10/24/19 Report,- The Havering Hoard. Wood Find. Wheat Cents. About Cleaning Coins.

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

Source: BBC.com (See link below.)

The group of 453 artefacts found in Havering, east London, is the third largest ever discovered in the UK...

The find, which dates from between 800BC and 900BC, was officially declared treasure by a coroner earlier this year.

The discovery, dubbed the Havering Hoard, was uncovered last September, and will form the centrepiece of a major exhibition from April.

Archaeologists believed the manner in which the weapons had been so carefully buried in groups close together suggested the site could have been a metal workers' former vault or an armoury recycling bank or exchange...

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50097646

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Wood Found by DJ Sunday

Find and photo by DJ

DJ said, "... it has several round holes and pieces of metal showing. The close up shows two pieces with the wood grain running at right angles."

Interesting.
--- I've mentioned recently about finding a wheat penny in change received at a Walmart a couple days ago. I was surprised to get another wheat penny in change just yesterday at a store about 20 miles away from the Walmart. That is two wheats in my last two shopping trips. Pretty unusual. Below are the two wheats I received in change. The one most recently received is on the right.

Two Wheat Pennies Recently Received in Change.

In a recent post I mentioned a few ways I think old coins end up in circulation. I thought of one more. Spome of the members of CoinCommunity.com mentioned that they sometimes return coins like that to circulation just to stimulate interest in the hobby. The coins shown above appear to me to have been harshly cleaned. You'll notice the very bright high spots that look like they have been really scrubbed. The 1950 D is in worse condition with surface pitting and also a strange patina on the depressed surfaces. It also has some green crud in tight protected areas. You can see that best in the photo on the right behind Lincoln's collar. In my opinion, it does not look like these coins were not owned by a serious collector, but perhaps dug. I doubt that any kind of serious collector would so harshly clean the coins. The one on the right with the surface pitting definitely looks like a dug coin to me. What do you think? Having received two wheats in change in such a short time span makes me wonder if there were a lot of wheats recently put into circulation by someone. Seems pretty unlikely to be coincidence, but it is possible I guess. If you are wondering how often it might happen by chance, I found a blog post where a fellow purchased 48 rolls of pennies in 2014 and recorded what he found. Here is what he said. I went to the bank and got $24 worth of pennies (48 rolls of 50) and sorted them.  On average there were 13.4 pre-1982 pennies in each roll, in percentage terms, 28.4%.  Some had as many as 20 and some had as few as 7.  There were also 5 wheat sheaf pennies in the lot and 10 Canadian cents.

Since that was done five years ago the odds might have changed some.

Anyhow the odds of finding a wheat cent in circulation, according to the experiment, is 5 in 2400 or 1 in 480 pennies.  Canadian cents were more likely than the wheat cents at a that time.  I understand that Canada no longer mints pennies.

Here is the link to that article. http://mattbussey.com/how-many-pre-1982-copper-pennies-are-still-in-circulation/ Here is an article about cleaning coins. Among other things, it tells how to tell if a coin has been cleaned, which they say should almost never be done.

Here is how they say you can tell if a coin has been cleaned.

A cleaned coin will have a dull, bright look – one that on a well-circulated coin would seem unnatural.

Old pennies that have been worn should not look bright orange and have flashy surfaces. Old, worn pennies should be medium to dark brown in color and have virtually no reflectivity on the surface at all. 

Old silver coins will look grey in color with darker patination around the devices, such as the lettering, date, and main design elements. A flashy, white silver coin that has clearly been worn is a clear giveaway that it has been cleaned. 

Uncirculated or about uncirculated coins should have lustrous surfaces and radiating lines that reflect shimmers of light in a cartwheel pattern as the coin is turned or rotated. 

The luster of a cleaned coin will be severely impaired, if not lost altogether. Therefore, if an uncirculated coin has been cleaned, the best way to tell is to see if it has any cartwheel luster. If it doesn’t, then don’t buy the coin.

Older coins that have been cleaned in the past may show evidence of a past cleaning in a few key ways:

Crud around design elements and lettering
Evidence of heavy, dark toning on some parts of the coin but not on others
Dull appearance in the fields

Here are a few occasions when they say it might be advisable to clean a coin.

(1) The coin has ugly and potentially damaging green polyvinylchloride (PVC) goo from an old plastic coin holder.

(2) The coin has loose dirt and debris on it. 

(3) An ancient coin needs cleaning for proper attribution or identification.

Here is that link.
https://coins.thefuntimesguide.com/cleaned-coins/ ---

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Not much going on except for one undeveloped system down in the Gulf.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Not much surf in the forecast either. Happy hunting, TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/8/18 Report - Another Curse TV Show. Silver War Nickel. Beach Access Issue. Stuart Bottling Works.

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

Group of Paper Thin Pennies and Silver War Nickel

1944 P Nickel After Some Cleaning.

Its amazing!  There is so much to be found if you look around.  I've been spending most of my hunting time within an hours walk from my house.  I haven't been hitting it hard, but keeping myself entertained anyhow. There is one bigger project that I've been focused on, though I haven't spent much field time on it lately.  A lot of my hunting lately has been eye-balling.

Those pennies are really worn down.  Shows what can happen.  Little wonder that so many of the small cobs are so underweight, when you consider that these paper-thin pennies are all only a few decades old.  Hard to believe that the nickel is nearly three quarters of a century old.

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On 4/3 I published a special post with links to articles about legislation that it is said would threaten public access to Florida beaches.  On 4/5 I posted the names of the Florida representatives that could be contacted concerning that issue and how they voted on one bill.  The 4/5 post was very popular, judging by the large number of people that viewed it, so I assume that people are contacting their representatives.  

If you have contacted a representative, I'd like to hear what, if any, response you received.  

Don't forget to encourage and thank those who vote to protect our beach access too.

I'd like to post what any representatives have to say in response to your contacts - good or bad.

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One more curse!  Now it is The Curse of Civil War Gold.  And a curse it is unless you enjoy far-fetched theories, senseless questions and Three Stooges-like bungling.  The humor is the thing that keeps me from turning it off.

My wife asked again if they ever found anything.  She was not referring to the railroad spikes or Templar Crosses that seem to show up on every show, but to the big treasure - in this case Civil War gold.  I reminded her that if they found it, the show would be over.   For the production company the goal is to create a TV series, and that is what they do.  They don't really want it to end as long as they can string viewers along, and they have one formula for doing that, which they will copy until it fails to work.  I had to laugh when the infamous railroad spikes showed up again, but moaned when over belabored Templar Cross from Oak Island made its appearance on this show too.

The highlight of the program for me was when they tried to dig up the railroad tracks and steam engine while the water kept collapsing the hole.  I have to give them an A for effort, C- for strategy, and F for results.

One of the biggest stretches was the theory that the crossing sidewalks represented a Confederate Flag.  Geometric shapes are common and can be found in most things - flags, buildings, alphabets, etc. etc.

One of the biggest and most typical oooopses was that the found nut wouldn't fit the found bolt - at least not until you knock the crud out of it.

The endless blue-sky theories are tediously offered in a mysterious "Could it be that....."   You can fill in the blanks.  My example is, "Could it be that dead monkeys are in the vault?"  The answer is yes, but there are tons of much more likely possibilities

Is it possible they could find the headlined treasure?  Yes, but then they'd have to come up with something else.

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I recently got interested in looking at where bottles and other items found on the Treasure Coast came from.  Many bottles tell where they were bottled.  As you would expect, a lot of the bottles found here were bottled locally, but many came from long distances.  Found bottles will tell what the people on the Treasure Coast were drinking, but also perhaps tell something about where people were coming from and where the goods consumed locally were coming from over the last century or more.

I'll get into that more in the future, but here is one bottle that was locally bottled that I have not been able to get much information about.

STUART BOTTLING WORKS Embossing.

Below is the entire bottle.  I've found several of these, but have never found out what was in them or the dates when the Stuart Bottling Works was in operation.  It looks like it could have been a soda bottle.

Bottle From Stuart Bottling Works.

I'd appreciate any information you can give me about the Stuart Bottling Works.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/1/12 Report - No Joke - Spikes, Pennies & Mint Error

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

Two Cob 1715 Fleet Clump For Sale On EBay.

With about an hour to go, the price is up to about $240. Clumps bring a premium. It also has a Fisher certification.


Dig up anything good? That's a common question. And a good question. Sometimes good things aren't recognized. Sometimes it is a small barely noticeable mint error that makes the difference between nothing unusual and something very unusual.

I'm sure that most people, including myself, don't take enough time to inspect their finds. Even some Lincoln pennies are worth a good price. Yes they are rare. That's the way it is with valuable things. If they were common they wouldn't be valuable.

But you have to take the time to look for those small things that make the difference. How many times have you spent a penny worth a lot more than a penny? I'm sure we've all done it.

You have to inspect coins, and other things for that matter, to know.

Here is one find that wasn't so common to begin with, but then when the mint error was discovered that raised things to an entirely new level

A very rare error half dollar was found in a load of fill dirt while it was being raked.

Here is the link if you want to read more of the story.

http://www.coinlink.com/News/auction-news/look-what-i-dug-up-18174-half-dollar/

Of course part of that was luck, but the other part was the research that followed the initial find.


Canadian Pennies.

Nothing remarkable about these, but they will be going the way of the Dodo Bird.

The Canadians will mint the last Canadian pennies this fall.

People have been talking about doing away with the US penny, but it hasn't happened yet.


Shipwreck Spike Find.

I received these photos of finds via email. The finder said they are brass or bronze.

Nice Piece of Big Spike.

The weather is beautiful. A lot of people are out boating or beaching. There should be some recent drops.

The water is good for water hunting, while the beach detecting conditions remain poor on the Treasure Coast.

It looks like the seas will be small and remain that way for a few days.


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net