9/18/18 Report - Detectorist Finds Gold and Pearls. Some Uncommon Beach Coin Finds.

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

Part 1500-year-old Cache Found by Detectorist.

In 2017, Terese Refsgaard was out with her metal detector in a field on the island of Hjarnø in Horsens Fjord and struck lucky.

In all, more than 32 pearls and pieces of gold have been found and the items are more than 1,500 years old, reports Politiken.

As well as the pearls, the items include pendants, a gold pin and pieces of gold cut up and used as currency...

Here is the link for more about that.

http://cphpost.dk/news/theres-gold-in-them-thar-hills-or-at-least-on-hjarno-island.html

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1927 Gold-Toned Quarter.

It is rare when you find a mint state coin on a beach, but it happens.

It isn't very often that you find a bullion coin either.  But that happens too.

When I started looking into coin collecting, I learned how important condition is to most coin collectors.  I knew it was important, but some coin collectors take it far beyond what I expected.  The slightest increase in condition, can multiply the value of a coin many times.

300 year old cobs or other very old historic coins don't have to be in excellent condition to have some value, but condition still counts.  A reale with a nice readable details is more valuable than a cob with little detail.  A discernable date is a big plus.

But what I wanted to talk about today are more modern coins, and especially those found on a beach.  Over the years I've found a few beach coins in excellent condition.  That is almost never the case if the coin has spent any time at all in salt water.  There are some very rare exceptions to that too.  I once found a coin in the water that was encased in plastic and none the worse for the experience.  Usually you see ugly black oxidation.

I have found a lot of silver coins, but the one shown above is the only one that has developed such bright gold toning.  I'm curious as to how that happened.

1977 Isle of Man Silver Jubilee One Crown.

Here is a coin that I found on a beach in my early days of detecting.  It is not a coin that ever circulated.  It is a commemorative coin.  Yet it was left on a beach, and I found it before it was badly damaged.  The melt value is about $12, but it one person said it would be MS 62.  You seldom find a mint state coin on the beach.

It has two scratches.  You can see them on the queen's shoulder.  I'm not absolutely sure but think I might have made the scratches when I dug it up.

In my opinion, coins in excellent condition are so rare on the beach, that a lot of care in recovery is usually a big waste of time - especially if you are in the wet sand or water.  However, on some rare occasions, you might regret any small amount of damage you might do.

Reverse of Same Silver Coin.

Here is another example of the type of coin I wasn't expecting to find on a eroded beach.  The condition is very good - estimated by some coin collectors to be EF to VF.

1966 Silver Spanish Coin.

This one fooled me when I dug it up.  It was on s remote beach where I would never expect to find anything like that. 

Below is what I first saw in my scoop.

Reverse of Same Coin.

I thought it was a fake Spanish coin.  No fake at all.  Not at all what I expected.  I just threw it my pocket and didn't pay much attention to it at all until I got home and looked at it better.

This one has a melt value of about $7.00, but the right one in MS 60 or above condition could bring five or six hundred dollars.

I wondered how and why it was left on the beach.

Those are two coins that I would not expect to find on a beach at all, especially in such good condition.

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There is nothing significant in the Atlantic, and the beaches are calm.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/29/18 Report - Silver Coin Find. Long Ater the Find. Recommendations for the Coin Collecting Community.

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

Isle of Man One Crown Silver Jubilee Coin

When you start detecting, you probably never think about ten, twenty or thirty years in the future.  You know what you found and where you found it and you know whatever else you've learned about your finds. One thing I appreciate more every year is the importance of good organization, labeling and storage. You'll read something or learn something and all of a sudden decide that you want to take another look at a particular item but can't remember where you put it, or worse yet, remember that you put it somewhere safe, but can't remember where that was. Or you find an item that you found long ago and researched, but now you don't remember what you learned about it. Maybe you can't even identify it anymore. You just remember that you once knew more about it.

That might sound like a memory problem, but if you've been hunting for a few decades and made thousands of finds every year, few people will be able to keep up with the large number of finds and all the research.  I'm often surprised by how often I learn something new about an item after I had it for a few decades.  Just today I found out that one coin I've had for years could be worth quite a bit more if it has a straight nine rather than a nine that is more curved.  You learn things like that, and sometimes its only after years have passed.  The bottom line on all that is that it helps to organize your finds, keep records and label them well, and store them safely.  I hate when old items get corroded or broken.

Same Isle of Man Silver Jubilee Coin.

This is the first more interesting coin that I ever found.  It is 80% silver and it is one of those things that you wouldn't expect to find in circulation or on a tourist beach.  I remember finding this one four decades ago on Hollywood Beach.  It is one that impressed me enough when I picked it up that I still remember it.  At that time I was mostly finding clad spending change.  Being over 28 grams and 26 mm in diameter, it was not difficult to detect.

 I didn't know much about this coin other than it was a different and nice looking foreign coin. You couldn't find all the information on the internet like you can today, so it wasn't until much later that I learned more about it.

Over the years not only do you learn more about old finds, but more generally you'll look at them differently and perhaps appreciate them in a deeper way.  Of course there are also some finds that you'll learn are nothing more than junk, but even with those you might benefit from the journey.

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The American Numismatic Association is concerned that fewer and fewer people are attending coin conventions. It seems that millennials are more interested in things other than coin collecting and choose to spend there money on things like iPhones rather than collecting.

Here are some recommendations from David Bowers concerning that.

Those in numismatics who emphasize the art, history, and romance of numismatics will stay for a long period of time, even lifetimes. These elements are essential.

 
Specialization is the key to longevity. If you look at the officers and contributors of articles to Early American Coppers, Colonial Coin Collectors Club,Liberty Seated Coin Club, Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Civil War Token Society, Token and Medal Society, John Reich Collectors Society, and other specialized groups you will see that most have been active for years! 

As I mentioned earlier, like it or not, many, if not most, new collectors are attracted by gold and silver, or by telemarketers offering modern coins in high grades, as well as a lot of products advertised in USA Today, by telemarketers, and others, that have no realistic aftermarket. These people leave quickly, never to be heard from again. Neither the ANA nor the PNG is even slightly interested in regulating ethics, giving excuses such as “afraid of lawsuits,” etc. As a proponent of ethics in numismatics, and as having worked with the Federal Trade Commission to put fraudsters in jail, I can say that NO perps ever threatened to sue the ANA or the PNG. Nothing but nothing is being done about ethics. The ANA and PNG act on specific complaints, but that is about it. How sad. 

Young Numismatists, say ages 8 to 15, are the brightest and the best. Encourage them in any way possible. As Gary Adkins knows, the ANA already scores high points on this. 

One of the greatest potentials for ANA is people past the age of 65, especially those who are educated and have been successful in life. Millions of people are potentials for learning about numismatics and the ANA. With proper promotion and education, thousands of retirees might well come into the hobby. 

For Whitman (for which I am the numismatic director) or, if they pass on the idea, for the ANA I volunteer to create a book on how specializing is the key to numismatic enjoyment and longevity.

Here is the link for more of what David Bowers had to say about that.

http://news.coinupdate.com/bowers-on-collecting-changes-for-the-american-numismatic-association/

Many detectorists are also coin collectors although many are not.  A lot of what Mr. Bowers says about coin-collecting applies to metal detecting too.

Back a few years ago I conducted a poll in this blog and found that 93% of the respondents were over 35 years old and over half were over 56 years old. The biggest age group was the 56 to 65 age group.

In the future, I'll have more to say about how coin-collecting and how the metal detecting hobbies are doing.

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Alberto is now in Alabama and heading north.  We're going to have a few days of small surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comc