12/4 Report - Silver Earring & Sea Beans

Silver Earring Found on a Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beach.

This is one of those things that frustrates me. It is so difficult to properly identify unmarked items found on a beach. I think it is just as difficult to properly identify items found in the water around a shipwreck, but I think they often get a pass and quickly conclude that if an item is found near the pile, it is part of the shipwreck. Items can come from intermingled wrecks and wrecks can be contaminated with items from a variety of other sources.

This earring is obviously old, but it is hard to tell how old or where it came from. It is a lot easier when you can find some type of mark on an item, but when there is none, the best thing you can do is try to match the found item with others of known identity. That can take a long time.

The item that I now think is a rove (I posted a photo of the suspected rove a few days ago) took me years to find a photo that gave me a clue.

I don't know how long it will take to learn more about this earring. If you can help in any way, please do.

When I get the time to clean this earring properly, I might be able to find a mark that will help. If I find that it is marked 925 or Sterling, I'll know that it isn't from a Spanish shipwreck. I guess even the absence of a mark can help narrow things down some.

It often takes a lot of work to identify an item, but you usually learn a lot of interesting things in the process.

If you've been to the beach lately, you might have noticed some sea beans. A sea bean is any of a variety of seeds that wash out to sea and then onto a distant beach. Locally they mostly come from places like Central or South America or the Caribbean and end eventually up on our beaches.

One type of sea bean that I've been seeing on our local beaches lately has the more scientific name "Macuna." There are a variety of types of Macuna.

The ones I've been noticing are an inch to an inch and a half across and are bright shiny brown. One type has a black stripe around it.

I just found out today that there are web sites about sea beans, and that some people collect sea beans, and there are some people that make jewelry and other items from sea beans. I knew about sea beans before but I didn't know that some people found them that interesting.


Both gold and silver have been doing well, with gold being near $1400 an ounce and silver near $28.

Note: The troy ounce is the unit of weight for precious metals. One troy ounce equals 1.09711 regular (avoirdupois) ounces.


Forecast and Conditions.

It has been a long time since conditions have been good on the Treasure Coast for finding old shipwreck cobs. I hope you've notice though, how much rougher the water has been on average for the past couple of months. It might not be producing a lot of erosion on the beach, but it should at least be moving some sand in the water and stirring things up a bit. I think that was pretty much proven when the pieces of planks were washed up onto the beach. What is going on on a particular day is important, but there is a longer term cumulative process that takes place during the winter too.

You undoubtedly noticed that a cold front moved through recently and that always reminds me of my best cob hunting day back about twenty years ago when a col front came through. I've mentioned it before, but it was so cold on the Treasure Coast that the bridges on 95 were icing up. I can't remember exactly what year that was, but I remember clearly being out there in the freezing air and finding a good number of cobs. The only other person I saw on the beach that day only lasted a few minutes before he got froze out. I think it was on December 23rd or 24th.

Anyhow, conditions aren't good for finding cobs yet. At least that's my conclusion from the beaches that I've seen. I can't get around to them all. I've been pretty busy lately.

I think it is interesting how some fairly large stones were washed out of the water and deposited high on the beach even while the sand was building on the beach.

I think it is still a hunt and peck kind of world out there on the Treasure Coast beaches. You just have to scratch around to find much of anything.

I do think some artifacts will show up on the front of some of the beaches at low tide.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/3 Report - Non-metallic Treasure Coast Finds

Indian Pot Shard Found on the Treasure Coast.

This one was found at the beach on the surface. It is about an inch and a half square. It is darker on the outside than the inside and the outside shows some of a decorative design. Pot shards showing some ornamentation are almost always a bit more interesting - at least to me.

You might be able to see one line running from near the bottom center at about a forty five degree angle towards the upper left and two parallel lines on the opposite side.

Below you see a view of the other side (inside) of the same shard. Notice the rim edge at the top of the piece.


Another View of the Same Shard.

Some of you might have any interest in pot shards or Indian artifacts, but they do provide information when they show up on a beach. First it tells you that old light items are washing up - or out.

Second it tells you that there has been some activity at the site in past centuries. That is important and useful information.

Many sites where the Spanish camped were also associated with Indians. Sometimes the Indians were involved in salvaging shipwrecks, either of their own free will or otherwise.

We know that the Indians often interacted with the Spanish and both Spanish and Indian artifacts can be found at the same sites. Not too long ago I mentioned a Native American dwelling found in St. Augustine where there was a mission settlement.

Also, if the Indians found a particular site to be of some advantage, so would other people, weather it was a source of water, game, or strategic advantage. That means that it would be a good site to detect.

Use non-metallic signs like this as an indicator of a possibly good detecting site.

While on the subject of non-metallic items, watch out for loose emeralds. They have been found on the Treasure Coast.

Two Raw Emeralds.

They won't necessarily be cut and polished like those found in a ring or other jewelry.



Bottles of vintage champagne were salvaged last summer from an early 19th century shipwreck near Finland. 50 sealed bottles are expected to sell for about $68,000 each.

http://i-winereview.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-government-revenue-source.html

The previous record price for a bottle of champagne is $21,200 for a 1928 bottle of Krug.


Forecast and Conditions.

Beach conditions remain essentially unchanged. The forecast shows nothing as high as five foot seas for the next several days. That means more of the same.

You'll probably have to really hunt for anything much good. The good spots will be few and far between.

One piece of advice I would give is to take a look at the low tide areas. Also hunt out some of the off-beach spots.

I might give a hint or two on some of those in the next few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/2/10 Report - What a Difference a Day Makes - Sometimes.

Beach South of the Fort Pierce Inlet This Morning.


I stopped here yesterday morning and was surprised once again by how many coins you can find on some of the Treasure Coast beaches. There are so many detectorists out there and some of the beaches are detected to death, but other beaches evidently aren't hunted that much.

Yesterday I stopped by John Brooks to see what was going on because I got a report and wanted to see it for myself. When I got there I could see that conditions weren't good at all but detected for a little while anyhow. I think it's a good idea to test your ideas every once in a while, because sometimes you'll find something strange and other times you'll learn something new.

By the way the beach conditions at John Brooks deteriorated even more last night.

Anyhow, after spending just a little time there yesterday, I moved on, and on the way home decided to stop at the spot shown above. Some old finds were made there in the past (both shipwreck and WWII) and found what I would describe as a large (both wide and long) coin line.

You may remember some of my posts on coin lines from the past.

I wish I had my camera then, because it would have made a great illustration. Not only was the line easy to see from my holes, but you could also see my scan pattern because there weren't any other tracks in the sand. other than mine. You could clearly see my path and the holes that I dug. Maybe I'll try to draw an illustration of that when I find time.

I didn't want to detect long or hard since I strained my back a couple of day before and wanted to take it easy. Well, I ended up digging almost continuously for a little over an hour and almost all of them were deep enough that I had to take at least three or four scoops in packed wet sand. That wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered for the back, but I hate to leave a coin hole or coin line without cleaning it out. This time I probably left a few because I didn't want to push my back any more.

Speaking of testing your ideas - I found that this line was upside down. In most ways it was classic, but the quarters and nickels were at the top of the slope and the zinc pennies at the bottom of the slope. That is not typical. The zinc pennies were also buried deep - and the quarters were relatively shallow. That is also sort of unusual in my experience.

There was two layers of densely packed sand, the top more coarse and loose than the second, and then there was a third deeper layer of shells averaging about seven inches deep but varying to as much as twelve or more. Many targets seemed to be laying on the top of or near the layer of shells.

As much as I hate to leave a coin line or hole unfinished, I'm sure I left some items behind this time.

One reason to work out a coin line is that sometimes something more interesting pops up in between the coins.

One thing to take away from this is that there are places out there still holding a lot of modern coins even when conditions are not good for finding shipwreck coins on the treasure beaches.

Now the reason for the title of my post today. I went back to Fort Pierce today figuring that I would see how much I left yesterday. Well, there was several feet of new sand on top of the layers that I was working yesterday. There were still some quarters and nickels at the top of the slope near the dunes. I was surprised how much sand built up there last night though.

Sometimes good holes last only a few hours and sometimes the erosion and hunting conditions continues to improve at a specific spot for days or weeks.

Forecast and Conditions.

Even though conditions aren't good on most of the treasure beaches, there has been enough movement of sand to produce useful erosion in some places like the one I found yesterday.

By the way, did I mention that they are planning to renourish Indian River County beaches again very soon. That is the report that I got.

Right now, look for places where there are just to the south of any obstacles to the natural flow of sand, such as south of jetties, inlets, rocks, walls, etc.

Yesterday the beach at Fort Pierce was eroded almost all the way back to the sea oats. A few of the sea oats might have even been washed out too. Yesterday that beach provided a very good example of how you might find some decent hunting where there is simply some sort of obstacle to the flow of sand.

I would suspect you might be able to find some other spots like that out there somewhere.

The wind is now from the north/northeast and the high tides are still coming up nice and high. Seas will only be about f feet today and then decrease for a few days.

I'd then be looking for some nice low low tide areas.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/30 Report - Roves? and Other Artifacts

Artifacts Found in Caribbean.

The item on the left is obviously a musket ball, but I have been trying to identify the other item for quite some time without any success at all. Just yesterday, though, I found a web site that shows a very similar item that was from a shipwreck of the late 18th century, which is about the same time period that a famous Naval battle was fought near the island where the item was found.

I found the similar looking item on a great webs site for viewing shipwreck artifacts. The web site shows artifacts from the HMS Sirius, which was built in 1780 and wrecked in 1790.

The HMS Sirius was commissioned as a store ship and therefore carried a lot of unused items, including those for ship repair.

Here is the gallery of artifacts. There are a lot of different items to look at but if you scroll down you'll come to what are called roves.

http://www.hmssirius.com.au/recovery/artefacts

The roves shown by that web site are the closest thing that I've seen to my mystery item. At this point, I feel that the mystery item could well be a rove. There were a number of them found at the same location on the Caribbean Island and were associated with other items such as the musket ball.

Here is a web site that shows how roves are used.

http://www.faeringdesigninc.com/instruct.html

You might also want to back up and learn more about the Sirius. Here is the link for that.

http://www.hmssirius.com.au/flagship-of-the-first-fleet

I doubt you are all that interested in roves, but it shows how you can study an item for a long time (several years in my case) before finally figuring out what it might be. That is why I recommend holding onto items until you know what they are.

I also hope you enjoyed looking at the other artifacts shown on that web site. It is always good to improve your knowledge of artifacts. You never know what you might find on a beach.

Forecast and Conditions.

From what I saw this morning I can't rate the Treasure Coast treasure beach conditions any better than a 1 (poor).

As you can see from this first beach photo, I did find a little scalloping going on, and expect that to increase a little at high tide today.

Nothing exciting, but at least there is some sand moving.

Maybe some of the other beaches are better. I doubt it though, because the water didn't get very high on the beach and the waves seem to be hitting almost directly out of the East while the wind is out of the south/southeast.

The beach photo below shows how wide the low tide area is. There is a lot of sand out in front of the beach to protect the beach.



It doesn't look like the beach will change much in the next few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/29 Report - Couple Mystery Finds & Preserving Finds

Spoon Found on the Treasure Coast.

I'm trying to get information to identify this spoon. When I first saw it I thought it could be real old. I think it might be pewter. It doesn't test as high grade silver.

I don't think it is as old as it looks. I found a mark reading "ITALY." I don't know when Italy was first called Italy, but I think it was maybe in the 1860s. I'll have to do some more research on that.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Below I have another little mystery find for the day that I'd like some help with. It is about 1.25 inches across the top, 1 inch across the bottom, and about one inch tall. It seems to be made out of a fairly rough stone like a grinding wheel, but as you might be able to see, is lop-sided and would wobble all over the place if turned on it's axis. I think that means it is probably not a grinding wheel.



I'm thinking that it might be a stopper similar to what you see on some old beer or soda bottles. What do you think?


Here is a good web site by Captain Dan Berg that gives the basics for preserving shipwreck artifacts including, wood, pottery, iron, tin, lead, glass, etc.

http://www.shipwreckexpo.com/shipwreckdivingartifactpreservation.htm

Preserving your artifacts will keep them nice for a long time and make them more presentable and perhaps even more valuable.

I always recommend keeping good notes on when and where items are found. That helps in a variety of ways. Not only does it add information that can actually add to the value of finds, but it also will help you figure out what if any wreck an item might be associated with, and it will help you evaluate different beaches and detecting sites for future detecting.

I recently saw a guy on a beach with a detector and s scoop and a sifter. That is a lot of equipment to carry, but it can be worthwhile.

If you find a good spot, especially one that might contain small non-metallic items, a sift screen can be a good thing to use.

You can use a screen to sift materials in either dry sand or wet. Wave action can be used to more quickly sift wet sand.

Some things are so small that you will have a hard time finding in any case. I once found a very small gold bead. After detecting the bead, it took me a long time to find it in the sand even though I was looking right at it. I finally found it after throwing a handful of sand, bead included, on the coil of my detector and moving it around on the coil with my fingers. Still it didn't really stand out from the sand very much visually.

Of course in the water you can find items that keep going though the holes in your scoop. That can make it really hard to find. A dive mask can help in situations like that sometimes.

Gold chains can be hard to keep in a scoop. At least I've had trouble with them. They tend to want to slip out of the front of the scoop. Thankfully they are usually big enough to see without too much difficulty if you have any visibility in the water.

Forecast and Conditions.

The seas are what I would call moderate this week, predicted to reach 5.5 feet on Tuesday and 6 feet on Thursday. That isn't too bad, and even if it doesn't cause beach erosion, it might move some of the sand in front of the beach.

My theory is that as the winter weather progresses, sand is removed from in front of the beach and makes heaveier items more available so that when we finally do get some good cuts they aren't buried in the shallow water. Just a theory though.

As I've mentioned in the past, my best cob hunting has typically been November through April, and my very best days have been in Decemember and January.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/28 Report - Found WWII Artifact and Florida Shipwreck Laws

WWII Canteen Found on the Treasure Coast with a Metal Detector.

As you can see this canteen is in unusually good condition. The chain is a little rusty but still attached. It cleaned up well.

On the bottom it is marked US Vollrath 1943.

I had a mystery item I was going to show today, but the photos turned out poor. I'll try again another day.


I ran across an interesting article from The Indian River Magazine that talks about the 20th Century history of south Hutchinson Island detailing a lot of interesting facts, especially about the WWII era. It gives a lot of specific information about how the island was used for training.

Did you know that 140,000 troops trained on Hutchinson Island in a three year period?

And did you know, "South Beach in Fort Pierce in the 1930s was a collection of ramshackle houses with a sole destination spot known as the Casino, where folks from the mainland came to gamble, drink, dance and swat mosquitoes?"

I think you'll find this article interesting. I did.

http://indianrivermag.com/LIVE/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=202

I knew a guy that lived in Fort Pierce during the war. He was a kid and sold newspapers then. He said if he ended up with spare newspapers at the end of the day he would take them down to the island and sell them to the trainees that would buy them to burn to warm up after coming out of the ocean.


Here is an article that summarizes a he variety of Florida shipwreck related laws.

You might want to give it a read.

http://www.ehow.com/list_7382508_florida-shipwreck-laws.html



Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is blowing from the northeast and is stronger than I expected. The surf is still relatively small. According to current projections, it will increase to 5.5 feet on Tuesday. That is a day later than the time that it was earlier supposed to increase to that height.

I would guess that you can still find a few miscellaneous artifacts on the beach. Things have been showing up, but I don't know of any cobs being found recently, and really wouldn't expect that. Conditions for hunting shipwreck coins are not good. Finding cobs, especially in any numbers, requires better conditions. I've mentioned that before.

The items I showed today were not found on the beach. When conditions are not great on the beach, you might want to adapt and do something different.

Items found on the beach are often not in good condition because of the salt water and pounding they take. You can sometimes find artifacts and coins in better condition in fresh water or on land.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/27 Report - Vertical Concentration, Cobs, Erosion and Bottle Hunting

Van Antwerp's Pharmacy Bottle.

This one is on sale on eBay, but the reason I'm talking about it is that it is the same type of bottle that got me started in bottle hunting - a Van Antwerp's Pharmacy Bottle from Mobile Alabama.

I was hunting down south of Miami just after hurricane Andrew when I noticed some old bottles floating in the surf. I never hunted for bottles before, but I recognized that the bottles I saw looked old, so I found an old plastic bag and started picking up the bottles. I remember that day very well.

I later sold that bottle, and for a higher price than this one is listed for. The market for old bottles has dropped significantly in the past few years. EBay and other online auction and retail sites have made many old bottles easy to find and collect, and as a result, prices have dropped. That is the case for unremarkable bottles. Prices for rare or exceptional bottles remains high.

Of course, you con't find rare or exceptional bottles very often,but you can often find bottles that help pay a little for gas money.

My main point is one that I often make: Be alert to various kinds of treasure. If you are a coin shooter, study and keep your eyes open for other types of treasure. The more things you know about, the more consistently successful you will be.

Vertical Concentration.

We often talk about coins showing up on a beach. How cobs get to where they are eventually found is not a very simple matter.

When conditions are good, you can often find more than one cob at a time. And they are often found very near the surface. As I've mentioned several times, I can't remember hardly ever having to dig very deep to retrieve a cob, and I have eye-balled them more than once, obviously meaning that they weren't covered by any sand at all.

Most detectorists recognize that conditions for finding cobs are often "good" when there are big cuts on the beach.

Part of what happens when the beach is cut is what I call vertical concentration. Vertical concentration occurs when cobs from various layers and depths of sand end up laying on the same level or surface.

Let's say that there are four cobs in the sand on the beach. (Right now I'm not going to discuss how they got there.) The cobs are buried at various levels. Let's say one is at six inches, one at ten inches, one at twenty inches and one at twenty five.

When the beach begins to cut, the sand washes away and the cobs are left behind. Cobs, being relatively flat and heavy, are not washed down the slope and into the water as quickly as the sand because their flat surface keeps them from sinking into the sand. At the same time, the edge of a flat cob does not present much surface area for the receding waves to push against.

As a result you'll have cobs from various layers of sand on or near the surface of the sand at the base of the cut. Only one of the coins was easily within detector range before the erosion, but now all four are within easy detecting range.

That is one of the factors that makes it easy to find cobs after the beaches cut. Cobs that were at different depths and out of detecting range before erosion end up concentrated near the base of a cut. There are a few factors that determine how far from the wall of the cut they will be.

I must stress that what I have called "vertical concentration" is only one factor in determining where cobs are found and vertical concentration is only temporary. Those cobs will eventually be washed down into the surf or covered up by sand again.

I've watched as this process occurred on different occasions so I am pretty confident that it is accurate.

In a previous blog post some time ago, I described how the sand at the face of a cut was knocked down by one wave and then the washed away by successive waves hitting the face of the cut. When the sand was washed away, heavier or more aerodynamically shaped objects were left behind.

That is enough of that topic for now.


If you are Christmas shopping, there is a map of the Treasure Coast treasure beaches now listed on eBay. The item number is 110616713315.

Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is out of the west this morning and humidity is 100%. The west wind will keep the seas calm this morning. They won't increase much until Monday when they will increase up to six feet (if the surf web sites are correct) later in the day.

As I've mentioned before, six feet is about where you start to see some possibility of improvement in detecting conditions, depending of course, on other factors.

Take a look at low tide areas today and watch for possible small cuts on Tuesday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net