4/7/12 Report - Rocks, Coins & Lost Colony

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

Gold and Pearl Ring Beach Metal Detector Find.

This thin gold band got bent.  I've shown quarters and dimes that were bent at ninety degree angles before.  Items are exposed to a lot of force when buried under a lot of sand and rock under the front beach.


I received an email from Philip I., the seller of the eBay item that I showed yesterday, and he said the item was found inside a heavy crust and was told it is made of copper and bronze.


Not long ago I talked about how objects are moved by the waves, and despite what you might often hear, I stated that there are factors that are more important than weight in determining how an object is moved on a beach.  I also discussed density and specific gravity, which I consider to be more important than weight, but still there are other important factors.   Those other factors include the shape of the object, which I consider to be very important, surface characteristics, and other materials that are part of the object.

Concerning shape, solid spheres, unlike thin sheets, sink quickly to lower layers of sand and are not easily moved by the waves.  A thin gold sheet will be moved totally differently than a sphere of similar composition.   A thin gold sheet presents a lot of surface area for the waves to work against, while a gold sphere would not be as affected by the movement of water.  Of course a sphere or other shape that presents little resistance (such as a gold ring) would also sink into the sand more quickly.

You've undoubtedly seen rocks that were cast up on a beach.  You might have seen heavy rocks that appeared to heavy to be moved by the water.  Here is an article that explains how rocks weighing up to 78 tons were moved onto shore and over land by the sea.  Some people would think that impossible.   The following article gets into the dynamics of that. 

Here is the link.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430164357.htm

Very informative article.  Very applicable to metal detecting.

When figuring out the distribution of objects on a beach, remember to take into account factors other than weight and density. 



Here is a great web site for finding values of US coins.  It presents a lot of great information.

http://www.coinstudy.com/

It appears that the Lost Colony has been found.  No one knew where the 16th century settlers moved to after leaving Roanoke Island until a reexamination of the 425 year-old Virginia Pars map revealed some clues.
Here is the link to that story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/lost-colony-of-roanoke-re_n_1474199.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D158325


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is from the West and the seas flat.  The tide will be low around 3:30.   Conditions remain pretty much the same.   Still easy low tide and water hunting.

Seas will be slowly increasing up to about four feet on Wednesday.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide @comcast.net

5/6/12 Report - Big Low Tides Continue & Mystery Find From Wabasso


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



Wabasso Beach Find For Sale on EBay.

Wabasso Beach Metal Detector Find.

I saw this item for sale on eBay.   Can you identify it?  Let me know.

That is the type of thing that could easily pop up under current conditions.  Like I've been reporting, there are a lot of miscellaneous iron and other objects on some of the beach fronts. 

That Super Moon was big and round last night.  Really a pretty sight.

Aquanaut John said that 115 treasure hunters gathered at the recent treasure hunter's cookout.  Quite an affair.  Very successful in every sense of the word.  Except the dowsing didn't seem to go as well.  The dowsed targets didn't prove out.

There have been a number of studies on such things.  Arizona State University and Duke University are two that do a lot of research on parapsychology, ESP and things like that. 

One major difficulty in conducting research on topics like mediumship is that mediums don't do well when they are around skeptical people.  They will tell you that, and it seems that science supports that.  That makes it difficult to study scientifically because researchers should maintain an objective skeptical attitude.  Therefore the conduct of  science and paranormal activities are often incompatible by their very nature.

I once talked about dowsing and did a poll in this blog on the topic.  I was a little surprised by the large percentage of people that indicated that they believed in it to some extent, not because I don't believe in it, but I simply didn't think so many others did.

Another complication was pointed out by one blog reader who said they believed in dowsing, but not when done for personal gain.  As you can see there are many complications and factors to be considered.  

In ESP research, even though some subjects seem to consistently do better than chance, they are still far from perfect.   And if you study enough subjects, some should by chance do better than chance, as odd as that might sound. 

There are certainly times when it seems that intuition or something is at work.  I've had those experiences, and I am sure that many of you have too.  Sometimes it seems like you are drawn to a particular find.   Although there appears to be some kind of sixth sense operating at times, I don't consider things like dowsing to have been either proven or disproven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and certainly not completely understood. 

Some times you.re hot, and other times your not.  Call it what you will.


Skill is the intentional process of improving the probability of success.  Even the most skilled fail sometimes.


Forgive my rambling, but the Super Moon (or should I say "Fool" Moon) seems to be affecting my thinking.    ; )


Coin Discoveries in Your Own Home.   That is the title of the following linked article.  It briefly discusses a number of cache and coin discoveries made in and around homes.  It is an older article (2007) but you might find it both interesting and useful.

I've never seen too much written about hunting caches.  A book by Glenn Carson on the topic comes to mind, but not much else.

Here is the link to the article on coin discoveries made in and around homes.

http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/coins/soltaylor062307.htm


A mock archaeological dig turned out to be on top of an old Roman temple. 

Here is the link.

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120504-42341.html

The world has been here for a while.  So have people.  And people have been almost everywhere.   And anywhere they've been, they've had an impact and probably left some things behind. 

If you consider any object over a few years old to be archaeologically significant, as archaeologists seem to want to do these days, the entire world becomes an archaeological site.  That is why archaeology needs to become more mature in its approach and instead of trying to protect the entire world from any human activity other than archaeology itself, needs to define priorities and focus their efforts better.

Sunday won't be much different from Saturday.  The swells will come a little more from the north, but not much.  

Get used to summer beach conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/5/12 Report - The Overgeneralization Trap

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

Gold Nugget Crucifix Pendant Beach Metal Detector Find.

I was talking about nugget jewelry the other day, and pendants.  Here is another one.  I think you would call it nugget.  Maybe abstract.

Computers result in, or should I say create, data.  I was looking at google analytics, which I do almost daily, to see how many people read the day's blog and noticed that you can view how many people viewed the blog hour by hour.   I looked mostly out of curiosity - just because it was there.  What I noticed is that there are two peak periods of  daily activity.   One is around 6 to 8 AM, and the other around 6 or 7 PM.   They are about equal in usage.  And the time when hardly anyone is reading the blog, as you might expect, is after midnight and into the early morning hours.

Being a data junky and enjoying the process of theorizing and learning, naturally I thought about it a bit.  That is what I do - observe and try to make sense out of the world.  Passing along my observations and thoughts is secondary to that but gratifying when it seems there is someone on the other end of the computer that is paying attention and benefiting from my efforts.

Anyhow, the data supported what I had previously heard.   People have told me that the blog is the first thing they look at in the morning.  It seems there is a group of people that do that on a regular basis.   Then there appears to be another group that reads the blog after coming home from a day of work.  And of course smaller numbers at most hours of the day.

People are creatures of habit.  That can be a problem when it comes to detecting.  If you always hunt the same parts of the same beaches, those hunted spots can become cleaned out.  And if you are hunting the same beaches and spots that most other people are detecting, your efforts can become less productive.

If you have success at one spot, you'll tend to return to the same spot.  It is like the Skinner box.  You know - reinforcement.  Or you might call it reward and punishment.   But unlike a Skinner box, a beach is a complex and dynamic system.  It changes.  Constantly.

Just because you had success at one spot in the past and no success at other spots, doesn't mean that things won't change.  You might have been hunting for years, and had a lot of success in a specific range of the beach.  As a result you might very well start to spend almost all of your time on the part that was productive in the past.  That will pretty much guarantee that you won't find much in the areas that weren't productive in the past.  You aren't spending your time there so you won't find much there.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You don't believe you'll find anything there, so you don't hunt there, and you don't find anything there.  That is the trap.

I advise busting out of your preconceptions every once in a while to simply test your theories.  I'm not saying spend a lot o time where you don't expect to find anything, but check out those areas once in a while.  You just might be surprised.  I've often been surprised, and as a result had to reconsider my beliefs and had to adjust my thinking to take into account new discoveries.

Instead of falling into the trap of hunting the same spot or two over and over again to the exclusion of all the other possibilities, one thing you can do is rotate the locations that you hunt.  After cleaning out one beach, move to another the next day or week.  Move from one to another on a regular cycle.  Five or six spots in your rotation might be a good number.   But don't be afraid to bust the cycle.  Site rotation works best on beaches that have a lot of activity and are replenished on a regular basis - not as well on most treasure beaches. 

Even if you have a system, break out of it once in a while.  Check other areas once in a while just to check you thinking.   And  if you want to continue to learn, you have to occasionally try new things  And you have to test your old ideas.  Things change.  Don't get stuck in a rut.  Especially an unproductive one.

If you find rusty artifacts such as shipwreck spikes, you know what happens to iron after it has been immersed in salt water.  I've talked about how to treat iron in the past and given some helpful links.   Here is another link if you want to learn more about rusty artifacts.

http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/may/story67592.html

The beach conditions and forecast haven't changed.   It is still beautiful weather, with calm seas and very low low tides.  It is a nice time for wading or snorkeling.   And there seem to still be a lot of iron and other metals on the beach fronts.  Still some dips in front of the beach.

 

Happy hunting,

Treasureguide @comcast.net

5/4/12 Report - Super Moon Over Treasure Coast & $20,000 Meteorite Found


Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


The Super Moon is causing some nice low tides.  Along with the smooth water, that makes for some easy water and low tide hunting. 

The top photo shows Walton Rocks near low tide today.   Good snorkeling.  Nice clear smooth water.  



Walton Rocks Near Low Tide Today



You could see some interesting things just wading.  

A lot of shells too.  And to the north, some nice dips between the beach and the near shore bar.

Also a few fossils to be found, along with a lot of iron and other miscellaneous metals.

Really nice weather for leisurely beach combing.

 Up at Green Turtle beach, there has been some filling.  You can see that in the second photo.  You could get out nicely into the low tide zone there too.  There was, however, a heck of a lot of sand at the foot of the cut and in the shallow water.  I think you can see that in the photo below.

There is a lot of beach to detect now but also a heck of a lot of sand.  I dropped my beach conditions rating back to a 1 yesterday.


The wind and swells are from the east/southeast.   I expect conditions to remain pretty much the same through the weekend and Monday.

Green Turtle Beach Near Low Tide Friday.

The peak Super Moon will be Sunday.






Out in El Dorado County in California, which you probably know as gold country, a mother found something more valuable than gold in a public park.  It was one of many space rocks that have been falling in Gold Country and is worth more than $20,000.



A meteor shower along with this space rock find brought hoards of scientists and treasure-seekers to the neighborhood.

Here is the link to that story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/brenda-salveson-meteorite_n_1473973.html?1336055521&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D157467

Looks just like any old rock to me.  I wonder how she knew about meteorites. 

I always say it's good to know about as many different types of treasures as possible.  Who knows how many people walked right by this meteorite, maybe even kicked it.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/3/12 Report - Vintage Ring & Minelab Target ID

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


Unusual Vintage Ring Florida Metal Detector Find.



In recent posts I talked about Florida history and some off-beach sites such as Micanopy.  Here is an off-beach find from a historic area of Florida.

It was found in the Miami/Brickell area by the same fellow that found the bronze dagger that I showed back in January of 2012.

Here is what he said about the ring.

I dug this Mexican Biker Ring from my dad's swale (parking strip.) It was about a foot from the asphalt, and about 20 yards from where I found the bronze knife. These rings are highly collectible. They were made in Mexico from demonetized coins in the 1930s-1950s - and so are made of copper alloys (bronze and brass are copper alloys) and nickel. Rarely you find one made of silver. They featured Indian heads (as this one does); skulls; and horses. The shields on the side usually featured fleur de lis. Mine was unusual in that the shields had buffaloes on them, and also in how much of the colored enamel on the war bonnet had survived. When I cleaned up the ring, I left the original dark patina on the Indian's face, which is bronze or brass. I sold it for $250, but then the shields on the sides fell off before I shipped it, so I sold it to another guy for $210 as-is. The shields just need to be soldered back onto the band.

Thanks to Lawrence G. for the story and photo.

I mentioned the other day that the blog poll results showed that people thought that Minelab detectors had the best target ID.  To back up the poll results, James F. wrote in about his experience, and his experience is extensive, including a number of brands of detectors.  Besides the older Excaliber that he owns, he also has a Minelabe Explorer SE Pro.  That is a detector that I have never used. 

Talking about the newer detector, here is what James said.

I think the advantage my newer Minelab has, is it uses BOTH an audio tonal system and a visual system to help you ID the target. The visual graph kind of gets inaccurate for targets deeper than 8" deep, however, and you need to rely on your expertise identifying the tone. I very rarely use any discrimination along most of the beaches, especially near the water line as anything can be there...usually very little trash to contend with. Hunting along the St. Johns or Indian rivers, I use a bit of discrim because fishermen love to drop the bottle caps all over the bank and even in the water. I also own a small Garrett Acer 250 I got for my wife, but she never uses it, so I occasionally take it for a run, just to be different. It targets pretty well, too, for a low-cost machine. But over the last 45-years I have owed Whites's, Garrett, Tesoro, and a few other off-brand machines, and I've got to say, Minelab has the best ID system I've ever used...truly!

So there you have a good testimonial that supports the poll results. 

For the most part, I seem to always like the detector I've used the most and the detector that I know the best.  I can't say I've ever used a detector that blew me away right off the bat.   It always took me a while to learn to use any detector well.  And I've used some very high-end expensive detectors, including some great custom built and modified jobs.  Some were extremely good, but I didn't really appreciate how good until I learned to use them well.


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions and Forecast.

I'm decreasing my Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions Rating back to a 1.  There was some erosion around the Treasure Coast as I've mentioned and shown.

The wind is out of the east/southeast.   Seas will continue to decrease until Sunday and then start to increase slightly again.

This weekend should provide some easy detecting on the front beach and in the shallow water but not the most productive detecting.  Yet there could be a few interesting finds.

At some locations the bar has been separating from the front beach forming a dip in between.  Watch those dips.


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net


 

5/2/12 Report - Bomb Gate Defused & Many Happy Returns

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

Yesterday I showed a photo of some of the guys from the Bomb Unit from Patrick Air Force Base that were in Vero beach because of a suspicous buried object detected by W. D.  The Bomb Unit returned to the beach Tuesday morning and retrieved the object.  The object turned out to be part of a gate that was first detected but not retrieved  because of the depth and water last Saturday. 

When found at low tide Saturday the object was about 19 inches deep.  Only a  section of the drab green pipe was glimpsed at the time.  Tuesday, when it was retrieved, it was dug at a depth of only about 2 inches. As W. D. said, that gives some indication of the amount of  erosion that occured in that area in the past few days.  

W. D. uses a Detector Pro Headhunter Pulse Induction with a 11 inch coil.


 

He wrote, The police said they are very careful about this because back in the eighties a policeman in Port St. Lucie checked on a device on the beach that was a cannister. He cut it with an axe and it was a phosphorous flare. He suffered severe burns and the doctors had to immerse him in a tub of saline water in a darkened room to retrieve the burning metal with tweezers. Luckily he had his vest on.

My advice to everyone is if you find anything suspicious on the beach don't be too embarrased to call the police.

Good advice W. D., and thanks for the photo and story.


There are a couple of good lessons there.   One is how you can monitor sand levels as they increase and  decrease over detected objects.  Another is that there will be times when you can't retrieve certain objects, but if you try again when conditions such as the tide, sand level or surf changes, you might be able to get it later.  Of course, it could disappear too.  And third, be careful.  There are buried objects that can be dangerous.   In this case W. D. played it safe, and I think he enjoyed the experience.

I wonder how long that gate has been out there.   Evidently not too long by the looks of it.  So why is it there and how did it get there?  I wonder how many times it has been detected.  

I feel like I understand a lot about how object move on a beach and how they end up where they are found, but there is one important part that I wish I understood better.  I've conducted some experiments that have given me some insight, but I wish I could put a GPS locator on a cob so I could track it's movements. 

I was surprised by the results of the most recently concluded blog poll. I really expected either Garrett or Whites to come out on top. I didn't expect Minelab to be rated as having the best target ID.  When I think of  Minelab, I don't really think of target ID.  Of course they do have ID meters for some of their models such as the Sovereign.   The results could have been swayed by the popularity of Mainelab detectors on the Treasure Coast.

Minelab received 36% of the responses, Whites 25%, Garrett 19%, Fisher 9%, Tesoro 6% and other 2%. Target ID has never been something that has been real important to me, but it does have its applications, even though I think most people use it way too much.


Gold is still in the $1600s.  Not bad.  That makes almost any gold find worth something. 

Wedding bands are among the most common gold finds on the beach.   If you are only finding larger men's bands, you are probably using too much discrimination.  As I've said before, there was a time when I thought women didn't lose as many bands as men.  That was shortly after I began detecting and missed a lot of the smaller women's rings.

Rings with nice gem stones often have small bands.  You don't want to miss those.

If you've only been finding larger bands, it's time to experiment with your detector.  Take the smallest thinnest band you can find out and practice detecting it.

To the right is a recent gold band find.  18 kt. and nearly average size for a man's ring.  Not too large and not too small..

Look for any inscriptions on the inside of the band.   Some people even get their name inscribed.

Sometimes I'm surprised by what people do or don't respond to.  I thought I would get some email about the ghost ship post, but not a word.

I like to publish stories of returned finds.  People need to know how many finds are returned.  And the officials need to consider that when they talk about banning metal detectors.  If you ban metal detectors, a lot of cherished items will remain lost for ever.

A lot of my returns happened very shortly after the loss.  In those cases, someone usually saw me on the beach and asked me to come find the ring, gold chain, eye glasses, car keys or whatever it was that they just lost.  Those are the easy ones.  I've found and returned all of those kinds of things.  The eye glasses took me longer than the others that I can think of right now.  A guy staying at a hotel lost his glasses in two or three feet of water.   Like I said, it took me a while that time, but I found them.

Imagine the inconvenience of losing your eye glasses when away on vacation, especially if you need them to drive or whatever.

You know, the more I think of it the more cases I remember.  I just remembered the time a young girl came to me and said she lost her sister's class ring.  I haven't thought of that one in years.   She wasn't supposed to have her sister's ring, but took it and wore it and  dropped it in the ocean.  I found that one quickly in about four feet of water.  She was certainly relieved.

There are a lot of people out there that think detectorists profit from the losses of other people.  They don't know how many items that would have remained lost if not for a detectorist.  That is one reason I'd like to publish more stories on returns.  We do it all the time, but usually nobody hears about it.


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions and Forecast.

I'm sticking with a minimal two rating on my Treasure Coast beach conditions rating scale for another day.  that will probably be the end of the upgrade.

The wind is from the southeast and the seas are down to around four or five feet.   Seas will be calm this weekend again.  Sunday the wind will be from the west.  With the calm seas, west wind and Super Moon, that should be a very good day for hunting the low tide zone, and be a good day for getting in the water if you can find a spot that isn't buried deep in sand.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/1/12 Report - Beach Upgrade, Super Moon & Bomb Squad on Vero Beach

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

Bomb Unit from Patrick Air Force Base at Vero Beach Yesterday.

A possible bomb was inspected by the police who were called in by a detectorist who found the suspicious object.  The police called in the bomb unit from Patrick Air Force Base, but they arrived too late as the incoming tide made it impossible for the object to dug up and inspected.  They will try again today at low tide.

The detectorist who originally detected this object sent me the photo and information.   Thanks W. D.

You got it here first.

Always remember that old ordnance could surface on our Treasure Coast beaches anytime.

You might have noticed the low low tides we've been having.  It is because of what has been called an Extreme Super Moon.  Super Moons aren't all that rare.   They occur every year.  Although this one may be one of the nearest in the last seventeen years. 

The closest and biggest full moon of 2012 will be on Saturday, May 5th. That means that high tides will be unusually high and low tides will be unusually low, then and for a few days before and after.

Yesterday I located an object in the low tide zone that I couldn't recover myself.   I dug it up this morning.  Nothing good.

The two to three foot cut that I talked about yesterday turned into a three to four foot cut by this morning. About one more foot of sand disappeared last night.


Here it is immediately below.

And the beach below had was cut even more - five to six foot. 

I'm issuing an upgrade on my Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions Rating Scale to a 2.   That is a minimal two.  Despite the nice looking cuts, they aren't the most productive.  There is just too much sand in front of the cuts.   And the foot of the cut is too high above the water line.

This google blog editor is poor.  

I don't expect the 2 rating to last long.  Seas have decreased since yesterday and will continue to decrease throughout the week.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net