattered all over the site.  That would keep a lot of people from detecting.

The thing to do is clean up the site a little.  Pick up the big pieces of tin and stuff and pile it up so you can detect most of the area.

You can use different strategies to deal with the junk.

One is to use discrimination to detect between the big pieces.  Remember though, if you discriminate, there is the danger of passing over something good like a tin can filled with cash or something.

You can start out using a lot of discrimination and then as you get a good feel for exactly what kinds of things are there and what they sound like, you can gradually decrease discrimination.

I always recommend having a good magnet to pick up small pieces of iron at a place like this.  It can really reduce the amount of digging you do.  A rake can help too.

Personally, I would have loved to have taken the stove with me.  I think it is really neat.

Shot Gun Shells Found at Cache Site.

One of the secrets to hunting junky areas is to be patient.  You can increase your junk tolerance by trying to figure out what every piece of junk is telling you.

Junk provides information.  Some more and some less.  But if you are squeezing all the information you can out of the junk, it keeps you mentally active and helps you tolerate the junk until you find what you are looking for.

Another secret is to enjoy little finds, such as the shotgun shells shown here.

Let your imagination run.  Think about who might have been hunting or what they were shooting at. That can help you get a better overall picture of the site and help guide you to finds.

I think the shot gun shells are interesting and could see how a person could really get into collecting old shell casings.  They also help you date some of the activity at the site.

Junk will often be your first clue to a site.  Broken glass, pottery and iron or tin will be among the first clues that you will see on the surface.

I'll post more on the coins of the cache some other time.


Beach conditions are not improving.  We've been stuck with the same beach conditions, it seems like forever.

You really have to hunt or those few better spots, and none are really good.

It might be a good time to consider trying some different things while Treasure Coast beach conditions remain so poor.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/19/12 Report - Tips on Research & More



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

I was telling you a few days ago about the smart educated and informed people that read this blog.  James F. is a good example.  Being an engineer and a writer that contributes to magazines, he provided us with some tips on how he conducts research that leads to finds like the recent bronze steamboat strap and ring that I showed a few days ago.



Steamboat Parts.  Photo from http://journeyspast.wordpress.com/



First though, here is a nice article that he submitted that is about a historic Florida fort site where old steamboat parts remained neglected and abandoned until recently.

The parts seen in the above photo were dredged from the Apalachicola River and were left on the grounds of  the Fort Gadsden Recreation Area in Franklin County, Florida. They were rusting away until a few months ago when when a new project to rescue them began

Here is the link for more of this story.

http://journeyspast.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/49/

I asked James to give me some tips on how he conducts research that leads to nice old finds like the steamboat strap and ring. 

One of the things he said is that  although the internet and computer makes finding certain facts quite easy, the overwhelming majority of historical information...maps, narratives, and photographs still exist only in hardcopy form.

Here is more of what he said.

The first thing I did to locate the steamboat artifact was a quick on-line search looking for generalities like major areas of steamboat activity in Florida. On-line sources indicated the St. Johns River (which flows northward, by the way) and the chain of lakes it includes (Lake Jesup, Mullet Lake, Lake Monroe, Lake Poinsett, et al) where almost teeming with steamboat traffic for almost 80 years ago, all the way from Jacksonville to Rockledge (Cocoa Beach) Florida. With this general data, I went to my local library and specifically searched for information about 19th century steamboat activity within my region...Sanford, Geneva, Oveido, Lake Mary etc. I then looked for historic facts specifically targeting those town's level of involvement with steamboat operations; Fruit and vegetable shipments, cargo and passenger operations, Seminole and Civil War materials and troops movements by steamboat, etc. It is all readily publicly available information using a few keywords like steamboat, shipping and check the index in the back of hardcover books. Once I identified the towns involved, I narrowed the focus down even further, by selecting a specific town or area to hunt.

One of my favorite sources of research material in this regard is best obtained from small local museums or historical societies. Many of these little (or not so little) organizations have some very specific resources available to you, you cannot find anywhere else; self-published books on the local area, old maps on display, people who can tell you, through family history, of certain things or places not found in a book. It was from a couple of these organizations I discovered information regarding several close-by areas where steamboat traffic and operations were very prevalent in the mid-19th Century. Using this information...old maps, photographs, drawings and other facts, I managed to piece together a promising site. A quick look on-line of aerial map views through either Google or Bing Bird's Eye (I like Bing best for this sort of search as it has very, very clear aerials that get within 25 feet of the ground) will yield current information about the site before your actual recon of the physical place. This gives you site coordinates that you will use to navigate to the location; nearby roads, landmarks and GPS information, etc.

From there, I find the online website of the local tax assessor and locate the property platt, which also gets me the name and address (sometimes even the phone number) of the owner. Again, all publicly available information. I then make a cursory visit to the site, and if it looks searchable (i.e. not swampy or too snake infested) I'll call or visit the owner and try to get permission. I always offer something in return: a free 2-hour metal detection search anytime in the future if they or someone they know loses a valuable item, or I ask if they would like to accompany me while I hunt and have their pick of the items recovered. It is their land. If you have any people skills at all, you should be able to get on site, and maybe even an invitation to come back by the landowner. That's it in a nutshell...remember to look out for snakes!

There it is.   Some great tips that have proven out.   Thanks James!

Let me repeat and summarize a few of the main points.

1.  Do a preliminary search to become more familiar with the topic, identify important key words that can lead to other resources, and reiteratively refine your search.

2.  Check with local museums and historical societies.

3.  Talk to people who may have personal knowledge.

4.  Use the internet but go beyond that.

Your research will become more productive as you accumulate a depth of knowledge and variety resources on specific locales and topics.

Of course everyone is interested in the 1715 Fleet, but it seems to me that Florida steamboat history is a thoroughly fascinating and a much overlooked are of interest.


If there is a knife/dagger collector out there, I'm sure you can give us some idea of the date on the dagger I posted yesterday.   Thanks.


Treasure Coast Beach Treasure Detecting Conditions and Forecast.

Treasure beach detecting conditions remain poor.  Conditions haven't changed for a few days.  We've had 3 or 4 foot seas for a while now, but that is about to change. 

The seas will decrease as the weekend approaches, finally going down nearly zero.  That means we'll have very nice water conditions again, and probably very good visibility.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/1/11 Report - Hunting While Wading in Rough Water - And Very Old Metal Books Found

Top Beach Hunter.

This lucky winner was in the right place at the right time to win the first annual Treasure Coast Treasure Beach Report April Fools Day Top Beach Hunter Award. The award is being selected. That is enough in itself to make anyone proud. Selection was not random. He had to be there at the exact same time that I was there and prepared to take a photo. The award winner will remain anonymous unless he decides he wants his name posted in this blog.

As for cheap tricks or fake announcements on April Fools, you'll have to find that elsewhere.


I thought the following mentioned treasure find was well worth commenting on even though it was found half way around the world. It is the type of treasure that I would love to find. I love old books anyhow. What I am talking about is a bunch of metal books (lead and copper I think it was) that are around 2000 years old. The books are thought to be from the very early years of the Christian era and are likened to the books mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Some are sealed.

To me you just couldn't find a better treasure. It could be significant in so many ways. And it has so much mystery about it. I'd love to find something like that and try to learn all I could about it and it's significance. I'd rather find something like that than a pile of gold.


If you want to read about those metal books, here is a link to more of the story.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Biblical-history.html


On a related topic that has more relevance to the Spanish shipwrecks in our area, it appears that the early Franciscan missions were designed and constructed so that the rays of the sun would illuminate the host on special days of the year.

Here is the link for more on that story.

http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_17740781?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1#


Some water hunters use dive weights to help them hunt in rough water when they are hunting in deeper water. The weights help keep them anchored. That is one way to go. I tried it early on and didn't really care for it. Instead of trying to resist the waves, I learned to use them.

What we see on the surface during a rough seas might make you believe that the waves are moving in a line one after the other directly towards the shore. That is what it looks like, but the particles or water in a wave actually move in a circular motion. I won't get into detail on that here. If you want to look into that more, go ahead.

Anyway, if you are wading in deep water, lets say up to your chin, on a rough water day, and you try to keep your feet anchored on the bottom, you will tend to bob up and down. If you keep your feet anchored on the bottom, an approaching wave will first draw you in one direction and then smash you as you try to resist it.

I remember one very rough day before I learned better that the waves were so rough that they kept knocking my ear phones off and gave me a headache.

Some people try to fight the water like that. I've found that it is much easier to simply lift your feet at the right time and as the wave passes, you will first be moved a little in one direction and then returned to the spot where your feet were to begin with. Just learn to pick up your feet and float at the right time. And then put your feet down where you started.

If you've found a target, simply mark it quickly by digging a quick little hole to serve as a marker. Then when the wave returns you, you'll be able to find the exact spot quickly by finding the hole with your foot. No problem.

You can also leave your scoop with the bottom buried in the hole and held in place by the sand in the scoop, and either hold onto it or grab it when the water returns you.

Another thing I like about this method is that you don't have to bother with weight belts, weights or any additional equipment. I like to keep equipment to a minimum. Carrying around and fooling with additional equipment takes time and cuts down on your flexibility to alter you hunting plans. Who wants to walk up the beach a half mile carrying dive weights etc.?

Its partly a matter of personality and personal preference I guess, but I always say, "Go with the flow." You can't fight nature and trying to do so will be a big waste of energy and effort.

By the way, practice in shallow calm water before ever attempting to hunt in deeper rough water. Be safe. Be sure you are comfortable and can easily handle the prevailing conditions.

Found Object.

I'm trying to figure out what this might be. I know it is hard to tell much from this photo, but the object seems to have four arms extending from the main part, and each arm used to be curved back like the one on the bottom left. The other three arms show evidence of where the curved part broke off. It looks like it was made to lay flat, but two of the arms got bent upward. After studying it a while, it looks to me like it is decorative and was attached to something else flat. But I really don't know. Any ideas appreciated.


Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is from the west and the sea is calm. In the photo at the top of this post, you can see the water gently lapping at the beach.

This morning there was a little washing on the front beach that was sifting out shells and other lighter materials and depositing them on the front beach. There was a little dip right in front of the beach. When I cam back, the shells in the water and on the very front beach were covered with a thin layer of sand. The beach can change quickly.

I continue to find artifacts. Nothing good, but the possibility is there whenever you are finding older items - old copper, iron, fossils, etc.

It looks like Monday or later this weekend the ocean will get a little rougher. Not enough to improve conditions for finding cobs. That will take more than four foot seas.

The water will remain relatively smooth for a day or two.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/22/11 Report - Water Hunting & Conditions Along the Treasure Coast

Small Cut Found at High Water Mark Yesterday Morning at Jensen Beach.

I enjoy the emails that I receive from the readers of this blog. The emails help me to know what you are thinking about and that helps me know what to talk about on any given day.

Yesterday I mentioned Jon M. who went water hunting and found his first ring. He also mentioned in his email that he noticed the water moving differently at one spot and investigate that spot. That was a good move.

It is good to investigate and dips or places where small heavy objects might be trapped and then exposed when the currents move the sand. In fact, one of the first things I would do is check out any dips close to shore. You don't have to spend all day checking out those dips. You can take a quick sample and then move on to the next dip if the first one doesn't look promising.

Many times, dips close to the shore will be filled with loose materials including a lot of larger pieces of shell. Those types of dips will not generally be what you are looking for. They will often contain aluminum and other light things near the surface, while the better objects are considerable deeper. One exception is watches. Watches will often be found in those types of dips along with sun glasses and other similar larger but lighter objects.

If a dip is long enough, it might change from one area of the dip to another. In other words, part of the dip might be filled with loose materials while the loose materials might have been washed out of another part of the same dip. In that case, generally, the washed area will be the best area for coins and gold.

Often quarters and heavy coins will indicate that you are near the best area while pennies will be found on the outlying or border area. Often you'll be able to trace through a sequence of pennies, dimes, nickles and quarters that will lead you to the center of a hole, or sweet spot.

Something else that someone mentioned today is that water hunting is a more private experience than beach hunting on a busy beach. That can be true.

If you want to be more "private" when you water hunt, snorkel. That can also make it easier to hunt deeper water. Deeper water won't always be better, but there are times when it is. Sometimes the best holes are in shallow water and sometimes in deeper water.

Another advantage of snorkeling is that you can see the bottom. That will help you to better assess bottom conditions and allow you to occasionally eyeball targets.

It's funny how little swimmers actually see about what is going on around them. I remember one day at a densely packed swimming area when a six to seven foot fish or something swam right through the crowd and nobody saw it. I couldn't believe it. There would have been some screaming going on if they would have seen it.

Just one more thing before I get off this topic. If you are just beginning water hunting, spend some time in shallow water getting your technique down before you move into deeper water or rough water. Also, if you are not a good swimmer and not real comfortable in the water, be very careful, and don't get caught in a rip tide. If you don't know what you are doing you can wander into one before you know it.

It is possible to detect in very rough water, but it will probably take a while to learn to do that.


I put a new survery on the main page. If you all vote, you'll learn more about who reads this blog.


Conditions and Forecast.

I saw some small cuts yesterday morning, as shown by the photo. They were only about one foot. But yesterday the wind changed and today is coming from the south. I wouldn't expect to see anymore erosion now. I didn't see many of the beaches, but I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe that anything significant happened on the Treasure Coast.

The surf web sites are predicting swells of only about one foot for the next few days. That means pretty calm water if you want to do some water hunting. Remember, stay out of the leased areas.

The tides are still getting pretty low at low tide. So you can take advantage of that.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/27 Report - Vertical Concentration, Cobs, Erosion and Bottle Hunting

Van Antwerp's Pharmacy Bottle.

This one is on sale on eBay, but the reason I'm talking about it is that it is the same type of bottle that got me started in bottle hunting - a Van Antwerp's Pharmacy Bottle from Mobile Alabama.

I was hunting down south of Miami just after hurricane Andrew when I noticed some old bottles floating in the surf. I never hunted for bottles before, but I recognized that the bottles I saw looked old, so I found an old plastic bag and started picking up the bottles. I remember that day very well.

I later sold that bottle, and for a higher price than this one is listed for. The market for old bottles has dropped significantly in the past few years. EBay and other online auction and retail sites have made many old bottles easy to find and collect, and as a result, prices have dropped. That is the case for unremarkable bottles. Prices for rare or exceptional bottles remains high.

Of course, you con't find rare or exceptional bottles very often,but you can often find bottles that help pay a little for gas money.

My main point is one that I often make: Be alert to various kinds of treasure. If you are a coin shooter, study and keep your eyes open for other types of treasure. The more things you know about, the more consistently successful you will be.

Vertical Concentration.

We often talk about coins showing up on a beach. How cobs get to where they are eventually found is not a very simple matter.

When conditions are good, you can often find more than one cob at a time. And they are often found very near the surface. As I've mentioned several times, I can't remember hardly ever having to dig very deep to retrieve a cob, and I have eye-balled them more than once, obviously meaning that they weren't covered by any sand at all.

Most detectorists recognize that conditions for finding cobs are often "good" when there are big cuts on the beach.

Part of what happens when the beach is cut is what I call vertical concentration. Vertical concentration occurs when cobs from various layers and depths of sand end up laying on the same level or surface.

Let's say that there are four cobs in the sand on the beach. (Right now I'm not going to discuss how they got there.) The cobs are buried at various levels. Let's say one is at six inches, one at ten inches, one at twenty inches and one at twenty five.

When the beach begins to cut, the sand washes away and the cobs are left behind. Cobs, being relatively flat and heavy, are not washed down the slope and into the water as quickly as the sand because their flat surface keeps them from sinking into the sand. At the same time, the edge of a flat cob does not present much surface area for the receding waves to push against.

As a result you'll have cobs from various layers of sand on or near the surface of the sand at the base of the cut. Only one of the coins was easily within detector range before the erosion, but now all four are within easy detecting range.

That is one of the factors that makes it easy to find cobs after the beaches cut. Cobs that were at different depths and out of detecting range before erosion end up concentrated near the base of a cut. There are a few factors that determine how far from the wall of the cut they will be.

I must stress that what I have called "vertical concentration" is only one factor in determining where cobs are found and vertical concentration is only temporary. Those cobs will eventually be washed down into the surf or covered up by sand again.

I've watched as this process occurred on different occasions so I am pretty confident that it is accurate.

In a previous blog post some time ago, I described how the sand at the face of a cut was knocked down by one wave and then the washed away by successive waves hitting the face of the cut. When the sand was washed away, heavier or more aerodynamically shaped objects were left behind.

That is enough of that topic for now.


If you are Christmas shopping, there is a map of the Treasure Coast treasure beaches now listed on eBay. The item number is 110616713315.

Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is out of the west this morning and humidity is 100%. The west wind will keep the seas calm this morning. They won't increase much until Monday when they will increase up to six feet (if the surf web sites are correct) later in the day.

As I've mentioned before, six feet is about where you start to see some possibility of improvement in detecting conditions, depending of course, on other factors.

Take a look at low tide areas today and watch for possible small cuts on Tuesday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net