7/23/19 Report - Tropical Depression Three. Eagle Badge. Roman Fish. Epistemology and Identifying Artifacts.

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

Tropical Depression Three

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

It's that time of year when the Atlantic gets active and you have to be ready and alert.  Make sure your batteries are charged and your equipment is in good repair.

In the last couple of days, Tropical Depression Three formed just off the coast of Florida.  The projected path was north along the coast, but it has already fallen apart.

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Here is a find for ID.  It is about one and three sixteenths high and wide.  I'd say it is a hat badge (maybe WW II) but it is smaller than others I've found.

It should be easy enough to ID.  I just haven't taken the time to check it our yet.  Maybe someone can do it for me.

Thanks.

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Here is a good article illustrating the difficulty of artifact identification.

Source: See TheGuardian.com link below.

A fragment from a Roman bottle so exceptionally rare that it has taken glass experts from around the world two years to conclusively identify it has been discovered thousands of miles from where it was made.

The discovery at Checkworth Roman Villa  in Gloucestershire of the small shard of patterned green glass, part of an 1,800-year-old fish bottle, has astonished archaeologists...

The distinctive profile of the glass indicated it came from a long bottle with an oval shape and a sharp taper at the end. Price eventually found it matched a restored fish-shaped bottle in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass in New York.

In an indication of its rarity, the only other example of a Roman fish bottle comes from a 2AD burial at Chersonesus in Crimea...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/22/mystery-of-chedworth-1800-year-old-roman-glass-shard-solved

So will it now be repatriated?

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The main subject of this blog for me, you might be surprised to learn, is epistemology.  It is the subtext of so much of what I post.

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.  Put more simply, and in the words sung by award winning Amy Adams in the movie Enchanted, it attempts to answer the question, "How do you know."

Whether you are attempting to determine where you will find things on a beach or what some dug object such as the Roman glass artifact really is, there is a process, and that process is very interesting and important to me.  The question you might ask about any belief, natural or spiritual, is "How do you know?" You should have an answer for that question, whether it satisfies anybody else or not.

Much of the time, consensus is what people are looking for.  If most people agree, or if the experts agree, then it is accepted, but there are many times when the general view has been wrong and there have been many times when the experts were wrong.  If you look at why they were wrong, you can learn a lot from that.  What types of mistakes did they make?

The article about the Roman fish bottle is a good example.  They went through a process.  They started out, like we all do at times, not having a clue, then doing the research and eventually coming to a conclusion.

Recently I've talked several times about how difficult it can be to determine the age and identify of items.   In this case, the top experts with all their resources took years to identify a single artifact.  They were lucky they found an exact match.  That doesn't always happen.

The professionals make assumptions too - sometimes more than other people.  They accept the dogma of their professional community.  It is required to a large extent.

How did they identify the Roman fish artifact?  They found an artifact that matched their piece.  How convincing is that?  Could they be wrong?  How and why?

In the near future I plan to talk about the factors that we can use to identify the age of an dug artifact. In fact, I was going to start that today, but at the last minute decided to provide this background first.  That was partly because I ran across the article about the Roman fish.

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Lightning on Clearwater Beach recently killed and injured people.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-lightning-strike-beach-8-injured

Be careful.

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Let me know what you think of the eagle pin/badge.

Happy hunting
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/19/19 Report - Mystery Quickly Solved. 18th Century Tavern. Evaluating Age of Old Bottle.

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

Modern Wine Bottle Topper.

Yesterday I posed a mystery item.  It is no longer a mystery, thanks to Mitch King, who found this photo of a brand new wine topper of exactly the same type.  Besides the pewter top being corroded, the one I showed yesterday was also missing the cork that surround the wood core.

I couldn't believe he found a photo of the exact item that quickly.

Susan E. also correctly identified the item.

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Archaeologists exploring the site of a recently discovered 18th Century tavern in eastern North Carolina say they were stunned to learn it burned to the ground with a treasure trove of merchandise stored under the floorboards.

The fire, which occurred in the 1760s, caused the walls to collapse over the floors, sealing the crawl space shut like a “time capsule,” says Dr. Charles Ewen, who led the dig with a crew of students from East Carolina University.

It is suspected the site might also have served as a brothel for the historic port, known as Brunswick Town.

Items found under the foundation include intact smoking pipes that were never used, crushed liquor bottles and iron tools that historians can’t yet identify, Ewen told the Charlotte Observer...

Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article230892034.html#storylink=cpy

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article230892034.html


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I recently showed a bottle with a wire top and stopper.  I thought it would be instructive to take a closer look at it.

Closer View of Top of the Bottle.

It looks something like a Lightning stopper, but is actually a Swingtop stopper that shows some age.

How old do you think the bottle would be?  Take a look at the next photo and see if you see any clues.

Swingtop Closure

Despite the age shown on the stopper, the glass looks fairly new.  If it wasn't for the age on the stopper, I'd think it might be a reproduction bottle.

Same Bottle.

The seam on the bottle runs all the way to the top,  there are no bubbles in the glass, and the glass is thin and of uniform thickness.  It does not look very old.

Besides being found on reproduction bottles, lightning and similar tops are occasionally used on modern beers and other bottles.

You can usually tell the difference between old and newer machine made bottles just by looking at the glass.

I didn't take a photo, but on the bottom of the bottle is a faint Hazel Atlas symbol and K-703-11.

We know from the history of the company and the Hazel Atlas mark on the bottom that it was made between 1902, when the Hazel Company and Atlas Glass Company joined to form Hazel Atlas, and 1956,  when the company was bought by Continental Can Company.

The illustration below provides some useful information.

Source: See WVCulture.org link below.

The K indicates the plant was the Zanesville, OH plant.  I suspect if I did some additional research I could come up with a much more precise date.

See http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvhs/wvhs1721.html

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That item has a lot of personal connections for me.  Before my father was able to get into the service during WW II, after several failed attempts, including running away to Canada to try to get into the Royal Air Force and being put on a bus and sent back home, he worked nights packing jars at the Washington, PA  Hazel Atlas plant during what was supposed to be his freshman and sophomore years of high school.  He really only attended school during football season to play football, and continued to work nights at the plant.

Shift work was the norm, and all, regardless of position or seniority, worked as dictated by management. The company policy was to employ only those of age 18 or older, but tales are told of some who were able to "fudge" their age and begin employment at 16 or 17. (WVCulture.org web site.)

According to my best figuring he got work in the plant even younger than 16.

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We are really stuck in a pattern of little surf and rainy days.

I've been hoping to get out to investigate an overgrown site that has the remains of an old broken down chimney, but the weather hasn't be coorperating.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/31/18 Report - Illustration Showing How Sand is Moved. Deadly Lightning.

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

Shallow Water Sand Spit

As you probably know, I spend a lot of time talking about how sand and other items move on a beach and in the shallow water.  That is critical information for any detectorist who wants to understand what is going on and where coins and things will most likely be found.  Today I'm going to try to show a developing sand spit.

In the above photo, there is a sand spit that runs from the bottom right of the photo to near the top center of the photo.  I'll outline that below.

Also there was water hitting the spit from two directions.  I'll also try to highlight that.

The predominant direction of the waves is illustrated by the blue line labeled A.  In deeper water that was the direction (from the upper right corner towards the center of the picture ) of all the wind driven waves.  As you can see things were different in the shallow water.

Near the orange circle, labeled D, there seemed to be a point where the waves bent and came up onto the sand bar as shown by C.  I watched this a little earlier before the bar was covered by water and waves were coming from about two o'clock and there were also waves hitting the bar from about 10 o'clock.  I wish I had my camera at that time.

The orange spot (D) would be the first place I'd check with a metal detector, however the dip was not nearly deep enough at this time.

The waves coming onto the bar from the left were getting bent and breaking on the sand spit.  You could see how the spit was bending the waves coming from that direction.

The following illustration shows waves hitting the spit from both the right and left.

Yellow Lines Indicate Waves Coming From Left
and Orange Lines Indicate Waves Coming From Right.

I came back the next morning and, as you would expect, the spit had changed a little.  The tide was lower and you could see more of the sand.  It had changed a little, but you can still see the waves wrapping around the point.

The water was funneling through the low spot and then encountering the slope, and having no where to go, piled up on the slope and the spit.  The waves appear to slow wherever it is shallower.  That causes the waves to bend.  There was undoubtedly also some water bouncing off the hump of sand at the upper left and bouncing back towards the spit.

Layers of Sand Built Up On Left Side of Spit.

Pshewww!  I finally got that done.  I spent a lot of time trying to upload a video but never got it to work.

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A Lake Worth woman was killed by lightning.

https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/weather/lake-worth-woman-killed-lightning-strike-parkland-injured/Chbg6q5PcbM71opQGjpF6I/

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I spent a lot of time on the illustration above.  I'll get back to some other things I had planned in then near future.

Check out the TGBottleBarn.blogspot.com.

I'll keep adding Treasure Coast bottles as I get a chance.

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On the Treasure Coast have a one foot surf for a few days.  That makes for easy shallow water hunting.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/9/17 Report - Hurricane and Storm Threat. Amazing Lightning Video. Detecting Watches and Surprising Metal Detector Responses.

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

Source: nhc.nooa.gov

It looks like Franklin is going to hit Mexico as a hurricane.

The weather way out to the east of the West Indies on the map is the one that the local weather channels have been talking about in relation to Florida.  It isn't expected to develop until this weekend.  It is supposed to stay out by the Bahamas and maybe be more of a threat to the Carolinas. It seems to be heading more to the north now.

We have some new weather shown on the nhc map now.  It is already over the Bahamas but is disorganized and probably won't do much more for us than bring some rain.  It doesn't look like it will increase our surf.

I'm not expecting any significant change in beach detecting conditions any time soon.

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What Happens When Lightning Hits a River
Source: See clip below.

You have to see this.  This is an amazing video.

https://kost1035.iheart.com/content/2017-08-02-what-happens-when-lightning-hits-a-river-watch/#.WYXtO2xYBml.facebook

It appeared to me like the lightning following a small stream or runoff down over the bank and into the river.

Anyhow, really cool video.

Be careful when there might be lightning around.

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Some of my most valuable finds are watches. They are very common finds for me, even when I hunt heavily hunted areas.

You can't depend upon a detector to tell you that you are over a watch - at least not any detectors that I'm aware of.

Watches differ in size, shape and composition.  If the watch is laying with the face flat against the ground or looking up as shown as position B below, you'll generally get a pretty good signal.

If, however, as is often the case, the watch is positioned with the face perpendicular to the ground ( position A in the illustration below), the signal you get will vary a LOT depending upon a lot of variables including which direction you swing the coil.  I made a video that illustrates very clearly that you can get little or no signal when you swing your coil in the N/S direction over a watch that is laying on the ground like the one shown as position A.  It is really striking, and to me, the extent of the effect was surprising.  If I get my video uploaded you'll see it very clearly.

Swinging in the W/E direction and perpendicular to the face of the watch will result in a much better signal.  You might get a double signal as you cross over the watch and band, depending upon a lot of different things, but you'll certainly get a much better signal than when you move your coil in the N/S direction.

As I said, there are a number of variables.  The band can be in a variety of positions. The detector and mode will also affect the results.  I hope I get my video loaded soon.  I think you'll be amazed by what it shows.  I'll quit trying to describe what my video will show.

In the experiment reported above, I used "coin mode" on the Garrett Ace 150.  That might be the reason for the results. I'll do the same test using other modes to see how they differ.  I usually use all metals mode.  That might make all the difference in the world.  I'll see.

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Some people think there is a coup underway in the U. S.

http://www.wnd.com/2017/08/after-the-coup-what-then/print/

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That is all for now.  I'll try to get my video uploads worked out soon.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/18/16 Report - The Spanish Conquest of the New World. Tactics. Black Conquistadors. Toledo Steel.

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

Julia, Karl, and a Newer Disturbance.

Julia is not moving fast, but is drifting a little north while weakening.

Karl is heading north, a little below Bermuda.

The disturbance over by Africa is strengthening and I expect to follow Karl, but we'll have to wait to see.

Nothing but one or two foot surf is predicted for the next several days for the Treasure Coast.

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Lightning can travel many miles from its source.  One bolt was recorded as 199 miles long.

I read that 35 people were killed by lightning so far this year.

Here is an interesting article on record-breaking lightning.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/09/15/world-lightning-strike-records/90418046/

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A perspective largely unexamined in past works on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico has been the details of the tactical systems of the respective sides, and how these systems worked on the battlefield to produce the Spanish victory. This article examines the Conquest in terms of tactics, applying a military-historical perspective to ethnohistorical texts and data gleaned from modern works. It is shown that Spanish infantry tactics and horse cavalry were critical factors in the Spanish victory...

Here is the link to that interesting article.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/aztec-tactics.pdf

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Although race is a concept that I find indefensible, here is an article about a black conquistadors and other blacks in the early days of the Spanish New World.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/colonial/black-conquistadors.pdf

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A few days ago I posted a picture of a dagger made of Toledo steel that was said to be found on the Treasure Coast.  I found this article on Toledo steel interesting.  Here is the first paragraph.

Although Toledo is a well-known city, few know just how famous and important it used to be a couple of centuries ago. Today Toledo is famous for its art and Damascus gold decoration known as Damascene but before firearms were invented Toledo was the centre of the world for forging metals and more specifically sword making. The fame of the master sword smiths from Toledo lay in their unrivaled skill in tempering steel, a unique art form that no one was able to copy. Steel from Toledo has been considered the most prestigious in the world ever since the V century, mainly due to its characteristic flexibility and strength, which was later employed in fencing. For centuries Toledo lead the world in sword making and for centuries they managed to keep their “trade secrets” within the family. The master sword smiths jealously guarding their “Secret of Temper”, only passing it on to their children, who in turn guarded the secret and passed it on from generation to generation, making Toledo steel the most sought after steel for centuries. It was later discovered that the master sword smiths each had their own very characteristic formula. These formulas were the secrets of their trade and were never written down. Instead each master converted his “secret” into a series of songs or prayers, and the rhythm of the song or the speed of the prayer and its repetitions marked a specific time frame which enabled them to accurately measure how long the sword should be immersed in water to reach an optimum “temper”. The songs, verses and prayers which marked each stage of the process were either hummed or sung in silence so no one would be able to steal their secret. But at the same time they were easy to recite in exactly the same way every time they produced a sword, leaving no margin for error.

Here is the link to that web site.

https://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/bestofspain/8968/the-secret-of-toledo.aspx

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You might have noticed that when football season begins I sometimes miss making a post, especially on a Sunday.  That happened this week.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/27/14 Report - Million Dollar Hoard Found By Metal Detector. Success of Portable Antiquities Scheme. Probability.

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

Seaton Down Hoard
Source: See link.

The Seaton Down Hoard, found by an amateur detectorist, consists of 22,000 coins and is valued at nearly $1.5 million dollars. 

The hoard has the distinction of including the one millionth object reported as a part of England's very successful Portable Antiquities Scheme, which, unlike the American system, rewards those who find and report antiquities.  The PAS has been hugely successful.  Too bad we don't have something similar.

The Seton Down Hoard was located by amateur detectorist, Laurence Egerton.

The Independent reports, Laurence Egerton, 51, a semi-retired builder from East Devon, discovered two ancient coins “the size of a thumbnail” buried near the surface of a field with his metal detector in November last year.

After digging deeper, his shovel came up full of the copper-alloy coins. “They just spilled out all over the field,” he said. “It was an exciting moment. I had found one or two Roman coins before but never so many together.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/the-seaton-down-hoard-amateur-metal-detector-uncovers-22000-roman-coins-9758483.html

 Coin From Seaton Down Hoard
Source: Same link.

This is an interesting article that you'll want to read.

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.
Probability is an interesting subject and very relevant to anyone that takes detecting seriously. 

Skill might be defined as anything you intentionally do in such a way that it increases the probability of success.

Different people will define success differently.  For some it might be finding a valuable object.  For others it might be finding something old.  For others it might be finding a personal item of sentimental value and returning it to the owner.

There are many metal detecting skills.  You can skillfully use a detector, read a beach, or conduct research, to name just a few.

A good knowledge of probability will help you.   It is not something you can be totally precise about, but by deriving a good estimate of the probability of success at different sites or under different circumstances, you can increase your rate of success over the long run.

Just a few basics.  One site can produce a lot of coins but little of much economic value.  Lets say the average gold find at that site is worth $50.  And you make a gold find at that site once every five hunts on average.   That means the average gold find would be  1/5 X 50, or $10.

At another site, the gold is of higher value but you find it less often.  Let;s say the average gold find there is worth $200, but you only make a gold find at that site once every ten trips.   That means your average expected gold find per hunt would be 1/10 X 200 or $20. 

That means that the second site produces more value on average even though you find gold at that site less often. 

There are other things that should be taken into account.  One of those is personal preferences.  

Some people get discouraged easily and like to find something nearly every hunt even if it isn't very valuable, for example.  They might stick to high-probability but low-value sites just because of personal preferences.  Those people are not suited for something like the search for the Atocha.  They would get discouraged and give up way before finding that kind of high-value target.

There is always the element of chance involved in metal detecting.  There are factors which you have no control over, or at least which you did not take into account, that will affect the probability of success.  The element of chance provides a good bit of the excitement of metal detecting.



The history-buff that owns President Eisenhower's Rolex did not accept an auction bid of $475,000.

http://nypost.com/2014/09/17/owner-of-eisenhowers-rolex-snubs-475k-auction-bid/



The other day I was talking about lightning.  You can check for lightning in your area at various web sites.  One is weatherbug.com.

http://weather.weatherbug.com/FL/Port%20Saint%20Lucie-weather/weather-maps/lightning.html



Speaking of probability, what is the probability of being killed by lightning?

The National Safety Council says 1 in 136,011.   That is hugely better than the odds of winning PowerBall.

Here is a link to that site which presents a list of causes of death and the associated probabilities. 

http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistics/Documents/2014-Injury-Facts-43.pdf

If you go back to your car to avoid lightning, there is a good chance that you will be killed as a pedestrian.   1 in 723.

And if you then drive home, you might consdier that the chance of being killed in a motor vehicle incident (in your lifetime) is 1 in 112.

I know there are a lot of qualifications and ifs, ands and buts.   I'm just having some fun with the numbers. 

I do find it interesting how fears and behavior are so often proved to be irrational when you really get down to the numbers.  

Nobody wants to ban cars even though they kill way more people than guns.  They are just too convenient and too much a part of daily life.


I have more Treasure Coast find photos to show but that is all for today.


There is no weather in the Atlantic to watch now, and the surf on the Treasure Coast remains in the two to three foot range.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

7/28/14 Report - Target ID Test On Silver Beach Finds. 13 At Beach Injured By Lightning. Old Bomb Stuck In Tree. New Tropical Wave.

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

1715 Shipwreck
Ornamental
Silver Fragment

Silver Bullion Coin.  1966 100 Pesetas.

As I promised, I did additional tests of target ID and discrimination using the Ace 250 for the tests.  This time I used some things that have been found on 1715 Fleet beaches over the years as well as a few other items.

Today I'll show what happened when I used this ornamental piece of silver.  I don't know for certain what this piece of silver was.  It obviously is broken.

 

This item and another very much like it gave an inconsistent pull tab ID in all four modes that I tested (All metals, relic, jewelry, and coin modes.).  It displayed pull tab a good bit of the time but jumped around.

 

You can't really expect a detector to correctly identify an item like this.  Yet you'd probably want to dig it.

 

Another item I used with this test wasn't a 1715 item.  It was the 1966 100 Pesetas bullion silver coin shown above.  It came from a Treasure Coast beach, but not a shipwreck treasure beach.  It weighs 0.6 troy oz.

 

This item was consistently identified by the detector as a 50 cent piece in all four modes.  Not exactly what it is, but not bad at all.  You couldn't expect any more of a detector.

 

Also I tested a silver dime.  Just like clad coins, it was properly identified as a dime 100% of the time.

 

I'll get into cobs on my next report.

If you are going to use target ID or discrimination, you should know how it works.  It is not always as simple as it seems.  You can easily miss some of the best things out there.  As I often say, test your detector on the types of targets you really want to find.

 

 

Here is an important warning!  We've had a lot of thunderstorms. 

 

Lightning killed one person and injured thirteen others when it struck the beach and water at Venice Beach, California.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/27/us/lightning-strike-venice-beach/index.html

 

Be careful when lightning is anywhere around.  It can come from miles away very unexpectedly.

 

 

Buried million dollar treasure in Yellowstone Park?   That is the rumor, and the rumor has the park service alarmed. 

 

http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/Park-rangers-warn-against-treasure-hunt-in-Yellowstone-National-Park/312753731795/Comcast/Today_in_Video/?cid=hero_sf_TIV

 

I suppose only treasure hunters have been rescued?  Why not the same alarm over climbers and hikers that get in over their heads.   I'm sure a lot more of them have been rescued than the two "treasure hunters."  

 

Don't get me wrong, don't hunt in parks or other places where it is illegal.  Obey the laws.  I just think treasure hunters and detectorists receive disproportionately bad press.  Treasure hunting is a bad word for some.

 

 

There was an clean up of the waterways around Sebastian.

 

http://www.veronews.com/news/sebastian/spotlight/trash-plucked-from-area-waterways-during-annual-cleanup/article_48e2cbae-1528-11e4-a402-001a4bcf6878.html

An old bomb remained stuck in tree for 75 years.  Interesting picture. 

http://www.thelocal.es/20140711/civil-war-bomb-stuck-in-pine-tree-for-75-years


There is a tropical wave over by the Verde Islands with a 30% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours.  It is a long way off, but could develop.

On the Treasure Coast still more of the same.  No change in beach detecting conditions.

Use the g+1 button at the bottom of posts to indicate which posts you particularly like.  That will give me feedback on what you like to see.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net.