6/29/18 Report - Mexico Half Reale Cob. Chocolate Salary. Fort Michilimackinac.

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

Another Mexico Half Reale From John Brooks.

I went out to the beach yesterday (Thursday) afternoon to see what was going on.  Fort Pierce is done with the South Jetty renourishment project.  The the beach is over a hundred yards wider now.  I was thinking about how just a few weeks ago, the water line was so much farther back and how beaches grow and recede, even without the help of man.  People were sunbathing where they would have been swimming before, and where people were swimming before, there was tnow ons of sand.  My bet is that the beach was farther out in centuries past, because that would have been before the inlet  and jetties that causes most of the erosion in that area.  It is good to remember that the shoreline could be very different than it was a hundred or two hundred years ago.

I then went down to John Brooks beach.  I would have taken photos, but the battery on my camera was dead.

There were two salvage boats working the Nieves site.  One was north of the beach access and not too far out, and the other was all the way up by the condominiums to the north.

The beach front was very mushy with recently accumulated sand.  Still, I saw one guy detecting the weed line.

Other Side of Half Reale Shown Above.

I can usually figure out what part of a monogram I"m looking at, but not in this case.  I just can't determine the orientation or which monogram it is.  It looks very odd.  Maybe some cleaning would help.

This is another one that I failed to label with when it was found.  I do know where it was found, but only because I know the cobs that aren't from this beach.

I probably won't show anymore of these for a while.  I was just showing why it is so important to label finds well.  It is much nicer when you know where and when things were found.  For all I know, the unlabeled cobs that I showed the last few days could have been found on the same day.  On the other hand, they could have been found in completely different decades.

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The ancient Maya never used coins as money. Instead, like many early civilizations, they were thought to mostly barter, trading items such as tobacco, maize, and clothing. Spanish colonial accounts from the 16th century indicate that the Europeans even used cacao beans—the basis for chocolate—to pay workers, but it was unclear whether the substance was a prominent currency before their arrival...

Here is the link.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/maya-civilization-used-chocolate-money

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Among the most-recent finds are sherds of a white, tin-glazed earthenware jar, sherds from two different blue and white Chinese export porcelain vessels, and a fragment of beaded English creamware.

However, Dr. Lynn Evans, curator of archaeology, said one of the most unusual artifacts in the group is a brass thimble with a small hole punched in the top of it...

Here is the link to that article about an excavation of Fort Michilimackinac.

https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/06/rare_brass_thimble_colonial_ce.html

I've found a good number of thimbles on various Florida beaches over the years.

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A just posted an embossed Doctor Pepper bottle in FGBottlebarn.blogspot.com.

There is a lot I could talk about, but I don't have time right now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/2614 Report - Many Nice Old Metal Detector Finds From Treasure Coast Off-Beach Sites. Lightning Noise In Detectors Lately. GoPro Cameras.

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

Finds by William M.
Photo submitted by William

If you've been having trouble finding much due to poor detecting conditions lately, there are alternatives to hitting the same over hunted beaches. 

I've noticed more than a few opportunities lately.  On the Treasure Coast it seems there has been a lot of construction and quite a few newly demolished buildings.

Bill M. has been finding a lot of really cool stuff.  He has been getting permission to work on private property.

Here is a photo of some of his finds.  There are a lot of really nice finds there.

Congratulations William!









Notice all of the silver coins in the photo.  Below is an example of one very nice Mercury dime in exceptional dug condition.

If you want to find something old, there is a lot of it out there.  I'd say that only a very tiny portion of the old stuff like this has been found.  Most of it is still out there in the ground deteriorating and waiting to be saved.

Many places have not been worked at all, and many that have been worked still hold many very good targets. 

Very Nice Mercury Dime Found by William
Photo submitted by William

Here is a very nice 1917 dime found by William.  It has about $1.50 worth of silver in it, but it is in very nice condition and therefore worth more than that.

1917 D dimes bring good money.

Very good photo William.

Notice all of the silver coins in the photo above.

You might find the relics even more interesting.

Below is one photo showing some buttons and buckles.

Buckles and Other Items Found by William.
Photo by William.

Charm Found by William
Photo by William.

To the right is a nice charm.  It probably had a personal significance to someone -  maybe a runner.  It would be nice to know more about that.

On the left is also what looks like a hair beret and a thimble.







I've found thimbles on the beach where I'd never expect to find them.  I have a hard time telling how old they might be.  I certainly don't know anyone who uses a thimble. today.   They can be centuries old.


And here are a couple more neat finds by William.

Like I always say, There is always some place to hunt and something to be found.  William did his homework and made a lot of great finds.   Thanks for sharing William.  Way to go!



As I write, it is pouring rain again.  I went outside to play around with a detector last evening and the lightning was causing the detector to beep occasionally, sometimes giving a good "bell" tone, which on that particular detector indicates a good target. 

Lightning can cause noise in a metal detector.  I previously mentioned that one of my detectors had been  noisy lately, and I thought it might be developing problems, but I have now decided that the problem was caused by distant thunderstorms, which have almost always been somewhere around the Treasure Coast lately.   Thunderstorms can cause detector noise even when they are miles away.


Gopro makes a really good waterproof camera.  I use one sometimes, but since it is made primarily for action photography, it isn't what I need most of the time.   It is very good technology though, and I've commented on that.

Gopro went public a few months ago and the stock has gone from 24 to over 80.  That is a nice return.

You'll see Gopro cameras used on some of the detecting, treasure hunting and diving TV programs. 

They claim that they will be making a video channel.  That should be good.



Other than one disturbance out in middle of the Atlantic, there isn't much to watch. 

On the Treasure Coast we are having two to three foot seas for a few days.


I have still have more finds to show and know of one other big project that I can't wait to tell you about.

Thanks for your responses to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

6/6/14 Report - Valuable Paul Revere Thimble, Smoky Mountain Knife Works Knife Find, Cleaning & Happy Birthday Donald Duck

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

Thimble Sold for $10,080.
Source: Kovels Komments

This gold thimble was made by Paul Revere about 1805. "L.D." is engraved on it.   It does not show Revere's maker’s mark, but it is identical to a thimble he made for his daughter which is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

This thimble sold at auction for $10,080 at a Leslie Hindman auction in Chicago on May 21, 2014.

Here is the source link.

I'd say that I've found at least a half dozen thimbles over the years.  I always thought that it was a bit unusual to find a thimble on a beach, but the number found seems to suggest otherwise.

I find it difficult to guess how old a found thimble might be.  Given the rarity of hand sewing in the modern home I'd have to guess that the thimbles are usually not recent drops.



I'm going to go off-topic briefly.   I just found this fun and interesting.   How old is Donald Duck?
What is his middle name?   And what is Donald's hometown.

This information was in the same issue of Kovel's Komments. 

Donald is 80.  He first appeared in The Wise Little Hen cartoon on June 9, 1934.  Happy birthday Donald!

His middle name is Fauntleroy, which was shown on his Selective Service Draft Card in Donald Gets Drafted, 1942.

He is from Duckburg.

OK, so I'm a bit of a Disneyphile.



Below is a detector find after it received a good cleaning.

Knives are common detector finds - more common than thimbles. 

As I've been pointing out, items like that are frequently found and removed from parks and beaches where they could be picked up by young kids.

This particular knife was dirty and had a stubborn dark green on the bolsters.  I tried a number of liquid cleaners and none of them worked very well.   Then I carefully tried steel wool, which did the job.  It cleaned up very nicely then.  I wouldn't use steel wool on just anything, and certainly not coins that might be valuable, but it seemed to work very well on this knife.

Don't use abrasive things like steel wool on items that can easily be damaged.  You probably know that you should never clean rare coins although sea-damaged silver coins are a bit of an exception and are often cleaned.

Here is a mark that I found on the tang of the knife.  It says, Smoky Mountain Knife Works.

I looked up similar knives from the Works and found some on eBay that are listed for between $100 and $200, although those also had the original collector's box.

The Smoky Mountain Knife Works also sells inexpensive knives as well as collector knives, and right now I don't know which this one is.

With the engraved cheetah on the blade, I guess there is some possibility that is a collector knife.  If you are a knife collector or know about that, please let me know.

Remember to inspect found items carefully for maker's or other marks.

Here is an illustration of the parts of a pocket knife.

Below is the source link.  You might find that handy.





http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=parts+of+a+pocket+knife&qpvt=parts+of+a+pocket+knife&FORM=IGRE


On the Treasure Coast the wind is out of the West.  The surf id two feet or less.  The surf will be small for a few days, and the tides are pretty flat.

Happy hunting,
TreaureGuide@comcast.net