8/8/19 Report - Treasure Coast Beaches and Salvage Boats. Maya Wars and Mexico Appartions. Dug Lapel Pin.

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

These beach photos were taken around noon on Aug. 7 by DJ.  Thanks DJ.

If you look closely, a salvage boat is shown in each photo.  They aren't working real close to shore.

As you know it has been hot and we've been getting rain nearly everyday.  I'm sure some of the swimming beaches are getting some decent action.

There are currently no weather systems shown on the National Hurricane Center maps for our region.

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Stay hydrated and do not get overheated.  Also watch out for lightning.  You might be able to hear it first as static in your earphones.

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In 697, flames engulfed the Maya city of Witzna. Attackers from a nearby kingdom in what’s now Guatemala set fires that scorched stone buildings and destroyed wooden structures. Many residents fled the scene and never returned.

This surprisingly early instance of highly destructive Maya warfare has come to light thanks to a combination of sediment core data, site excavations and hieroglyphic writing translations, say research geologist David Wahl of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and his colleagues. Organized attacks aimed at destroying cities began during ancient Maya civilization’s heyday, when Witzna and other cities thrived in lowland regions of Central America, the scientists report August 5 in Nature Human Behavior...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-maya-warfare-flared-surprisingly-early

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When I give a beach conditions rating, which I haven't done for a while because of the unchanging conditions, it is a rating of the conditions for finding old shipwreck items.  Modern items are lost everyday, and if you visit beaches where there is a lot of activity, you can almost always find something.

Yesterday I showed a diamond ring.  Here is a less valuable find.

Find.

I dug this up and didn't know what it was.  Looks like a lapel pin.

The back shows it is sterling silver and the stone tests as a sapphire.

After some research it looks like it is the insignia for Humana Hospital, which was operating on the Treasure Coast in the 1990s.  Probably some sort of employee recognition pin.

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On April 25, 1631, St. Michael the Archangel appeared in Tlaxcala, Mexico to a 17-year-old named Diego Lázaro de San Francisco who was married to Francisca Castillian Xuchitl.

The apparition occurred as everyone was processing in celebration of a previous apparition of St. Michael to St. Gregory the Great (April 25, 590 A.D) during a great plague which St. Michael ended. The peoples of the new world were themselves battling a plague (a type of smallpox) and St. Michael appeared to Diego Lázaro to tell him about healing waters for the people...

Here is the link for some interesting 17th century New World history.

http://atxcatholic.com/index.php/2019/08/angels-dragons-xxii-st-michael-the-archangel-in-mexico/?fbclid=IwAR37HPVsdOCdHEbPAMlS35bQTcPmvFM0pOpIU8Tk9bAHUvN9pbu3GmP9rdk#.XUwXNehKjIW

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No new storms.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

7/25/17 Report - Salvage Boats, Sandy Beaches and Bathers. Inexpensive Detectors. Fine Watches.

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

Salvage Boat Working Directly in Front Of John Brooks Access Today.

I saw at least three salvage boats working around the Nieves site this afternoon.  One (above) was in front of the beach access and two to the north up towards the condominiums.

Two More Salvage Boats North of John Brooks Beach Today.

A Dive Boat This Afternoon Off Another Sandy Beach

It looked to me like some people were getting an early look for the mini-lobster season.

Another Small Surf and Sandy Beach.

People Enjoying Sun and Surf This Afternoon At Jensen Beach.

Jensen Beach To The North.

The people that were wading were mostly gathered at a couple locations.  They weren't very active though.

There aren't any storms brewing in the Atlantic or Gulf.  The water is calm and the tides are very nice, with some big low tides.

We really are having sandy summer conditions, and so far there has been almost nothing to stir things up.

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Bounty Hunter Detectors For Sale At A Local Store.

If you are thinking of buying your first metal detector, don't go into a store and buy one without talking to someone who knows something about metal detecting or getting a demonstration.  You are setting yourself up for disappointment.

The thing that bothered me most is on the box, the Bounty Hunter Junior (top) is referred to as "Professional Quality."  That couldn't be farther from the truth.

The Junior was priced at about $60 and the Tracker was listed at about $120.

I don't know how well the Junior works.  I have my suspicions.  You can't expect a lot at that price.

The Tracker is at best a beginner's detector, with a slightly lower price, but with performance that is commonly rated below some other very slightly more expensive metal detectors.  I'm sure you can find a few things with it.

If Bounty Hunter wants me to retract anything I said here, they can send me one and I'll give it a thorough and fair testing and compare it to other similarly priced detectors.

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Watches were very common finds for me.  Some were drowned but many continued to work.  It is always good to be informed about the value of the things you might find.  It is too easy to overlook something when you don't know how much it might be worth. You might want to browse through the new Sothebys auction catalog of fine watches.

There are some names you'll recognize, such as Rolex and Patek Philippe, but there are also some other fine vintage and antique time pieces that you might not know, such as Bell and Ross or Maurice Lacroix.

Here is the link.

http://timed.sothebys.com/auction-catalog/Fine-Timepieces-Online_HRJWO66Z1W/?displayNum=100

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/7/17 Report - Salvage Boats at Work. Rain Delivers New Treasure Coast Fossil Finds. Lost and Found Wedding Band.

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

Two Salage Boats on the Nieves Site Yesterday.

There were three boats on the Nieves site yesterday.  Two are shown in the above picture.  One was farther north, up by the condos.

After a rain I checked out a place where fossils are found.  Some had been exposed.  It was a small area and mostly small pieces were found.

Below is the first that I found.  It is on a penny.

When I first picked it up I thought it was a tooth, but after looking at it more closely, I'm pretty sure it is a claw.

Small Fossil.

One End of the Same Fossil.

Here is the proximal end of the same item.  You can see how it fit the joint.

I'd appreciate if any of you fossil experts can tell me what it belongs to.  Thanks in advance.

That is one small fossil.  Not easy to see in the sand.  I especially like finding the smallest items, becuase that suggests that I'm not missing much.  If you don't miss the small ones, you're probably not missing much.  I like to keep my eye-balling skills sharp.

A lot of the fossils I found were just broken pieces.  It only took me about ten minutes to pick up about 15 fossils.  Like, I said, the producing area was small.  Most of the fossil dirt was still covered by sand.

Three Fossils Found After A Recent Rain.

The one on the bottom left is a piece of a turtle skute.

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On the night of June 2, 2017, Meg Walls of Chambersburg, PA, was playing football with her young son on the beach near 4th street and the boardwalk when her diamond wedding band flew from her finger and disappeared into the sea of sand. After several hours of emotional, desperate and unsuccessful searching by family and friends, the search was stopped and the ring was assumed lost to the sand forever...

Here is the link to read about how a detectorist found and returned Meg's ring.

http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2017/06/citizens-and-police-working-together.html

Thanks to Dean for sending me this link.  I'd like to see more of these kinds of stories showing how  detectorists find and return cherished items.

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It really turned rainy, didn't it.  If you've ever been standing out in the ocean in shallow water when the rain started pouring, you might have seen how the rain can diminish the waves.  At least that is how it looked to me on many occasions.

We still have a another day of one-foot surf in the preditions.  And the tides are moderate.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/6/17 Report - John Brooks to Jensen Beach. Salvitae Blue Seaglass. More on Musket Balls.

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

John Brooks Beach Monday Near Low Tide.

As far as I could see there was only a sloped beach front.  No cuts anywhere.  It all appeared to be recently accumulated sand.

There were three salvage boats working at the Nieves site.

Jensen Beach Monday Near Low Tide.

Jensen Beach appeared to be just a little different form John Brooks.  You can see the small dip running between the beach and the sand bar.  The slope was not as steep.

There was one beach that had a slightly better shell line running along the low tide area.  It had only small shells though.

I didn't do any detecting Monday but did find some small fossils.  

A couple of days ago my wife picked up this blue sea glass on a local beach.

Blue Sea Glass Picked Up a Couple Days Ago.

You might be able to faintly see on this seaglass "SALVITAE," and some other lettering.

This seaglass doesn't have the nicest shape, but is fairly large and has a nice color.  It is the bottom of a cobalt blue cure bottle made by the American Apothecaries Company of New York.  Salvitae was something like milk of magnesia and was sold in the 1920s and 1930s.  

This is just another reminder that things that are nearly 100 years old still wash up on the beach and can be found without even using a metal detector.

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Yesterday I showed some musket balls found by the Capitana guys.  Although their's were, not all musket ball finds are old.  I've found a few that were undoubtedly very new. 

Musket balls are still being produced today for various reasons such as for use with antique guns and battle reenactments.  It isn't difficult to tell the difference between musket balls that are old and those that are new.

First of all, a musket ball will generally show evidence of a mold seam and the remains of a sprue. The sprue looks a little like a neck.  It is where the lead was poured into the ball shaped mold.  And you can usually see where it was clipped off with clippers.  Not all genuine musket balls will have an obvious sprue though.

New musket balls will be shiny gray.  Old dug musket balls will often have a coating of lead carbonates, sulfides and oxides.  The patina will usually be white or beige, however different soils can result in different colors.

Musket balls were sometimes made with an alloy of lead and pewter or lead and tin.  The American army during the revolution often used alloys because of the short supply of lead.  That resulted in musket balls having a somewhat irregular surface.

Musket balls usually have a diameter between 0.39 and 0.80 inches, however musket balls were often use with buck shot, which was much smaller. That was referred to as buck ad ball. George Washington was a proponenet of buck and ball during the revolution.

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No changes in beach conditions are expected. Don't forget, though, that heavy rain can cause erosion. The fossils I found yesterday were exposed by heavy rain. I'll have some of those pictures for you tomorrow.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net