11/17/18 Report - Remnants of Old Dock Near Fort Anne. Indian River Lagoon History. Trash and Treasure. Lucky Penny.

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

Source: See KayakingKSC.com link below.

You've heard it said that one man's trash is another man's treasure.  That is especially true if you hunt old bottles or are an archaeologist, but it is true for many others too.

I was reading a post on an archaeology web site and the author mentioned that it was odd that at one archaeological site the owner of the homestead stored his trash on his land instead of having it hauled away.  I can only assume that that was written by a millennial or younger person who never lived in the country.  Where I grew up we always buried our garbage on our property.  Everybody had a trash pile.  Most dug a hole so that what remained after the trash was burned was buried.  Rural areas didn't have garbage pickup and neither did the Treasure Coast at one time.

I didn't find out when trash pickup began on the Treasure Coast, but from what I've seen along the Indian River lagoon, it wasn't until maybe the fifties or sixties along there.  Maybe someone can tell me when it was.

If you walk along the banks of the Indian River today, you'll find a lot of old bottles (many more than would have simply been thrown away by boaters or travelers).  You will also find the remains of old trash or burn piles.  Some are still very evident and continue to get washed out whenever there is erosion.

I've talked before about the signs of treasure.  Some of the first signs that you'll often see are pot shards, which tend to remain visible on top of the ground for decades or centuries.

Trash can be one very promising sign of the possible presence of treasure.  The treasure we dig today is what was left behind by the peoples of the past.  Discarded or lost bits can tell you a lot.

When people talk about the history of Florida, they usually only go back a few centuries, but Florida has a very ancient and important past.  I found one very good post about the history of the Indian River Lagoon, including the photo above, on the Kayaking the Kennedy Space Center web site.  Here is the link.

https://www.kayakingksc.com/History-of-the-Indian-River-Lagoon.html

Not only does that post show the remnants of a dock near the Seminar War Fort Anne and the old blockhouse, but it also provides information about the even older history of the lagoon.  Here are a few facts from the KayakingKSC post that demonstrate why the ancient history of the lagoon area is so important.


Jaw dropping facts:

**168 individuals recovered from the mortuary pond. Latest dating is between 7,210 years and 7,320 years “before present”

**Woven fabrics- the oldest-known in the world.

**Brain matter in skulls- DNA was extracted

**DNA results: Rare Haplogroup X –

X is one of the five haplogroups found in the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Now that is some pretty impressive history.


Here are a few interesting facts on the history of trash from garbagemanday.org (full link below).

3000 B.C. – The first landfill is developed when Knossos, Crete digs large holes for refuse. Garbage is dumped and filled with dirt at various levels.

1388 – The English Parliament bans dumping of waste in ditches and public waterways.

1551 – The first recorded use of packaging: German papermaker Andreas Bernhart begins placing his paper in wrappers labeled with his name and address.

Around 1757 Ben Franklin started the first street cleaning service and encouraged the public to dig pits to dispose of their waste. We were even smart enough to melt down a statue of King George III and use it as ammunition against his armies.

In 1885 America built its first incinerator on Governors Island, New York. The Big Apple also developed the nations first comprehensive system for garbage management. We even tried Austria’s waste reduction plants which compress organic grease, oils and by-products from waste. Although, they were quickly vetoed due to nasty odors.

For more about garbage: http://www.garbagemanday.org/history-of-the-garbage-man/

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Mounted 1958 Wheat Penny Find.

This is not exactly a holed coin, but close to it.  The mounting is minimal, and I couldn't find anything special about the coin.  I looked closely at both sides to find anything special and it just looks like a regular wheat penny.  It is in very nice condition except for the discolouring, but I had to wonder why someone would mount it.  It is nicely, although inexpensively, mounted.  Perhaps the date was significant, or it was a lucky penny, or a gift.

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On the Treasure Coast the tides are flat.  From the look of the wind this morning, I would suspect that there are some scallops and perhaps some very small cuts on some of the beaches.

Here are the surf predictions for the next few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/2/16 Report - Mixed Signals and Targets. New Chamber in King Tut's Tomb.

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

Nail Rusted To Wheat Penny As Dug
Find and photo by Russ P.

I received this photo this morning.  It was dug at an old home site.  A lot of people would have missed this target.   The nail could have masked the penny or given an inaccurate target ID, depending upon what detector you were using and how you were using it.

One thing I wanted to mention concerning the cannon artifact that I've been talking about for a few days, is how easy it would be to miss a nice item like that.  Again, a lot of people would pay no attention to an iron object of that size.  It is easy to pass over very nice items.  I hate to think that I missed something that nice simply because I didn't want to dig it up.  No target ID could possibly accurately identify an object like that.

One person I heard from has been working an old home site in a different and very thorough way and as a result coming up with better finds and a lot of interesting information.  I'll be able to give you more on that when the project is completed and the results are in.  I can't wait.

I haven't talked about the topic for quite a while, but I'll mention once again how important it is to know your detector and how it responds to different environments and targets.  For now I'll just say, do a lot of testing.

There is often a lot more under the ground than you might think.  It is possible to spend a lot of time detecting and still miss a lot.  I hope to have a good thorough study very soon that will illustrate how true that is.

Of course there are high and low-value targets and junk, the key is to make efficient strategic decisions.

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New scns of King Tut's tomb reveals a possible new chamber.

Scans performed by Factum Arte, a company commissioned to scan Tutankhamun's tomb, show unusual lines and abnormalities in the plaster of the tomb, Reeves said, adding that these features indicate that a wall was built over a doorway in ancient times.

Here is the link for the entire story.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/03/01/new-scans-king-tuts-tomb-may-reveal-hidden-burial-chamber.html?intcmp=hpff

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I don't have much time today, so that's all for now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/14/15 Report - Finds On An Inland Hunt. ID Help Requested. Surf Increasing On Treasure Coast

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

Mystery Item.
What do you think it is?

As I said the other day, I was up north recently and did some detecting in an area that has a wooded path up a hillside that has been more or less continually used for hundreds of years.  Everything from Indian artifacts to yesterdays losses are found there.  That makes it difficult to tell what era unidentified finds might be from.

Here is one find that I'd like help in identifying.  The most obvious answer is drawer knob, although it is a little unusual for that.  For one thing, I think it is iron.  Another thing is that it is slanted oddly.

I'd like to hear your opinions on what it is.

Another item found along the path is this ring.  It is not silver or gold.  I think it is older and still needs some more cleaning.

The last ring I found on this path was a 1930s gold high school class ring.

I can not see how these stones are mounted.  I've looked at it under close magnification, but part of it is still encrusted.

It is a rather large size.  Too large to be a child's ring.  The band is broken and bent in.  It was in compacted rock and soil.



Copper coins found in this area are usually very corroded and many are unreadable.

Below are a few examples of that.

1939 Penny.

Totally Unreadable
Maybe Penny.

Barely Readable 1946 Nickle.

Here comes the exception.  The above coins were typical.  Not very readable.  Then comes this silver dime out of compact rock and soil just like it is shown.  I did not clean it or anything.

1957 Dime As Dug.

It still blows my mind.

This is the same general area where I found the 1829 large cent a year or so ago.

The silver Rosie would have about a dollar of melt value and a few dollars for collector value.

There were other finds.  I should have the good one ready for you soon.

There were a couple of things that struck me about this hunt.  One is that the path is not hunted out yet despite the number of times it has been detected, and not only by me.

The heavy weed coverage that protected the sides of the path in the spring was now gone.  That allowed me to detect where I couldn't easily detect then.  There is a seasonal aspect to hunting there.  Of course, the path will soon be covered by ice and snow.

Another thing that struck me, is how certain areas produced and others didn't.

On one side of the path there is a hump having a few inches of rock and soil over top of a layer of yellow clay.  The used part of the path is much lower, in some places a foot or so.  And on the other side of the path is a hill.  At the bottom of the hill on that side of the path, there were no targets other than junk. Old items were deeply buried beyond detector range there.

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On the Treasure Coast the surf is increasing.  We're supposed to get something like five feet today and six tomorrow.

The wind was coming from the northeast or a while.

I hope to get out to see what is happening on the beach.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/7/15 Report - Surprise, Surprise! Ferrari's, Wheat Pennies & Old Silver Coin Ring. The Seven R's Of Metal Detecting.

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

Dug Silver Coin Ring

Surprise, Surprise!  That is what Gomer Pyle used to say.


You never know what you might dig up.  A couple of boys digging in a yard found a valuable Ferrari.  Yep, the sports car.  It was later restored and now is worth millions.

That wasn't the only car that was dug up. 

Cars are lost at the beach too.  There used to be car frames on the beach just north of Rio Mar.  I once saw a picture of where cars in a parking lot got washed onto the beach around there during a hurricane. 

Cars occasionally drive into the Indian River too.  It wasn't long ago that one went over the hill at the end of Midway.

I've also found old antique car parts including engine blocks in the river.  I suppose they pushed old junk cars over the bank like all of the other junk back in the day.

Here is a link to the article about the dug up Ferrari.

http://jalopnik.com/5872514/the-true-story-of-how-a-ferrari-ended-up-buried-in-someones-yard

Thanks to William K. for giving me the lead to this story.

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Crusted Unknown Coin.

I noticed a couple crusty old finds in my questionable junk box and decided to clean them off to see what there were.

The first was a totally crusted over coin.  I couldn't see any detail on it at all.  It was smaller than a penny and bigger than a dime.

I gave it a quick bath in an acid solution.  It turned out to be a wheat penny that was so worn or corroded that even cleaned I couldn't make out a date.  So much was worn off that it was as close to a dime in size as it was to a penny.



The next item I investigated was a crusted large ring.  I couldn't tell what it was made of with the crust on it.  Again, I dipped it in an acid solution.  After washing it off and neutralizing the acid with baking soda, I could barely make out some pattern or design.

Silver Coin Ring Showing IN GOD WE TRUST.

It turned out to be a coin ring.  On the outside were the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" and some stars.

On the inside I eventually made out the words "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" and "HALF DOLLAR."  (See photo top of post.)

That was a pleasant surprise.  It was made of an older half dollar.  I'll try to narrow it down some more.

It is well worn and the words aren't easy to read with the naked eye.


It is always fun to investigate mystery finds. I don't even know how long these two were in the box before I got around to cleaning them.  Once again I wish I had better records.  That seems to be a common theme.

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The seven Rs of metal detecting.

Recover lost items
Remove trash
Return coins to circulation
Respond to requests to locate items
Recognize signs of historical or archaeological sites.
Report significant discoveries
Recycle dug materials
                                       by TreasureGuide.

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On the Treasure Coast the surf will be decreasing today and back down to one foot by Sunday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/17/14 Report - Testing A Good Inexpensive New Detector On a Yard and In The Woods. 1829 Large Cent Found

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

1829 Large Cent Found By New Ace 250 Detector

I'm going to do something today that I never do.  I'm going to give you a review of a metal detector.  It is the Garrett Ace 250, which just out of the box was able to detect various types of old and new targets on its first three short outings.   I was surprised by one find in particular (See photo.).

The Garrett Ace 250 is an inexpensive but very adequate metal detector.  For the price, it is an excellent detector.   Selling for just a little over $200 as compared to something more like $1200 for an Excalibur, it offers excellent performance for the price.  Don't, however, confuse it with something like the Excalibur, which has a totally different purpose.  As I've discussed before, a detector should be selected based upon what you plan to do with it, where you are going to hunt, and what you want to find, etc.

The Ace 250 is not a submersible detector.  In fact you should not get the control box wet.  So if you think it might rain, be sure to carry a cover or something with you. 

It is very compact and light weight.

It is very easy to assemble.  It came with batteries and headphones.  I assembled the entire thing and had it working in probably less than fifteen minutes.  It might take slightly longer if it is your first detector.

After quickly taking it out of the box and putting it together, I did a couple quick air tests  on coins in the house.  Everything looked good.  Then to the outdoors.

I took a penny, nickel, dime and quarter, threw them on the ground with a small distance between.  I  ran my coin over them and got good audio and display responses.  Again, no problem.

If this is a first detector for you, spend a lot of time on this step.  Also take a nail, pull tab and bottle cap.  The more time you spend practicing the better off you will be.

I'd start in coin mode.



Ace 250  Display and Buttons

The detector has five different modes that are selected by push button.   They are coin, relics, custom, jewelry and all metals modes,

You'll short change yourself if you don't spend good time practicing with known targets, but I've talked about that a lot in the past.

After some time, place some test targets very close to each other and on top of each other, like a nail and a coin.  The goal is to really get to know your detector and how it sounds when you encounter things in the field.

The settings and adjustments on this detector are easy to select and use.

Within an hour of first opening the box, I found a wheat penny along with a handful of other newer coins with this detector.  I was working an old yard that had been lightly worked before.

The one thing that you might find disappointing if you are new to detecting is that target ID is not as simple as it sounds.  It has both a graphic display, which is well organized and effective, and audio tones to discriminate.

When you first read about target ID you might imagine that it is clear cut and simple.  Just wave the coil over an object and read the ID.   It is not quite that simple though.  Many targets will cause the meter to jump around.  A target might read pull tab then nickel and the pull tab again, for one example.

In this yard there were a lot of roofing nails,  The display usually jumped back and forth between quarter and iron on those.  After a while you know how they display.

It does take time to get to know things like that though.

When a coin was detected it usually gave a pretty consistent reading.   Some cases were more complicated though.  For example when multiple targets were on top of each other or close to each other.

On the first day using this inexpensive detector in the first hour of operation in the yard I found several regular coins, including a wheat penny.

The next day I took the detector out on an old path where I found a 1909 wheat penny and some other clad coins.  Then back to the yard for a little more hunting.  I switched from the Coin mode to the All Metals mode. 

If you know me, you might be surprised that it took me that long to go to All Metals mode, but I wanted to explore the Coin Mode, so played with that a while first.  After switching to All Metals mode, one more wheat penny and a nice brass relic popped up.  I'll show the relic some time.

Then the next day a couple of hours in the woods resulted in finds which included another wheat penny, a 1829 large cent and an old inexpensive ring.

You'd never believe where I found those.  It was a very steep hillside in the woods.  A lot of the time I was following a deer path.  There was no obvious reason to suspect those items were there.  Also found was the metal end of a shot gun shell and a bullet casing.  Those types of finds were expected.  I'll show a picture of that woods area maybe tomorrow.

You can use the various modes together too.   For example if you are hunting in All Metals mode and get a signal that you want to check in Coin mode, that is very easy.  Just hit the push button with your thumb to change modes. 

I would use All Metals Mode a lot and then switch modes when I want to double check a target.

That shows what you can do with a detector that costs not much more than two hundred dollars.  I thought it worked well.  Part of it was my search strategy.  I'll get into that more sometime too.

One feature that this detector has that is better than the high-end detectors that I use is how easy it is to change the modes and settings.  Just use your thumb of your hand holding the detector without letting go of the detector rod or using your other hand.  That is a feature that I'd really like to see on my high-end detectors.

To summarize, the Ace 250 worked well inland, and I'm sure it will work well in dry sand too, although I do not know how well the few exposed metal parts will stand up to constant salt spray without some extra protection.

One reason I did this review is that a lot of people ask what they should get for their first detector.  I'm not saying this is it, because as I've explained, it depends on a lot of factors, but in many cases this would be a good first detector.

I highly recommend this detector as a first detector, especially if you are going to hunt inland.  It is easy to use and effective.  It would also make a good back-up or special purpose detector.  I thought it was a great value at a low price.

I did not test it on the beach and suspect that it is better choice for hunting inland.  I suspect that it might function well in dry sand.  I don't know how it would do in wet sand. 


On the Treasure Coas the surf is still small, but the tides are unusually big now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/22/14 Report - Land and Sea Treasures: New Finds By The Capitana Crew At The Green Cabin Wreck and Nice Inland Finds.

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

Bronze Shipwreck Artifact Found by the Crew of the Capitana Yesterday.
Photo submitted by Captain Johan Martinez.

I started to write up one topic this morning but didn't complete it.  I couldn't get it organized and ready, so I gave up for a while.  I'll get back to that topic some other time.  Maybe tomorrow.

It actually is better that I put that topic off because as I was writing I was coming up with more and more information.  I might have to break it up and present it in two or three different posts.




In the mean time I got some updates from Captain Jonah and the crew of the Capitana who are still finding some super items on the Green Cabin wreck site.

They found this bronze artifact along with some other artifacts yesterday.  Really neat!  Keep it up guys.

Reale Found by the Crew of the Capitana
Photo submitted by Captain Martinez.

Captain Jonah also sent me pictures of a couple of reales they found.  I'll show one of those today and another some other day.  I'll also get into a discussion of the details and identification at some other time.

Really nice detail showing on this reale!

Great job guys.  Thanks for sharing!

Like we said the last time, there is more out there and will be for a long time to come.













On the Treasure Coast beaches we've been having such poor beach detecting conditions, and no sign that that will change much any time soon.

Things can still be found.  I've been surprised by my rate of jewelry finds on the beach lately despite not finding hardly any coins.

Michael E. and William M. have been doing some inland hunting after calling to get permission from land owners.

Finds included vintage buttons, a merc dime, old shot gun shells, wheat cents, and a lead seal.

Michael says he likes the shot gun shells because you can date them with a little research.  I like them too.  They have different graphics and show a good bit of information.

Then Michael did some water hunting and got his 34th and 35th rings of the year.  Very good for anybody but especially for someone that hasn't been detecting a long time!

Variety of Very Nice Inland Finds
Photo submitted by Michael E.

Tungsten Ring Found by Michael
Photo submitted by Michael E.

Thanks for sharing Michael and William.  Nice finds during poor detecting conditions!

With the high price of gold you'll find a lot of rings made of other metals.

\That is all for today.  I'll be back with more some other time.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/11/13 Report - What's the Coin Beach Find & More

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

Coin As Found on Treasure Coast Beach

Among the coins that were found in a cluster of modern coins yesterday was this one with a crust.

On the side shown the exposed area looked like silver, but it was unusually shiny - not like oxidized silver.

On the other side, there appeared to be part of a design that looked like a wheat penny.  

Put the clues together.  One side looked silver, but the other side looked like it might be a wheat penny.  What do you think it is?

After a little cleaning the answer was clear.

It turned out to be a steel cent.  It was obviously lost before it was in circulation very long.  The small details were sharp although some corrosion did mar the surface that wasn't protected by crust.

Below is the same coin, after some cleaning.

1943 Steel Cent

Wheat pennies have been popping up a lot lately, but steel cents are less common.  I've found a lot of wheats in the past but very few steel.

If you find a 1943 cent made of copper, that could be worth thousands of dollars.  Only 40 copper-alloy 1943 cents are known to exist.

The steel cents were made during the war because of shortages in copper and nickel but a few copper cents were struck by accident.


A 1943 copper penny sold for $10,000 in 1981. The highest amount paid for a 1943 copper cent was $82,500 in 1996.

1943 copper cents have been counterfeited by coating steel cents with copper or by altering the dates of 1945, 1948, and 1949 pennies.

If a 1943 cent is made of steel instead of copper it will stick to a magnet  If it is copper it will not stick.

The hurricane season is nearly over and there has not been near the predicted activity.   Here is a link to a story about that.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20131007/NEWS01/310070021/Climatologist-says-slow-hurricane-season-winding-down?gcheck=1


I sometimes wonder why things aren't made better, especially detectors.  Nothing annoys me more than equipment that won't stand up to usage.  That is one reason I don't like a lot of features on a detector.  I don't want anymore than the basics that I really care about.  The more there is, there more there is to go wrong.

And detectors, like many other consumer electronics, are often poorly designed.  They are almost made like disposable products.  Use them while they work and then trash them.  But they are really too expensive for that to make sense.

One feature that more detectors should have is a separate compartments for the battery and circuits, most definitely for underwater detectors.  The Fisher Aquanaut had that, and it was effective.  You didn't get acid in the circuit compartment if you had a bad battery, and also if the seal was not tight and you got water leakage, as happened to me once, the circuit board was still protected because of the two separate compartments.  That is good design.

I'll comment more on some repair experiences in the next few days.



A diver drowned after experiencing an equipment problem while cave diving in a Florida State Park yesterday.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2013/oct/11/drowned-florida-diver-had-equipment-trouble/


Columbus Day is Monday.


On the Treasure Coast the erosion that occurred the past couple of days is disappearing.

The four-foot cuts that I showed yesterday are now one to two feet less.  The sand has begun to fill the cuts.  And where I found targets yesterday, none today.

The surf web sites are predicting a two to three foot surf for a few days now.  I didn't expect more erosion after yesterday, but I didn't expect such rapid filling either.

The high tides are fairly high, but so are the low tides.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net