4/8/19 Report - How To Better Analyze Your Finds - XRF Analysis. Waterspouts. Two Types of Treasure.

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

Desktop and Handheld XRF Analyzers.

I get a lot of questions asking about finds.  People want to know what their items are and how old they are.  One thing you might want to find out is the type of metal, and if a precious metal, the purity.

An acid test is one thing you might do to determine the metal and purity.  I've discussed acid tests in this blog in the past.  

There are some problems with acid testing.  For one thing, you have to scrape the item on a touch-stone.  You might not want to do that to something like a coin that could be valuable.

XRF analysis is a more modern method of testing metals.  It is non-destructive and more accurate than an acid test.

Many jewelry stores and pawn shops have an XRF analyzer.  You can get one of the more economical handheld models for not much more than a high end metal detector. 

The picture above shows an XRF desktop model and a hand-held analyzer. That picture and the two pictures below are from ThermoScientific.com.

Here is an example of an XRF analysis of a gold chain.

The analysis of the chain shows that it was made of gold, copper, zinc and silver.

As you probably know, an item like a gold ring will not be made of pure gold.  It will usually contain an alloy - very often copper.  XRF analysis can tell you not only what metals are present but also the percentage of each.

According to Thermo Scientific, Portable XRF analyzers are ideal for the retail environment. Many jewelers and pawn shops are using these instruments to test the purity and composition of precious metals. XRF quickly provides the exact percentages of all elements within an item – easily identifying non-standard, under-karated, and even sophisticated counterfeit precious metals that acid testing is incapable of differentiating...

Here is another example.

This analysis shows that the gold plated replica of an American Buffalo coin contains mostly copper, but also zinc, and a smaller amount of gold.

Click here to go to the Thermo Scientific site to learn more about XRF analysis.

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Huge Waterspout

Source: See Spiritdaily link below.

One of the nice things about being on the beach a lot is some of the sights.

I saw a smaller waterspout hit Fort Lauderdale Beach.

Here is the link for more about waterspouts.

https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/apocalyptic-water-tornado-speeds-toward-city-leaving-buildings-in-ruins

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Another one of the gang had heart surgery.  This time is was Dan B.

If you don't know about Dan, he was working on the Capitana when one of the greatest finds of Treasure Coast history was made back in 2015.  You can still go back in this blog and see photos of the gold coins, including the Royals that were found.

Pray for Dan.

It teaches you a lot when you go through something like that.  I thought I was going to die back a number of years ago. You can learn a lot during a time like that.  Faith helps.

As I told Dan, It is the storms of life that uncover the biggest treasures.

It was a very spiritual time for me.

Treasure hunting can teach many life lessons.  It is no wonder that "treasure" is mentioned so many times in the Bible and other spiritual books.

For example, Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

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The Treasure Coast surf will be down around two feet for a few days.  There will be a negative low tide.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/29/18 Report - Another Conglomerate: X-ray Says... Standard Oil Token Info. Taking Time To Learn The Story of a Find.

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

X-Ray Image of  Conglomerate Found by Fred B.
Photo submitted by Fred B.

Fred B., who found the conglomerate containing a cannon ball, had another conglomerate that he wanted to have x-rayed so he could decide whether to open the conglomerate or leave it how it was.  He could see  that there was a piece of lead and a spike in the conglomerate, but he didn't know what else might be in it.

One of this blog's readers offered to have the item x-rayed.  Above is the x-ray image of that conglomerate.  The bright white object is the lead.

It appeared that there were no coins or other items in the conglomerate other than the lead and spike, so Fred decided to leave it how it was found.

Fred offered a big thanks to this blog for hooking him up and to the reader who made it happen.

Thank much J. Y.

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One thing I like about writing this blog is that when I make a mistake, I am quickly corrected.  Hundreds of people read this blog daily, and that readership includes experts and hobbyists that are knowledgeable about all kinds of subjects.  That helps me a lot because and I write about a lot of different types of things.  I don't think anyone can be really expert in more than one or two subjects, so I certainly need and gladly receive the help of my readers.

Just yesterday I posted a Standard Oil advertising token that I didn't know much about and asked if anyone might help me narrow down the date.  Well, as usual, some one came through.  Ben M. did some research and was able to add valuable information.  Below is what Ben said.

Hi Treasure Guide -

I enjoyed reading your blog for today regarding the Standard Oil token. Tokens in general are a favorite metal detecting find for me - in my opinion, they are more intriguing than coins. Local merchant and trade tokens can often be researched to reveal interesting individuals or unique local history which just isn't possible with coins. 

Anyway, I did a little poking around on the internet for your Standard Oil token in an attempt to narrow down the date a little. The best I could come up with so far is this website, which shows the same design listed along with a second design for the Standard Oil Company (Indiana) used from 1882-1931:

http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Standard

The website obviously isn't official, so the credibility of the info is somewhat suspect. The first design appears to be the logo for the top of an old service station gasoline dispenser, and maybe not used company-wide as a letterhead style logo. I've confirmed from other sources that the second logo in that date range was used by Standard Oil (Indiana) starting in 1926, and apparently was the first "official" logo used by Standard Oil according to wikipedia (again, not necessarily definitive information): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoco (see the logo section).  

Looking at newspaper advertisements from the 1920s, there were absolutely no logos used in Standard Oil (Indiana) ads until early 1927, and then suddenly every add included the "Service" logo referred to in each web page link - that sort of confirms the info from the wikipedia page. Anyway, all of this might imply that your token may pre-date 1926, otherwise I think it would have used one of the "official" Standard Oil logos from one of the later time periods.

Anyway, I hope that helps...it certainly was fun to do the research, especially since I haven't had a new token find of my own investigate lately :) 

Thanks Ben!  Excellent research and report.  I appreciate your help and I'm sure others do too.  

Ben not only provided information about the token, but he also provided a good link about logos that you might find useful in the future.

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I often tell people to take their find to a jeweler or pawn shop to have it tested.  That is a good way to find out what metal your find is made of, but don't expect the jeweler or pawn shop owner to be able to tell you much of anything about your coins.  They have testing equipment for metals, but they probably won't know a lot about coins - especially treasure coins.  We all have our limits, and as I said above, you can know something about a lot of different things, but you can't be a real expert on a lot of different topics.

I've been finding out how complicated coin collecting can be.  If you get into collecting even just modern varieties and errors, there is really a lot to learn.  I was really surprise to find out how complicated it is.

I haven't yet mastered identifying doubled die errors.  Doubled die errors looks to a novice (me) very much like a lot of other types of doubling.  I have a hard time telling the difference between machine doubling and doubled die errors.  One problem is that true doubled die errors are pretty rare, which means you most often see them in books, which, of course, only show two dimensional pictures, which make them all look pretty flat.

Despite how much there is to learn, I'm enjoying what I am learning.

There is also a lot to learn about treasure coins.  There are so many of them and they were produced for so many years and there are so many different designs.  To make it more difficult, if you find one on a beach, it can be covered by a lot of corrosion or encrustation, and half of it might not even be there.

The complexity can be confusing, but doing the research and learning can also make it that much more rewarding.

Don't just look for a coin and then ask how much it is worth.  Even if it is difficult and takes a long time, do your research, learn more about the coin, and enjoy the process.  You will then have something that has a whole story to go along with it.

As I always say, Keep an item until you learn its story.    It might not look like much, and you might not think it is worth anything, but wait until you are sure.  It might not be worth anything, but I am often surprised by what I eventually learn about an item.

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There are still no storms or big changes in beach conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net