5/16/12 Report - Miniature Pistol & Ancient Skulls & State Quarters



Small Cap Pistol.

Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of the treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


Nice Small Cap Pistol Find.

I've been able to identify this one.  It is from the fifties. 

As small as it is, it actually fires caps.  It opens behind the cylinder where a cap can be inserted and then the hammer cocked and fired.

It cleaned up nicely.  You can tell from the condition, it isn't a beach find.  This is the type of thing you can sometimes find in a yard or park.

I think a vintage toy gun like this would sell easily.

Ancient skulls and artifacts were uncovered when a swimming pool was dug in Florida.  They were buried with a news paper from 1978, and therefore seemed to be what they called a secondary burial.

The article said, The textiles — an intricately woven purse, a sling and a netted carrying bag — and the pottery are consistent with the Chancay culture of coastal Peru and date back to between 1200 to 1470 A.D....

Here is the link.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-12/news/os-winter-garden-bones-ancient-artifacts-20120512_1_skulls-artifacts-bones

Evidently someone acquired the ancient artifacts and brought them back to Florida and for some reason buried them.  It goes to show once again, that because a find is old, that doesn't mean it was necessarily lost a long time ago. 

There is a lot of buried stuff out there.  You never know what you might find in your own back yard.




One thing you might want to do is start a collection of the state quarters.

Launched in 1999, the United States Mint's 50 State Quarters Program was a 10-year initiative that honored each of the nation's states in the order that they ratified the Constitution or were admitted into the Union. Each quarter was produced for about 10 weeks and will never be produced again.


http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/50sq_program/?action=designs_50sq

You can still find nice examples in circulation or in your finds.  As time goes by you'll probably have a harder time finding good examples.

I like to get those booklets with the holes for the coins.  It adds a little fun to some routine finds.

Besides the clad that you typically can find in circulation, there are also silver "S" quarters.


http://lynncoins.com/proof-silver-quarters.htm


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions 

The wind is mostly from the south.  That usually means accumuation of shells and light materials on the front beach.

Seas are running around three feet.

Add that up and it means continued poor conditions.

There will still be some recent drops from beach goers and there are always the off-beach locations to do.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/21/12 Report - Miniature Detector Finds, & Other News

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


Small Religious Medallion.

Just a couple of small curiosities today. This religious medallion is one of the smaller ones that I've found. It is heavily corroded and I don't know how old it is. The back is too encrusted to see if there is any information there. I might clean it someday to find out if it says anything.


I don't know how the shiny image was create either.


I once found a religious medallion that was even smaller than this one and seemed to be one of those miniature paintings that was done under magnification with a single hair as a brush. Unbelievably small and intricate.


Three Small Pewter Plates.

I am not absolutely sure they are plates, but that is what they look like to me. And I am not absolutely certain that they are pewter, but that is my best guess. They were not found at the same beach or at the same time. They seem to be plates like a little girl might use with her dolls, but I never could understand why they were in the ocean. I guess they could have been lost on the beach and washed into the surf.

There are no markings at all that I can see, and I looked at them under magnification. I don't have any idea of the source or age.

Just a few of the detector finds that make me scratch my head.

As you know if you've been reading this blog, the Sedwick Coins auction is now online and many bids have been received. The auction will culminate with seven sessions on April 10 and 11.

If you are in the Baltimore area, you can see the coin lots in person this week at the Baltimore Coin & Currency Convention (Thursday-Saturday).


Don't forget, the 4th Annual Treasure Hunters Cookout will be held on April 28. Use the following link for more information.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ti8e8456sl8a6ucncccljdj856&topic=454885.0


I posted a new poll on this blog last night. Take a look. I haven't done that for a while. Other things came up lately and I just didn't get one or two polls posted when I really planned on it.


You never know what you might find. Some of my odd finds include a plastic leg with jointed knee, complete with sock and shoe, a few sets of dentures, and bowling balls in the ocean. I think my total on bowling ball finds is four. Oh, I found a couple of pool balls in the ocean too.

If you have any finds that seem a little odd or bizarre, let us know. Keep it clean though.

I guess anything a person might have could end up in the surf.

I've been thinking of doing a few different things in this blog but haven't worked them out yet.

Did you know that some of the most commonly used detectors on the Treasure Coast will not detect some modern coins at any depth (1 inch or less) with a discrimination setting of 1 (lowest)?

I am making a video to show you that. I'll have it ready in a day or two.


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions.

2012 has started off slow. Not much happening to change conditions. There have been times in years past when it seemed that I was changing my beach conditions rating almost every week. It hasn't been like that for quite a while.

When you have better conditions, there are more changes - sometimes up and sometimes down. But when there is a lot of sand on the beach fronts, there is only one way to go and that takes a lot of wave action coming in the right direction.

It looks like we'll have more of the same for another few days. The wind is coming from the east/southeast and the swells from the east. About four foot seas.

Around Sunday it looks like the wind will shift. The wind is predicted to come out of the north. Maybe another front. Unfortunately when the wind is coming out of the north, the seas are small. That won't do much of anything for us.

There are some rain clouds and a few drops of rain out there this morning.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net