8/1/19 Report - Enameled Treasure Coast Beach Find. Storms Heating Up. Books as Treasures and Source of Metal Detecting Leads.

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

Old Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beach Cloisonné Find

Find and photo by Scott C.

I've been talking about enameled and cloisonné finds lately.  Here is one from a Treasure Coast shipwreck beach that was found years ago.  As you can see, it is nearly two inches across.  One possibility is that it could be the back of a pocket watch.  The hole could be for key winding. Any other ideas?

Here is a closer view.

Close-up View of the Same Item.

Photo by Scott C.

I especially like enameling and cloisonné.  Sometimes people think that if items are very old they will be primitive or crude, but that is often far from the case, as you've seen in this blog.  Below is an example of a beautiful 16th century enameled item shown in a book I once picked up in a thrift store - Jewellery, by Cyril Davenport, 1905.

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Beach hunters can't get in the leased salvage areas and use blowers to remove the sand.  As a result, we have to wait on the weather to stir things up and give us a shot at some of that shipwreck treasure.  We are now well into hurricane season and things are starting to heat up.

There are two systems to watch, but at this point it doesn't look like the first one in line will do us much good even though it will skirt the coast of Florida.   The second one, though, has time to develop.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

The nhc.noaa.com site gives the following prediction.

1. An area of disturbed weather located near the northwestern Bahamas
is forecast to move northward, producing locally heavy rainfall over
portions of Cuba, the Bahamas, and Florida during the next day or
two. Conditions could briefly become marginally conducive for
development over the weekend before the system merges with a front
and accelerates northeastward off the southeastern U.S. coast on
Sunday.
* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...near 0 percent.
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...10 percent.

2. A broad low pressure system located about 1000 miles west-southwest
of the Cabo Verde Islands continues to produce a large area of
disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Only gradual development of
this system is expected for the next day or so while it moves
west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph. Environmental conditions could
become more supportive by Saturday and a tropical depression is
likely to form over the weekend, several hundred miles east of the
Lesser Antilles.
* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...20 percent.
* Formation chance through 5 days...high...70 percent.

Notice the chance of the second system (red) becoming a cyclone in the next five days is up to 70% now.

It looks like the first system will only give us a bump of about one additional foot to the surf, making it about three feet.

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My wife was cleaning out some drawers and she found a few photos that were used in a treasure magazine article that I wrote many years ago.  The article was about books as treasures as well as metal detecting resources.

Here are a few I bought at thrift stores for a dollar each.  The first two I sold years ago.

Old Atlas with Tooled Leather Binding.

Vintage Florida Cruise Book

The Florida Cruise book had maps and also descriptions of ports, beaches and other coastal areas.  It provided some good leads.

Old Book on Andrew Jackson.

The Andrew Jackson book is good reading, and also had some nice old maps.

My point here is that you can find useful books cheap, even if it is difficult to make a profit buying and selling books these days.

I didn't plan on talking about books today, but the photos just popped up, so it was a good time.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/13/19 Report - If You Want To Find More, Try Sifting. More on the Melborne Artifact.

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

Finds Found by Sifting an Old Home Site

Finds and photo by Russ P. 

I received this photo of finds that were made by Russ P and his sons by sifting an old home site.  Here is what he said.

... I took my boys sifting this morning at a trashy old house site. The finds pictured are fairly typical, in variety and amount. One of my sons likes to collect the colorful ceramic shards.

The aspect of sifting I think I enjoy most is seeing everything.

There is a Buffalo nickel and a couple of wheats...

Thanks Russ.

Russ has conducted experiments in which he recorded finds from lots that were detected several times and the sifted.  His experiments show that metal detecting only results in a fraction of the coins that can be found at a site.

Take a look at the following link and some of my other posts on sifting as compared to metal detecting.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2018/03/33018-report-more-on-sifting-compared.html

I highly recommend sifting if you want to get more of what a site holds.

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Here is more on the artifact that was originally erroneously referred to as an "Incan" funerary mask.  This article is by Rick Neale of Florida Today.

MELBOURNE BEACH — An undersea treasure hunter has discovered a possible ancient Peruvian artifact near Melbourne Beach that may have been transported by the doomed 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet.

"I thought it was scrap. I thought it was a NASA scrap, honestly. I thought it was a piece of an aircraft," said Mike Torres, chief technology officer of Seafarer Exploration. He found the item Jan. 14 in pre-dawn darkness.

Measuring about 10 inches across, bordered with intricate patterns, the circular copper relic features an image of a bird-like figure. John de Bry, director of the Center for Historical Archaeology in Melbourne Beach, said the object may have once been gold-plated...

Here is the link to read the entire article.

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2019/01/22/treasure-hunter-discovers-possible-ancient-artifact-near-melbourne-beach/2648527002/

It seems that some of the inaccuracies that were in earlier reporting have been cleaned up.

For one thing, the artifact is no longer referred to as "Incan" but rather a Peruvian artifact.  As I posted in this blog before, the determined age of the item did not match with the period of the Incan civilization.

You can find what I've previously posted concerning this artifact by going back a few days in this blog.  There were many questions about the find.

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X-ray fluorescence reveals exact origin of porcelain recovered from the ocean floor. 

Here is the link for that article.

https://cosmosmagazne.com/archaeology/scientists-crack-mystery-of-ancient-chinese-pottery-found-in-shipwreck

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Looks like we'll have a little increase in the surf later Wednesday and Thursday.  I don't think I'll get a chance to check it out.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net