3/25/20 Report - Ancient Florida Coin Finds. Screws and How To Tell How Old They Might Be.

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

Fake Ancient Greek Coin Find.

Not long ago I had a few posts on some very old Spanish coins found on the Treasure Coast.  Back then I was thinking of shipwreck coins and which might have been among the oldest.  I neglected to think of the silver and gold  ancient coins I found while metal detecting while I lived in South Florida, but I'm sure that some have been found on the Treasure Coast as well.

It doesn't mean that Florida was visited by the Knights Templar or King Arthur as some might conclude, but ancient coins are found in Florida, and I'm sure must have been found on the Treasure Coast.

The one shown above is a fake that was mounted in a piece of jewelry.  I saw it this morning and that is what reminded me of the real ancient coins that have been found.  I think I might have posted a few real examples before, but am not sure.

Of course there are those who collect ancient coins.  Occasionally they get stolen or are taken by children for show-and-tell and get lost somehow.  But just as often they are mounted in necklaces, bracelets, rings or earrings that get lost.  Often you can see marks on a coin that show how it was once mounted in jewelry.

When I started thinking of the ancient coins I found, I remember a "widow's mite" that I found and gave to my parents for a gift long ago.  I'm going to ask my mother, who turned 94 yesterday, if she knows where it is.

Anyhow, I was reminded of all of those ancient coins, and am sure some must have been found on the Treasure Coast.

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There was a time that if I found a screw on a beach I immediately assumed it was modern and  tossed it into the trash bag.  That was a mistake. I should have at least looked to see if it was old.

Screws have been made and used since the 1600s and earlier.  Screws were laboriously handmade until a machine was patented in 1780 for the process.   Experts use screws to help identify the age of antiques, such as furniture.  Despite my research I still find it very difficult to tell how old a screw might be.  You might ask who cares, but screws, no matter how small and inconsequential, just like any other object can provide clues for the treasure hunter.

Below is a little of what I've been able to put find on the sugject.  It is not easy to find photos of old screws that have been dated.  DJ did find some for me.  Thanks DJ!

Here are a couple of examples from an article, Observations on the Development of Wood Screws in North America by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  DJ sent me those.

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Source: Boston Museum of Fine Arts article.

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The screw shown above is one of the oldest I've seen.  It is circa 1780 but was handmade like earlier examples.

One sign of an old screw that seems to be the easiest to recognize is the off-center groove on the head.  It was simply cut with a hacksaw or something.

Another common characteristic of 18th century and earlier screws is evidence that the screw began as square nail stock.  That typically shows on the uncut area on the shank just above the threads which might still show a flat side or two.

The threads were cut made with a file or hacksaw or a cutting tool with some type of lathe, often treadle driven.  Filing or using a hacksaw to cut the threads often left easy to identify tell-tale marks.

Remember, early screws were handmade and vary according to the ingenious methods employed by the individual that made them.

Here is another handmade example from the Museum of Fine Arts article.  It dates a little later, but was still handmade.

One of the easier to identify characteristics of very old screws is a blunt point.  Here is a good example of that from Pinterest.

Can you imagine having to make a screw?

Here is another illustration I located, but don't remember where it came from.  That gives clues for dating.

Unfortunately, like every other item made of iron and found on a beach, the clues to a screws age can be erased by time and corrosion.  Here is a found screw along with a brand new screw.

The older of the two has very rounded rather than sharp threads.  I don't know if they were made that way or if they got stripped or corroded down.

I'm not always able to figure out the age of a found screw, but I learned a lot, especially how screws were made centuries ago.  I guess that one point to remember is that not all screws are modern.

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According to some sources, more than half of the confirmed coronaviruse cases are in the New York metro area.  But instead of being in lock-down, many New Yorkers are leaving and spreading the problem.  Many are coming to Florida, which will undoubtedly get a big bump in cases as a result.   If they won't stay in their own state, they are not going to self-quarantine.   You might say New York is now the US Wuhan, except it wasn't shut off in time.  It looks so much like the science fiction movies - the New Yorkers with means escaped to other areas and spread the disease while the poor are left at home unable to do much of anything else.

Indian River County, according to this morning statistics, has twelve cases, of which half are travel related.

You can track it on the Florida Surveillance Dashboard.

St. Lucie County, has six total, and Okeechobee has none.

Here is the link to the Florida coronavirus dashboard that will allow you to check the most current statistics for each county.

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429

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Friday the surf is supposed to get up around three to five feet.  That will be a slight increase.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/18/20 Report - Higher Surf Recutting One Beach. EO and UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). Random Thoughts

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

Large (Approx. 7 ft. long) Fender(?) On Beach.

I saw this item rolling in the surf Friday.   The size, I would guess, is about 3 - 4 feet high (as it lies) and about seven feet from end to end.  From how it moved I would guess it is empty.  It does have metal eyes on each end.  I didn't get real close to it, but it looked like it might be made of a thick, but hollow, flexible rubber like material, and the ends had a yellowish color, looking like brass or bronze.  I'm guessing it is a large boat fender or air bag.  It looks more heavy-duty than anything I've found online so far.  What do you think?

John Brooks Friday Afternoon.

As of late Friday afternoon, from the few beaches that I saw, it looked like the wind and surf had not yet improved beach conditions significantly.

The cut at John Brooks looked like it was being recut, but the cut was not nearly as big as it was when I increased my beach conditions rating to a two.

The beach in front of the cut was soft and mushy.

John Brooks Friday Afternoon.

Frederick Douglass Beach Friday Afternoon.

The front beach at Frederick Douglass appeared to be building.

Frederick Douglass Beach Friday Afternoon.

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A couple days ago GC was working the shell line at Fort Pierce South Jetty and picked up the usual light stuff along with an interesting EO, which is circled in the photo of finds in the photo below.

Wednesday Objects From the Shell Line

Photo by GC.

Here is how he described it.

Went to FP South Jetty Park on Wed. I see that the dune is cut back further than I have ever seen, but not as tall and vertical. So I guess any goodies are still buried under the renourishment. Lots of shells, and that shell line is where I dug up a curious object 2-3 inches in deep in sand.

     It gave off a very loud signal on my highly technical BH Time Ranger. All I did at the time was check it with my magnet because it was quite heavy. Not at all magnetic. Checked again at home with stronger magnet. Nope. When I tried, perhaps too vigorously, to chip off some of the encrusted material it broke, pretty much in half. The inside material appeared to be carbon, maybe charcoal like substance, in all appearances. and properties. I certainly have no level of expertise in identifying artifacts, but it occurs to me that it is a container or flask of some kind, possibly made of lead. In cross section an outer layer of some metallic substance, and what could possibly be a neck. That is my best guess to explain the heaviness and that layer. There are 2 areas, marked A and B, located within the outer layer, that appear to be shiny and metallic. They could be the inside surface of the container. But A has a very definite circular edge that seems quite different from B. I'm guessing that it was either round, and flattened somehow, or was a very thin, maybe pocket sized thing. The round thought is based on seeing what appears to be a crack at the outside edge in vertical photos.

      Any thoughts, ideas, guesses, would be greatly appreciated...

Two Views of EO

Find and photo by GC.

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You know you are getting old when -


you can't even remember the last time anyone asked about your schooling or occupation, which seemed so important at one time.

you are the only one who remembers the times, places and events of your childhood days.

the only people your age, or near it, that still look half way good are unrecognizable because of an extremely talented plastic surgeon.

you know more dead people than living.

you remember a day when the people you knew seemed to be united by a common view of things.

you realize that you were once just as stupid as you were young.

you realize that you didn't understand what your elders were going through and perhaps weren't as kind and considerate as you should have been.


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The wind was still blowing early Saturday morning but shifted.  It now is coming more from the south.  That means a change in how the beach was forming.

 The surf will peak about 9 AM, just after low tide.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Like I said, I'm not increasing my beach conditions rating, but I haven't seen the Vero/Sebastian beaches, so could be missing something.  As of yesterday afternoon, the South Hutchinson Island beaches that I saw weren't encouraging.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/12/14 Report - Jupiter Inlet Dredge, 1875 US Postal Card and Time Flies

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

Looks Like A Dredge Just South of Jupiter Inlet
Photo submitted by Goldnugget or NC

Last night I was looking around at some of those web sites that show where ships and boats are and what they are doing.  Those sites can be pretty interesting.  They are much like the web sites you can use to track airplane traffic.  Anyhow while looking at one of those nautical sites I noticed a dredge just below the Jupiter Inlet.  Then just this morning Goldnugget sends this picture.  There it is.  It looks like there will be more sand dumped somewhere real soon.

Web Site Showing Nautical Activity.

Here is an example of one of those web sites showing nautical traffic.  On the web sites you can generally click on the object and get additional information, such as the name of the vessel, its speed, etc. etc.

I'm not sure  now if the track I'm showing here is the one I found for the dredge, but you get the idea.  It might be the track for the dredge, but I'm not sure.




There was another vessel that was running in and out just below the Jupiter inlet.  That was interesting too.  Could have been someone doing a mag survey or just trolling for fish in a very systematic way.  I wasn't looking for that at the time.


I like ephemera.  You can often finding interesting information in old newspapers, maps, pamphlets, posters, photos, etc.

I found this post card a few years ago.  It was written in 1875 by a theology profession at Bethany College in West Virginia and sent to a fellow in Ohio wanting to know about the classes that were going to be offered.

What I recently discovered is that the first US Postal Cards were made in 1873.  Here is soe of the information I found by using this link.   http://www.metropostcard.com/guidepostals.html

Notice the spatters on the postcard.  Black ink turns brown with age.

You can go to the web site if you want to learn more about those early postcards.  I had no idea that this post card was one of the earliest.

If it was written and postmarked in 1875, it could have been created earlier.  I haven't narrowed that down yet.


Here is the obituary of the fellow that sent the postcard.  He was somewhat notable.


The internet is a great research tool.  Amazing what you can find.

For a while I taught at a West Virginia State College just a few miles from Bethany so the post card and history was a little more interesting for me.



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If any young people are reading this I wanted to post a warning to them today.  Here it is.  It doesn't take very long to go from being a young pup to an old dog.

I woke up from a dream last night.that made me think.

You know how dreams are - they don't always make much sense.  Well in this dream it seemed I was in the selection process for the US Military with a group of fellas and we were shooting rifles.  In the dream I didn't do very well.  My first shot missed the mark, and my second went through the window of a truck.  By way of excuse, I told the fellows that I had been collecting social security for three years, and the last time I was drafted was fifty years ago.  That was in the dream that I said that.

I woke up, and being that the dream was on my mind, I calculated to see if it had been that long since I was drafted in real life.  It hadn't been that long.  It was back in, mmmmm,  probably 1970 that I actually reported for my physical. 

Being in graduate school in Louisville Kentucky at the time I received my notice, I and a bunch of other young fellas loaded the bus in downtown Louisville and was chauffeured out to Fort Knox.  I remember that well.  The mood was sombre, like we had just won a free trip to Viet Nam.

I remember that I blew the top off the charts on my hearing test.   I had ears like a dog and could hear high pitch frequencies that not many people could hear.  I think listening to a constant threshold tone in my detector ear phones might have done some damage to that, but maybe it is normal aging.

I remember standing in Fort Knox in my underwear and the fellow who was inspecting us stared at my feet and wrote something down.  I thought at the time that he was noting my flat feet.  I'm not so sure that was what he was writing about now. 

I also had a trick knee at the time.  Sometimes it would lock and other times give way without warning.  That was my greatest reward from high school football.  One doctor thought I should have surgery on my knee, but there is no remaining evidence of that problem today.  I flunked my physical for some reason or another and received a 2Y draft status, which was not as bad as a 4F, if I remember those things correctly.

Anyhow, after waking up I calculated that it had only been about 43 years since the time I was drafted and not fifty something.  That isn't that long.  Nonetheless I've definitely changed from a young pup to an old dog.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge even though it doesn't seem like it has been all that long ago.  I've been a lot of places and done a lot of things in those 43 odd years.  In many ways it seems that I'm a totally different person now.

I can only feel blessed to not be much worse off for the wear.  In a lot of ways I'm better off than when I was a young pup even though I might not look like it.  The amazing thing to me is that it all took so little time.

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On the Treasure Coast the tides are now pretty flat with less than 2.5 feet of variation.

The surf is running about three feet. 

I'm hoping that by Easter we get another good chance to get some older things.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/24/13 Report - 1715 Fleet Gold Rosary, Shipwreck Onion Bottle, and Auction

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

Rosary Up For Auction in the Most Recent Sedwick Coins Auction.

Here is one item that is expected to bring a good price at the upcoming Sedwick Coins auction.  The online bidding has already started and the bidding is up to $40,000.  That isn't at all surprising to me.

Of course you all read about the gold coins and chains found off the Treasure Coast this summer.  This is an older Fisher 1715 Fleet find.

Here is the auction description.

Complete gold rosary consisting of chain, crucifix and three medallions. 64.20 grams, the necklace 30" long with 4-1/2" pendant. It is hard to fathom a more impressive piece from the 1715 Fleet, as this rosary is 100% intact and beautiful, all in high-karat gold, with the chain consisting of wire hooks, diamond-shaped mesh and small cages, connected to an ornate triangular link from which hangs one oval medallion and a cross-shaped chain of cage-links with octagonal medallions hanging off the sides and small but ornate crucifix suspended at the bottom, one of a several significant gold jewels found on the "Cabin wreck" site by the crew of the Virgalona in the summer of 1993 (with more found on the same site a year later) and featured in articles thereafter. The medallions—each one and each side different—show various saints, some with the Christ child, while the cross itself has ornate engraving on the reverse (see photo for detail). While the asymmetrically single medallion above the central triangle would seem to indicate a missing partner, it should be noted that all the intact rosaries from this two-year find have the same arrangement. From the 1715 Fleet, featured in the 1994 issue of Silver & Gold magazine (Western & Eastern Treasures) as well as Vol. Num. 3 of HRDnews (photocopy included), with Fisher photo-certificate #23286X. Recovered from: Spanish 1715 Fleet, east coast of Florida.

You can attend the floor bidding Oct. 30 in Orlando at the Double Tree Resort near Downtown Disney.

Here is a video from Sedwick Coins showing some of the fascinating lots up for auction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQOKrk6TDCY&hd=1

It is really nice that this rosary survived intact.  Often with beach finds, a part of a rosary might be found, maybe the crucifix or some other part.

I've shown the same thing with modern gold chains.  Often they are broken, especially beach finds.

In the water they are more likely to be whole, but still the incidence of broken clasps is high.

Onion Bottle in Sedwick Coins Auction.

Yesterday I talked about some glass found at 18th Century St. Lucie County sites.  Not everything in the auction will be silver and gold.  Already having a bid of $320 dollars is this 18th Century shipwreck bottle.  The winning bid will probably be considerable higher than that.

Here is the auction description.

Dutch glass "onion" bottle, intact, rare as from this wreck. 673 grams, 7" tall and 5-1/2" in diameter. This complete and totally undamaged bottle is in perfect condition, better than most non-salvage examples in fact, probably due to its contents having leaked out in the ocean, for others we have seen with corks and wine intact displayed significant flaking and discoloration from the acid in the wine. This piece, in contrast, has only minute traces of "pearling" and no chips or stars in the light olive-green glass, just some stains inside where some residue remained as well as very fine encrustation inside minute etching on the exterior. Recovered from: Reijgersdaal, sunk in 1747 off South Africa.

As I've said before, even if you don't plan on selling or buying anything, auction catalogs are a good resource for learning about coins and artifacts.

Despite the existence of the Florida Collection, few of us have seen that.  I showed that with a poll that I conducted in this blog not too long ago.

You might see pieces of black glass on the beaches.  I've shown some pictures of that.  It looks black at times when found even if it is dark green when you hold it up to the light.

The surface usually gets roughened up by being washed in the surf with the sand and shells.  The result being that you can hardly see through it unless you hold it up to the light.

If you don't know much about old bottles, look for bubbles in the glass that can indicate that is was hand blown rather than made in a mold.  The existence of large bubbles does not guarantee that a bottle or piece of glass is old.  There are still some bottles being blown, but that is not typical.

In the past I've shown some photos of old bottles that were blown and that show some nice big bubbles.


A teen girl found a 3.85 karat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

Here is the link to that video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/diamond-park-arkansas_n_4136028.html?1382379360&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl15%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D394652


Below is a Treasure Coast beach as seen near low tide yesterday.  It is not as convex as most.  

Also notice the dip between the sand bar and the beach.

Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide

The beach has been building.  Notice the convex shape.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/27/13 Report - Old Bricks and A History of Sebastian

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

Old Brick Reading Ironton/Clarion.

Yesterday I mentioned that people collect old bricks and that old bricks are occasionally found on the beach.

Some beach bricks actually come from shipwrecks.  Galley bricks (bricks used in the ships galley) were found in numbers in the ballast pile of the San Pedro, for example.

You can also find pictures of bricks in the Mel Fisher artifact database.

But there are also more recent bricks that you can find.  You can tell the difference if you know what to look for.   There are differences in the clay and the size and shape of different bricks.  And some older modern bricks are marked with names, places or initials.

Above is one such marked brick.  It didn't come from the beach though.  Just an example.

Bricks like this, with names and markings are from the late 19th and early 20th century.  That can help if you come across an old home site and see a few bricks.

A little internet searching resulted in the finding that this brick is from the Ironton Firebrick Company of Ironton, Ohio.

Anything old with distinctive markings like this can be interesting to research.

I believe this brick originally came from an old building in Fort Pierce that was torn down.  

So how did it end up on the Treasure Coast?   I suppose that it was imported by train or ship, I believe ship is most likely, though I don't know.  I  believe it came from the old hotel building down by the private school by the intercoastal in Fort Pierce, part of which was torn down way back.  I think the old bricks of that hotel were sold and used for new construction around the Treasure Coast.  I'll try to research that a little more to see if that is right.


Here is a good site to start to learn about collecting old bricks if you are interested.

http://brickcollecting.com/

Here are a couple more examples of old bricks.  They are old fire bricks, used to build chimneys and things like that.

Quigley Uni-Tex Brick.

This one came from the Quigley Furnace and Foundry Co., which had manufacturing plants at Chicago, New York, and Springfield, Mass.  The plant was being built beside a railroad, so maybe that is how it was brought to Florida.  I believe it came from the same old building in Fort Pierce.

Here is a publication from 1916 telling about the construction of the brick yard in Springfield.

http://brickfrog.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/quigley-furnace-specialties-fire-brick-chicago-new-york-springfield-mass/

And one more example.

No 1 Arch Brick.

I don't know where this Arch brick was made.  If you can tell me, I'd appreciate it.

As I always say, keep your eyes open for non-metallic items that can provide important clues.



Make sure to read the following web site on the history of Sebastian.  If you are interested in the Spanish shipwrecks, you'll need to scroll down a good way to find the most interesting material.  It is a lengthy history and starts back 100,000 years ago and has sections from different sources.

http://www.sebastianlibrary.com/history/george/prehist.html

It talks about the first and second salvage attempts of the 1715 Fleet by the Spanish, pirates and early finds by the Real Eight Corporation, and much more.


On the Treasure Coast today, the surf will be increasing a little.  The tide will be pretty flat today.  The high tide won't be very high and the low tide won't be very low.

Nothing much in the Atlantic right now.  Just one little disturbance that  is not likely to develop.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/24/13 Report - Smooth Seas, Surprise Button and Photo Editing

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

Exposed Shipwreck Being Excavated.
Source CBCNews

Here is the link to the article about the shipwreck..

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2013/07/22/pei-georgetown-shipwreck-kristmanson-584.html



Sometimes things pop up when and where you aren't expecting them.  An old button was found yesterday (photos below) by a detectorist while detecting for modern items along the towel line.   It was found between a bunch of new beer bottle caps and a very shiny brand new penny.  I wonder if it had been passed over by other detectorists because of the surrounding junk targets.

The button is very worn - almost paper thin.   You can clearly see the circle of lettering on the back, but the button is too worn to make out the words at this point.  You can also see the base of the busted off shank, which on the ends is clean and shiny.  Maybe some more editing of the photo will reveal more detail.

Back of Old Button Above and Front Below.

No Discernible Design on the Front.

Below are some old finds from years back of the same period (18th & 19th century) for comparison.  This one appears to be most like the one below pointed out by the arrow.  Notice the circle with writing going around the button.

It appears to be made like that of the following illustration.

This illustration is from the following web site.

http://www.artifacts.org/patriotic.htm



Seems like a good idea to take your camera with you when you go to the beach in case you see something old.  The lighting is often very good at the beach.


Concerning photo editing, I found a web site that seems very handy.  It is free, requires no downloading and provides a number of nice photo editing features.  The site is fotoflexer.com.   Just go to the web site and upload any photo you want to work on.  Then when you have it the way you want it, just save it.  It is that easy.

Here is a video showing a Treasure Coast beach near low tide yesterday afternoon.  Notice the lazy ocean and shells near the water line.

Up to the north where I zoomed out I meant to zoom it to show the salvage boat at work.  Since I zoomed out when I should have zoomed in, you can only see the boat as a white dot.

The surf was down around 1 foot. Very slow and lazy.

There were a lot of shells - mostly small and broken though.   It is interesting to look through shell piles.  You never know what might be found there.

The beach front was gaining sand, but the area near the water was firm.  The beach above had a small sand bar on the front of the beach that was uncovered near low tide.

The video was made by a Sony CX230.  Pretty good video camera for the price.  It lacks an external mike jack though.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/11/13 Report - RIP Chantal, Old Coins and Buttons, & Metal Detectorists Help Solve Crime

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

Beach Coin Finds by Richard O.
Photo submitted by Richard O.

First off, Chantal died yesterday (Wed.) at about 5 PM.   This is supposed to be a busy storm season, so new storms will pop up before long.  That is for sure.

Yesterday I told about some of the beach storm finds made by Richard O.  That is the type of thing I often talk about and why we follow the progress of storms.  As Richard says, when it is hot it is hot.  Of course the opposite holds too.  When it is not, it is not.

Anyhow, above is another photo Richard sent showing some of his coin finds from the times it was hot in 2013.  See yesterday's post for more information about these coin finds.  A lot of these are early 1800s.

They aren't cleaned yet, but if you look close, you can make out some of the details.

And below are some old buttons found at the same time.

Old Buttons Found on Beach After Storm
Finds and photo by Richard O.

Again, if you look close you can see some details.

And thanks again for the photos Richard.  Great finds!



The metal detecting community provides a lot of services to the public, sometimes hunting and returning lost valuables, but that is not all.

James F. sent me the following.

... I was involved in this evidence search down in Kissimmee last Saturday with my club, The Central Florida Metal Detecting Club, and some of your guys from your area, The Treasure Coast Archeological Society. The hunt was successful in that the groups found a piece of evidence that will probably solve the killing of a 17-year old teenager while he was simply walking to work, as well as another murder 14-miles away from the scene we were searching. At any rate, the hobby (and the skill) of metal detecting finally got some good press because of this, and, even though it was running around 95-degrees in very high humidity, everyone, I think, did a fine job and both groups should be commended in getting these murdering animals off the street. The police were quite pleased and we may all be called on to do this again if there is a need. Here's the link to that story in the Orlando Sentinel:

Thanks to James and the others in the detecting community that volunteered their time to help solve this crime.  And thanks to James for sending the report and link.

Here is the story from the Orlando Sentinel.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-osceola-shootings-update-20130709,0,3414832.story

Way to go guys!


I need to talk about something that in a way I'd rather not talk about.  Spending a lot of time on the beach in the hot Florida sun can be dangerous.  I've heard that 1 in 3 Floridians get some type of skin cancer.  It usually can be successfully treated if detected early, but some forms can be deadly if not caught in time.   I know too many detectorists that have had a problem with this.  Over time it does its damage.  Wear a heavy sun screen, protective clothing and visit a dermatologist if you see any suspicious or changing spots on our skin.  My wife used to nag me about that a lot, and I didn't appreciate it, but it could have saved me some problems if I'd listened.   Now I've said it.  I hope she doesn't read this.  I know that sun screen and taking all of the precautions can be a real pain, but it is not the real pain that you can get from developing skin problems.  I've had mine taken care of, but now I am more careful about my sun exposure and make periodic visits to the dermatologist.    Now the public service announcement is over.  I just felt like I needed to do that.


Today is the last chance to respond to the current blog poll.  I hope you'll do that.


The surf is 1 - 2 feet.  And now that Chantal has died, this weekend we'll have really small surf - only 1 foot.  It won't pick up again until Tudesday, according to the surfing web sites.

Conditions will remain poor for finding old treasure coins on the beaches, but water hunting should be good.  With the heat out there, it will also be one way to keep cool.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/28/13 Report - Bottles and History Found

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

Ink Bottle Found Yesterday

One thing leads to another.  That is today's subtitle, and it sure is true when hunting in the field or conducting research.

Someone recently told me they would like to see a photo of an Alfar Dairy bottle.  I was going to do that promptly but had a couple more half pint bottles from the same dairy and wanted to post them at the same time.  Well, I don't know where I put the half pint bottles so I put the photos off for a while.  Finally I decided I would post the photo of the larger bottle anyway.  I didn't know that I would find some more bottles before getting that done.  So today is mostly about bottles - and research.
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I didn't intend to hunt bottles yesterday, but I noticed an area where pieces of glass and similar things were accumulating and knew it looked right for hunting bottles, so I decided to take a look.   In just a few minutes I picked up the ink and soda bottle shown in this post.  Both were partially covered by sand, but I could see a bit of the glass showing and pulled them out of the sand.  My eye is well tuned to bottles and things.

First the ink bottle.  I think some people might call it an umbrella bottle or a bell bottle.  I don't know which is most accurate or if both are right.

As you can see from the photo it is embossed on the bottom.  It says, MADE IN USA, NO. 5, and I think WATERS.

Waters appears to be the company name, and no. 5 is the type of ink that the bottle held.  I don't know if Waters is actually the company name or if it is an abbreviation for Waterman, a common ink company.

I wrote this before really researching it, or even looking at it real good.  I think it says "Waters" even though that is blurry and I'll have to take a better look at it..

Notice the bubbles in the ink bottle.

Embossed Bottle - Probably Soda

The other bottle that I found in a few minutes of looking is embossed Cantrell Cochrane.   They are an old company, but this particular bottle is not that old.  I would say that it probably had a paper label above the embossing and would go back to the period when bottling companies were moving from embossing to paper labels.

I haven't done my research yet.  As you can see from the photos, I haven't even washed them well yet.

One additional note about the Cantrell bottle.  When I took it home, I thought it had weeds or roots in it.  It turned out that some one had stuffed a bunch of copper wire into the bottle and that is what was actually in it.  I guess the lesson there is that people sometimes stuff things into bottles and it might be worth taking a look to see what if anything might be in an old bottle.

And one tip for surface-hunting for bottles:  when there is a lot of broken glass, look for smaller bottles.  It seems they are more likely to survive but more difficult to see.

And below is the one bottle that I originally planned to show today.  It is the Alfar Dairy bottle.

Alfar provided the Palm Beach schools with milk in the 1960s.  The schools paid just under 6 cents per half pint back then.  It was the half pint bottles that I have somewhere and couldn't find.

Alfar Dairy Bottle

After WWII Alfar delivered milk to Stuart and Fort Pierce.  You'll also see milk bottles labeled Alfar Boutwell.  The two dairies combined at some point.

In the process of looking up the Alfar Dairy I discovered a lot of interesting things.  That is why I said above, "One thing leads to another."

For one thing, I discovered that you can look up online the 1940 census.  Just to check it out, I took a look at the census reports for Ankona, Eldred and White City.  It gave the residents names, ages, occupations, etc.

That could be a very useful research tool.  I won't get into that any more now.  Maybe some time in the future.  It is a little tricky to use.

I also found a web site giving history on the dairies but which also provided great clues to other old historic sites, including a fort.  

You won't find many articles that give this many good clues to historic locations.  And the only reason I found it was because I was looking up information on the Alfar Dairy.

Check it out.

http://yourhub.denverpost.com/def-section/pennock-plantation-certified-raw-milk/ASyg1pnoPechfacyDbWjJI-ugc

Good site for learning a little about Florida history.

Well, that isn't exactly what I planned to show today.  It just all fell together.  It leaves me with some other topics to finish in the future.


It looks like we'll have southeast winds today on the Treasure Coast.  That probably means more accumulation of sand, shells, ceramics and glass on some beaches, and continued poor detecting conditions.

The surf is predicted to be around three or four feet.  That is a touch higher than recent days.  Not enough to improve conditions though.

Low tide will be a little before 3 PM.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

8/1/12 Report - Tropical Storm Forming & Book Treasures

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

The tropics are heating up.   There is now a 60% chance that this disturbance in the Atlantic will turn into a cyclone in the next 48 hours.   It is now well east of the southern windward islands, so it will be a while before we feel the effects, if we ever do.  It is something to watch though.

On the Treasure Coast now, we have southwest winds and flat seas.   Low tide will be around 2 PM.
I'll keep you up to date on the storm situation and anything that might affect beach detecting conditions around the Treasure Coast.

I recently talked about book treasures.   Today I'll give you an example or two.

Here is one book that from the cover you can easily tell is not modern.  

It is a mid 19th Century travel book that was published in 1854.   There are a lot of good clues in books like this.  And the book itself, is worth a little.  I've seen modern reprints of this book listed for upwards of $50, which seems silly, but that's the market.

Old books, as well as new, often have the owners name written on the first pages somewhere.  And often a date.  Books were treasured property in past centuries, and the owner's usually marked them. 

You can sometimes find inscriptions by the author or other famous people.  Books signed by the author or other famous people can be worth more.   If a book has a name written in it, it can be worth the time to do the research to see if the person was famous. 

Below is an illustration in a more recent book that shows the type of information that you might hope to find in your researches.  It shows a fort that no longer exists, tells where it was and what was on that site in more recent days.   You can't ask for much more than that.

I saw an amazing find by one person that decided to go off beach while the beaches were sanded in.  I don't have permission to show it though.


I've mentioned Ruck's Pit before.  You can pay a fee for the day and dig their world-famous crystalized fossil clams and whatever else you might find.  It might be fun.

Here is a web site that tells you more about that.

http://www.dreamworlds.org/ruck's_crystal_mine.htm

One of this blog's readers sent me an email and told me he took home a lot of unsearched material from Ruck's and is willing to sell it because he now needs the money.   I don't know the person and haven't seen the material, and although I don't usually do this type of thing, if you want the email address, I'll let you hook up and go from there on your own.   He is in the Cocoa/Canaveral area.  If you are interested, send me an email  and I'll give you his.  


It is storm season.   Stay alert.  Be prepared.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/24/12 Report - Debby Headed Towards Texas & Find Actually Millions of Years Old



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



Sea Weed Covered Beach Before Low Tide Yesterday



I took a look at a few different beaches yesterday just to see what is going on.  They all looked pretty much the same.  There was a good bit of sea weed on all of the - some more than others.  The photos show that variation.  The one beach was pretty much covered by sea weed.  I understand it can be used as fertilizer.

There were also a good number of shells on the beaches -  again more on some beaches than others.  Unfortunately the shells were mostly small and broken pieces.  Not very good for either the shell collector nor the person that inspects shell piles for other goodies.

Both the sea weed and accumulation of small shells indicates building rather than eroding beaches.  Not a good sign for the detectorist.

The water was gentle - definitely smooth enough for the water detectorist, but murky.  Visibility near shore was poor.  The sea weed would also be a nuisance for both the beach and water detectorist.   Not to mention those little irritating pests that float in the sea weed.  A wet suit or some other  protection is recommended.

On the beach fronts in the accumulating sand, there were a variety of lighter targets, such as iron or aluminum, that got washed up with the new sand.  I've discussed before how it is really not weight that is important, but rather density and shape that influences where you will find objects on a beach, but I say light or heavy instead, simply because it is quicker, and I think you generally know what  I mean.

Another Beach Near Low Tide Yesterday Afternoon

I also recently mentioned that there are some dangerous sharp objects on some beaches now.  On one beach that doesn't have many targets of any kind, I dug a foot-long piece of barbed wire.  I don't know where that came from.  I haven't seen any barbed wire on that beach before.  While the barbed wire could possible cut you, it is not nearly as dangerous as those broken pieces of steel cable down at Walton Rocks.  Be careful of sharp objects that may appear on any beach.

I made a mistake the other day when I mentioned a possible age range for the horse magnum fossil that I showed.  Fred D., the fossil expert that often helps me to identify found fossils, indicated that I was not even in the ball park, for the age of that fossil find.  Instead of thousands of years, I should have been talking in terms of millions of years. 

Here is what Fred D. said.  The Pliocene goes back at least 5 million years to about 2 million before the present. Because of its dark coloration and degree of  mineralization, it is most definitely Pliocene. Judging by the size, it could be one of the two toed horses.

Thanks once again Fred.

Projected Path of Debby From NOAA.

It looks like Debby isn't headed towards Florida at all.  It looks like she is headed towards Texas.  That might be a good thing.  They had so much drought this year, that they can probably use the rain.

The sea is flat this morning.  It will increase a bit later in the day, but not much.

The wind is out of the south and will remain that day until later in the week, when we'll have a  few hours of a north wind, and the seas will increase up to about four or five feet around Thursday.

No change in detecting conditions expected for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/28/12 Report - Woodlawn Park & Using Old Postcards for Research

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

St. Pete Pier Postcard.

A couple of days ago I mentioned Tarzan Park, a tourist attraction in Vero back around 1900, and yesterday I suggested maybe trying to find some of the old tourist spots to detect while the local beaches are sanded in.

James F. sent me a link to a 1997 article about Woodland Park, which he has been hoping to locate. Woodland Park is not on the Treasure Coast but is the type of place I was talking about and could be a dream of a detecting site.

From what the article says the amusement park was in operation in 1917, and was a tourist haven. It was on the shores of the St. Johns River and served by paddlewheelers. It was sometimes referred to as "The Gateway to South Florida," or "The City Substantial."

Farmer Schmelz created the amusement park on top of a Timucuan midden mound on several acres of woody swamp land a few hundred yards from Lake Monroe.

It had a dance hall build on stilts over Lake Monroe and a gigantic swimming pool and many rides and attractions.

That would be a great place to research and detect. If you want to go after it, I'd suggest letting James or this blog know what you find. James was generous enough to provide the lead and said I could post what he found.

The site could provide both some good water and dry land hunting. Just finding out where it was would be a fun project and quite an accomplishment.

One reader of this blog took a lead that I provided earlier in this blog and located the site and information about the Walton Hotel and then detected the site.

That is the type of thing you can do if you are tired of detecting the same old beaches that everybody else detects over and over again. Of course you have to do some research, but that can be very worthwhile.

One tool I'd suggest using is a good old USGS topological map.

Another resource that I like to use is old picture postcards.

At the top of this post you see the St. Pete pier. I believe that postcard is from the fifties.

Can you imagine all of the stuff that is in the water below that pier? Of course there would be tons and tons of lead, but also a lot of other things.

When using a postcard like that, notice the background and all of the details such as the boats and where things were back then. It looks like there might have been a ferry or shuttle boat there, but maybe just a fishing or sight-seeing boat.

You can also see where people were gathering on the beach.

Old Postcard Showing Location of a Cabin.

This one isn't of Florida but it is a good example. Somebody marked the location of a cabin on this nice aerial view along with the mileage to the cabin.


Tresure Coast Beach Conditions and Forecast.

The wind has shifted as a front comes through and is now coming from the north/northwest. Seas are still running around two or three feet, so conditions haven't changed yet.

We're still expecting five foot seas on Monday. That will give us some chance of improvement.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net