8/25/19 Report - Tropical Storm Dorian. Finds, Artifacts and Tools. Crime In Space. Great Lakes Water Levels.

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

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

We now have a tropical storm that is predicted to become a hurricane - at least for a while.

The system that was over Florida is now moving away, but Dorian is headed in our direction.

Source: nhc,noaa.gov

I think Dorian will fizzle out before getting to us, but that remains to be seen.  Keep watching.

In the mean time it looks like we'll have a two to three foot surf.

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Finds As An Extension Of A Person And A Reflection Of A Time.

I learn a lot from dreams.  Last night was an excellent example.  I awoke from a dream in which I was in the basement of the home where I grew up.  In the dream the house was mostly empty, but a few things remained.  I was inspecting my fathers tools in the basement where he had his workbench and always kept his tools.  They were the same tools he used to build that house.

The tools were large and heavy - more than needed to just do a job.  Unlike today's tools, they were made to last, and they are just as strong and usable today as they were seventy years ago.

Cast Iron Tools.

So what is the relevance?  Finds - artifacts - are an extension of a person.  My father's tools were an extension of his hands and forearms, and even his personality.  They fit the picture.  More than that, they complete the picture.

There was an anvil and an iron sledge hammer that I could barely lift, let alone use.

Heavy (feels like near 50 pounds) Hammer With Iron Handle.

Everything my father built was overbuilt.  He used what he had.  The car port behind our house was constructed of telephone poles and cross arms.  He worked for the electric utility company.  The car port was way heavier and stronger than necessary.

If you look at the tools in my garage today, you'll see an expression of me.  My tools are wimpy in comparison. They didn't build my house.  They are for repairing, touching up or tinkering - not the same kind of work.  Most people today don't build their own house with their own hands from the ground up.

My tools are an expression of the times, and sadly, perhaps also a reflection of me as shaped by the times.  Things just aren't made like they once were. And they aren't used the same.

This isn't about my father and I.  It is just the example that was no my mind and shows how objects can tell something about the person that owned them and the times when they were used.

Objects were made for a purpose, and how they were made and used tell us about the people and times.  When an object is revealed to you from the sands of time imagine the hands that formed it, held it or used it.  Maybe meditate on it a little, and see if you can get an image of the person who was connected to it.

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Here is a great web site for identifying Craftsman and related tools.

http://alloy-artifacts.org/craftsman-early-tools-p4.html

The pipe wrench shown above is a fourteen inch Dunlap.  The Dunlap brand is listed on the above web site and was used from 1938 into the 50s.

The wrench in the same photo was made by Fairmount Tool Manufacturing that began in Cleveland in 1917 and made a lot of tools for autos.

I think the sledge hammer was military.  It has the number 7157.

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Detecting tools like the pipe wrench will normally produce conductivity readings form minuses through the teens - very similar to an old anchor except for the amount of area.

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First criminal act alleged to have been committed in outer space?

Here is that link.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nasa-astronaut-identity-theft-bank-account-divorce-wife

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Summer on the Swollen Great Lakes

The lakes rose this year to levels not seen in decades. A 1,234-mile drive around one of them revealed what all that water has left behind — vanishing beaches, closed roads, new islands...

And here is that link.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/us/great-lakes-water-levels.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/11/17 Report - TV Show Poll Results and More. Space Treasure and Collectibles. Custom Made Cobs.

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

The poll has concluded and the results are in.  I think the poll could have been constructed better, but it worked.  One person said I should have had a "none of the above" answer.  That is a good idea.  Maybe I should have done that.  There were other possibilities as well.

The sample size was good.  Over fifty people responded.

Here are the poll results on the perceived "realness" or "trustworthiness" of each of the four TV shows.

Bearing Sea Gold	20 (38%)
Cooper's Treasure	3 (5%)
Curse of Oak Island	9 (17%)
Gold Rush	20 (38%)

The amazing thing to me is how precisely the results matched my own feelings.   The poll respondents put the shows in exactly the same order that I would, and the relative number of votes for each show reflected how I felt about the shows.

Bering Sea Gold and Gold Rush were selected as being the most real or trustworthy by the same number of people, and both of those shows received more than twice the number of votes received by either of the other shows.

I also had a hard time deciding which of those two I trusted most.  It was a toss up.  I like Bering Sea gold better, but that has nothing to do my feeling about it being more real.

Coming in third was the Curse of Oak Island show.  That is where I would put it too. I think it is an interesting, even with all of its short-comings.  I can watch it, even with all of the dramatization and baiting.

And dead last in trustworthiness according to the poll results was the Cooper's Treasure show, which, as I think I said before, almost makes me feel like I need to take a shower after watching a few minutes.

It seems that there are a lot of people that feel the same.  That was my feeling from the first few minutes, and I wondered if everybody else felt that way.  Evidently many did.

For me the meeting between Darrell Miklos and Gene Kranz said it all.  Darrell had obviously misled Gene about the purpose or topic of the meeting in order to arrange a meeting, and then tried to get Gene to say something about the topic of treasure. Gene didn't appreciate being misled and put an abrubt end to the meeting and walked off.

Below is a link to an article on the Cooper's Treasure program by Variety, an entertainment publication, and even they address what I would call ethics issues.  That article starts with the following.

The poorly kept secret of unscripted TV is that it is, in general, rather scripted. Ari Mark and Phil Lott, co-founders of production company AMPLE, are looking to affix that “un-” back where it belongs.

“Our generation, you’re at a point where you want to believe in things,” Mark tells Variety. “Everything in your life is fake, and especially in our genre.”

Here is that link.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/coopers-treasure-discovery-ample-darrell-miklos-1202011043/

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I've made several references to space lately, ranging from meteorites to rocket parts.  Occasionally people discover what appear to be melted metal from Shuttle launches on the Treasure Coast.  I've written about that, provided tips on how to test that metal to distinguish it from melted aluminum and reported on some people who talked to NASA to verify that their finds were related to space shots.

On May 7 it was reported that  The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B mini-space plane has landed after a record 718 days in Earth orbit, touching down for the first time on the Florida runway historically used by NASA's space shuttles.

I've said before that someday people will be salvaging space vehicles and debris similar to how shipwrecks are salvaged now.  In fact there is a space vehicle that orbits while collecting space junk to turn into fuel that it can use.  Interesting idea.

I recently heard it said (I think it was on TED) that if you want a new idea, read an old book.  I agree with that, but there are other ways to get new ideas too.  Creativity is stimulated by reading broadly.

Here is the link if you want to read the article about the vehicle that vacuums up space junk to use as fuel.

http://www.popsci.com/design-concept-space-vacuum-thats-fueled-by-space-junk

Continuing on the subject of space, there is a good web site that offers a wide variety of "space collectibles."  Here is the link.

http://www.collectspace.com/

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Did you know that there is a company that will manufacture cobs that are hand struck from die that are  custom made?  They hand strike them on planchets.  You can send them the silver after I investigate it more.

I'll have more on that in the future.

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We're supposed to have a couple weeks of one or two foot surf on the Treasure Coast.  No change in beach conditions expected.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/17/14 Report - Mystery Item Found. One Excellent Way To Break Out Of A Rut. 1000 Year Old Find. Mining Outer Space

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

Neat Find By Dan B.
Photo submitted by Dan B.

First, here is a mystery item.  The find is by Dan B. who thinks it might be a hair pin.  What do you think?

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About the U. S. Customs button that I asked about yesterday, here is what Michael said.

I looked up the customs button and from the information I found its mid 40s early 50s mine is intact which I thought wasn't the case until I found it online. Looks like it attaches over an existing button.

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Most detectorists approach sites pretty much the same.  They do pretty much the same thing and hit the same areas.

I told before about how I was traveling once and stopped at a picnic area on a bay.  I went into the water and could tell that the area had been hunted heavily.  

There were two posts (maybe from old docks) in the water right in front of the picnic area.  The area between the old posts and into the picnic area was cleaned out.  That rectangular area was very clean.  I decided to check outside of the rectangular area defined by the posts and shoreline, and quickly found that it had not been hunted well at all.   Yes it was junky, but in about a half hour I picked up three gold rings just outside the cleaned out area.

Detectorists tend to hit the same spots over and over.  They might be the places where the majority of targets are lost, but the targets get cleaned out so sometimes it is better to go to a place where fewer targets are lost but where more targets remain.

I was talking about a country path that I detected not long ago.  The main part of the path had been detected multiple times so that part of the path was pretty clean, so I went over to the side of the path on a slope and immediately started finding older coins.

My point is simple.  Sometimes all you have to do is do something a little different than what everybody else is doing.

If you visit an old home site.  You can look at it and tell where most detectorists would detect first.  They'll go for the obvious and easy spots.  Most won't bother to hit the more difficult spots.  All you have to do to find virgin ground is work through bushes or weeds - maybe do a little clearing.  Move rocks or logs.  Work your detector into tight spots. 

The same thing goes for beaches.  There are places everybody will hit, and there are places that most everybody will miss.  You might have to use a little more effort and use your head, but those kinds of spots are still out there.

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Private companies are moving closer and closer to conducting mining operations in outer space despite the two rockets that blew up recently.  

Did you know that it has been estimated that a one kilometer diameter asteroid could contain about 7,500 tons of platinum, worth more than $150 billion?

Here is an article about that.

http://www.astronomysource.com/tag/platinum-from-asteroids/

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Here is an interesting find estimated by people that  know a lot about such things to be about 1000 years old.

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On the Treasure Coast we have West winds.  A front is coming through.  We'll have cooler temperatures for a couple of days, but around a three foot surf for a week or two.

I have more Treasure Coast finds to post.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

11/7/14 Report - Seven Metal Detecting Mistakes That I've Made That You Should Avoid. Catching An Asteroid.

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

Asteroid Capture Apparatus
Source: YouTube Science Channel link posted here.

I've talked before about some of the possibilities for treasure hunting in outer space.  Here is a video showing how they hope to catch an asteroid - nothing like a hemerroid, although catching an asteroid might be a pain in the butt.






Here is the link for the full video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oVAZytlfE8&index=6&list=UUvJiYiBUbw4tmpRSZT2r1Hw


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I've made my share of mistakes. I think of some of them very frequently.  It might be that those are the ones that I've learned the most from.

I'm not sure the mistakes I remember the most are the most important.  Maybe I made some bigger mistakes, but probably those that I remember the most are those that I particularly regretted and made a mental note to avoid in the future.

Here are a few of the mistakes that I've made.  Maybe you can avoid them.

1. Discarding an item in the field when I didn't know exactly what it was.

One time that I often think of is when I dug a twisted piece of metal and then close by a nearly rectangular piece of flint.  That was probably thirty or more years ago but I still remember it very well.   I realized later that the piece of metal was a piece of a musket cock and the flint was the musket flint. 

Now I wish I had kept it.  And by not recognizing what it was at the time, I probably did not hunt the immediate area as well as I should have. 

2.  Not digging an item carefully enough.

Not too far from where the unidentified musket flint was dug, I detected a very nice artifact, but I wasn't careful when digging it.  It was very brittle and completely crumbled as it was dug. 

I guess that hunt was a very memorable hunt for me - both good and bad.  At the time it was mostly good, because I hadn't yet realized the significance of my mistakes yet, and it was the first time I hunted a centuries old battle site.  I remember most of that hunt very well, not just the mistakes.

Most people have probably damaged a coin or something while digging it.  It is a common and sometimes costly mistake.

3.  Not labeling a find with all the important information, including among other things, when and where it was found. 

You will forget some things.   It is good to be able to go back and refer to good detailed notes or labels when you want them.

4.  Losing track of a nice find.  If you are not careful you can lose track of a valued find after you take it home. I suppose everybody loses track of things once in a while. 

A good organized system for keeping finds will help you find that special item when you want it.

5.  Not checking equipment before going out for a hunt and not taking back up batteries and the like.

You can save a disappointing and wasteful trip by checking your equipment first.

6.  Destroying an item through improper cleaning.

Muriatic acid can be used to clean some things, but it will ruin other things. 

Don't tumble things that might be valuable.

I once tumbled a nice guilded pendant that was hundreds of years old.  It was encrusted and I just assumed it was a coin.  It wasn't, and I damaged it.

Try to find out what something is and what it is made of before starting to clean it.  Learn how to best clean an item before doing anything that could damage it.

When something could possibly be valuable, do your research first and then chose the most cautious method of cleaning to begin with. 

You can clean things in steps, using the most cautious methods first.  That can help avoid more costly mistakes.  Those first steps could reveal something about the item or material that will help you decide how to continue.

7.  Putting a find in a pocket that has a hole in it. 

I mentioned the other day how a nice gold chain slipped through a shirt pocket and I had to walk back a mile or more to find it again.

Check your pockets and goody bags.  Chains will quickly slip through a very small hole easier than you might think.

There are seven mistakes that I've learned from.  I can think of others, but don't have time for them all today.  You might already know these, but even if that is so, this will be a good reminder.  We all get lax from time to time.

Maybe you can avoid making the these mistakes.  I hope so.


Happy and mistake free detecting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net