3/27/19 Report - Seven to Eleven Foot Surf Predicted. Notes On Identifying Fake Coins: One Example. An Inexpensive Handy Scale.

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

Surf and Wind Predictions.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

It has been quite a while since we had an eleven foot surf, but the current prediction is for a seven to eleven foot surf.

That is definitely enough to improve beach hunting conditions if other factors are favorable.  It looks like the wind will be from the north later today and into tomorrow.

Dale J. subscribes to a hurricane weather service and received this forecast for Wednesday.

Wind direction will be North-Northeast to Northeast at 20-35 knots starting on Wednesday afternoon and continuing through Wednesday night and Thursday.  Winds on Friday look to shift to a more East-Northeast direction and gradually diminish to 10-20 knots.

Thanks Dale.

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Dan B. sent me a link to the CoinCommunity forum, which had photos of what appeared to me to be the same mounted coin that I showed in this blog a couple days ago.  While I never feel comfortable making judgements about finds from photos alone, the photos that were posted on the other site seemed a little better than the ones I had, and those other photos seemed to show what I thought could be evidence that the coin was made in a mold, which, if true, means that it is probably a reproduction.

Enlargement Of The Photo Shown On The Coin Community Web Site.

The photo appears to show suspicious raised areas.  If I am seeing what I think I am, I would think that the coin was made with a mold rather than struck.  Pictures can be tricky - especially the lighting and reflections.

You can't get true depth perception from a two-dimensional photo, and you obviously can't hold the coin to get a feel for it or inspect it at different angles.

Mounted coins present additional complications.  The mounting hides the edges, for example.  A mounting can also hide other markings, such as a "COPY" mark.  And you can not weigh the coin.

Reproduction coins are often made for jewelry and some are made from shipwreck recovered silver and sold mounted.  

Maybe a numismatic expert such as Ernie R. will be kind enough to confirm or disconfirm my suspicions. 

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On a related subject, I purchased a nice little scale at Harbor Freight for under $10 that is supposed to measure accurately to the tenth of a gram.  It can weigh in grams, oz., troy oz, dwt., and more.  It has features that I haven't yet explored.

It is useful for weighing coins, nuggets and other small  items.  If you think a coin is on the wrong planchet or made of the wrong type of metal, weigh it.

Handy Little Scale.

The scale has a nice compact cover and you can easily slip it into a shirt pocket. I've already found it very handy.

One way to tell if a coin is made of one metal or another is to weigh it.  If you want to test that, weigh a zinc penny and a copper penny.  The zinc penny will weigh less.

You can easily find online the proper weight for various coins, although there will be small acceptable tolerances.

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I'm eager to see how the surf shapes up the next couple of days and what happens to the beaches.  It is always interesting.

Cooler air is already starting to arrive on the Treasure Coast.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

  

1/24/14 Report - Pole Ax, Coded Message, Jars of Gold Dust and Mounted Coins

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

Pole Ax After Electrolysis and Sealing.
Found and photo submitted by blog reader.

Back a while ago I posted a picture of this pole ax before it was completely cleaned and sealed.  This is what it looks like now.

Very nice example.

There is some wind on the Treasure Coast this morning and it is still chilly.  I'm still not expecting any more than about a three foot surf though.

The tides are fairly flat now too.

I'm not expecting any change in detecting conditions real soon.


12 jars of gold dust worth about $300,000 were discovered when the baseboards were removed from a 1910 house in Minneapolis last month.  Also found were letters and postcards dating from 1907 - 1909.

Here is the link.

http://www.kovels.com/news-news-news/real-gold-dust-turns-up-in-a-kitchen.html?utm_source=Listrak&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=http%3a%2f%2fwww.kovels.com%2fnews-news-news%2freal-gold-dust-turns-up-in-a-kitchen.html&utm_campaign=Kovels+Komments%3a+Gold+coin+goes+for+millions


A speechless grandmother left a coded message behind when she died.  After 18 years it was put on the internet and partially solved.

Here is the link.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/the-internet-helps-decode-grandmother-s-mysterious-note-191712093.html

See if you can decode the rest.

Beach Find.

One of the easiest ways to find gold coins is mounted in jewelry.

This one looked good when it was dug but is fake.

Very old gold coins when mounted usually look too good to be true, as is the case with this one.

A lot of reproductions are mounted, including pieces of eight.

One jewelry store that I visited recently made some very handsome examples, but if you've seen many real cobs you would know that they were reproductions.

Be careful.  Many copies aren't well marked.  Sometimes the clerks won't tell you, and maybe some don't know.

Some are marked faintly or where the mark won't be easily noticed.  Sometimes it looks like someone tried to file off the "COPY" mark.  I've seen that before.

Of the more common genuine gold coins that you will find in jewelry are the Mexican DOS PESOS coins, which are a good size for mounting and also relatively inexpensive.

I think I've shown one or more of those in the past along with other genuine mounted gold coins.

Be careful when digging those.  You can really reduce the value of genuine coins by hitting them with your scoop or whatever.

If you have trouble with that practice pin-pointing and digging.   It isn't difficult to master, but will take some practice.  Also you might want to get a pin-pointer.  

It is also good to have a gold test kit of some sort.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net