9/4/26 Report - Various Patinas and Crusts on Dug Coins. Copper, Silver, U.S. and Shipwreck Examples. Ancient Bronze Coins.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Gold Patina on Dug Silver Quarter.

Over the years I've talked about the patinas that are found on "duggies" - my name for dug coins.  Duggies can have a lot of different kinds of patina, depending upon the metallic composition of the coin and the soil or environment it was buried in before being uncovered.  

Time is another variable that affects the patina.  It will take a while for a patina to form or deepen.

A patina tells a part of the coins story - not only something about where it was buried, but it also gives a clue as to how long it was there.

I found an article about patinas on ancient bronze coins (Ancient Coin Patina Explained: Types, Chemistry, and Collector Value).  The quotes below (in italicized blue) are from that excellent article.

Ancient coins are something like shipwreck coins.  Shipwreck coins are made of a variety of metals, but bronze coins exhibit some of the characteristics of one of their components - copper.   Copper usually makes up somewhere between 88 to 95 percent of a bronze and therefore has a good bit in common with many more modern coins.

In technical terms, true patina refers to surface oxidation that begins forming on a metal coin almost immediately after striking. On modern copper coins, this same process produces the familiar Red, Red-Brown, and Brown designations.

However, among ancient coin collectors, the term “patina” has a broader meaning. In common usage, it describes any layer of oxidation or mineral deposition that forms over centuries while a coin remains buried...

Green patina is the most frequently encountered surface on ancient bronze coins. It forms primarily from copper acetate (Cu(CH₃CO₂)₂), which develops when copper reacts with acetic acid present in air or soil.

Importantly, green patina can vary dramatically in tone. Shades range from nearly black to bright or pale green, depending on environmental exposure and alloy composition...

Here are some pennies showing a variety of patinas.  

Dug Copper Cents with Various Patinas.

Among my copper cent finds red is probably less common than green patinas.  The 1970S above is more green than it looks in the photo.  Green patinas are pretty common.  I call them greenies.

Red patina appears far less frequently than green patina. It forms when cuprous oxide (Cu₂O), also called copper(I) oxide, develops from reactions involving cupric oxide (CuO) in the coin or surrounding soil.

This patina can appear bright red or dark crimson. However, coins displaying only red patina are extremely rare...

Some copper oxides form stable blue or blue-green surfaces, similar to those seen on untreated bronze statues...

I don't know if I've ever seen a blue patina except on silver that was submerged in fresh water lakes, such as some in Minnesota, where the silver coins and silver artifacts developed a nice blue patina. The silver items there, unlike those found on salt water beaches, didn't turn black.

Silver Dime with Blue Patina

I really like the blue patina on the silver I dug in a Minnesota lake.  The coins and religiou medallions had the same nice gunmetal blue patina.

The wildest patina I have is this black and gold silver Standing Liberty quarter shown at the top of this post.

Unfortunately, I don't remember when this one was found and didn't follow the progress, if any, of the patina since then.  It has been stored in a coin holder for some time, although it doesn't show the characteristic signs of PVC contamination.

Most older “flip” holders, vinyl pages were made from PVC with added plasticizers that can migrate onto the coins surface. Over time, these plasticizers migrate out of the plastic and onto the coin’s surface and can form hydrochloric acid compounds that react with the metal.

Copper coins are most vulnerable because copper reacts readily with the acidic byproducts, forming copper chloride and pitting the surface.

Silver coins are more resistant but can still develop dark spots or hazy films.

Gold and platinum are the least affected.

PVC contamination usually causes a green or greenish blue, and maybe a greasy texture, hazy patches, or tiny green blobs. So, I don't think that is what happened to the gold and black quarter.

Duggies can have something heavier and thicker than what I would consider a patina. It is more like a crust.  My best example is the Potosi half-reale from Jupiter shown below.

Shell Encrusted Potosi Half Reale
Metal Detected at Jupiter Beach.

That was a really hard crust. Only one side had the crust.  The other side looked more like the typical beach metal detected reale.  It was black.  So the two sides looked very different.  I discussed my theory about that.  The cob was just washed out of the dunes, where I would guess it spent many years.

Once this hard shell crust was removed, the surface was black but crisp and clear like it was newly minted.  The shell crust protected the surface from the deterioration.  The other (exposed side) showed wear of corrosion or wear from tumbling in the surf.

Another type of crust was found on a bunch of silver U.S. coins found on Ambersands beach.  They were in renourisment sand removed from the Sevastian River inlet.

Below is the negative image of a mercury dime on the inside of the crust after it was removed from the coin.

Image of Mercury Dime on Removed Black Crust.

The crust fully encased the coin and was impenetrable.  Acid didn't affect it at all.  I had to break and remove the crust to see the coin.

Here is the other side (outer side) of the same crust.  No detail showed on the outside of the crust.

It seemed this crust was made from a type of fine clay or something like that, but I'm not sure.

The patina, just like mint marks or contextual clues, can provide a part of the coin's story and add charm and character to the piece.

So, there are a variety of types of patina and other coin coatings found on metal detected coins.  Maybe I'll present additional examples in the future.

---

Once again, here is the link to the article about patinas on ancient bronze coins.  

Ancient Coin Patina Explained: Types, Chemistry, and Collector Value

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There is nothing on the National Hurricane Center Atlantic map right now.  No storms or any developing systems.

The Treasure Coast surf will remain small for a few days.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/2/26 Report - Familiar Coin Features Over Thousands of Years. A Coin Hoard Discovered. Square Coins. Pilate's Coins.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Archaeologists in Russia have unearthed a medieval hoard of 2,600 silver coins, including more than 350 coins of a type never seen before. The hoard may have been buried by a nobleman who later fell victim to a plague.

The coins were found in an elegant ceramic jug...

Most of the silver coins are a type called a denga. Dengi were first minted in the late 14th century by the Grand Principality of Moscow...

more than 350 of the coins are previously unknown varieties minted in Kolomna, which experts are now studying...

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

2,600 silver coins found in the outskirts of Moscow may have been buried by a medieval plague victim | Live Science

Considering that these are 14th century coins from Russia, I'm struck by the familiarity. How many times have you seen some of those features. First there is the cross-like symbol in the center of the first coin. Then there is the legend around the coin. And a circle of dots. You've seen those features on Spanish colonial coins. And how often have you seen a bird featured on a coin? That is something you see on a fairly high percentage of coins back in history, but modern technology has made solid lines easier.  Those dotted lines are one feature that has disappeared.

Men of widely different places and times contain a mind that seems to share much in common.  You can conceive of coins in very different shapes.  I've found a few of other shapes.  Cobs are not very round.  Some are square - or at least squarish.  

Below are a couple odd shape coins I've found.  One is nearly square.  It has rounded corners.  I found both of those in St. Lucia.  The are Caribbean States coins and show Queen Elizabeth.  Even the square-ish one has a legend that circles around the queen's profile.
 

Odd Shaped Metal Detector Coin Finds

But the fact remains that in the history of coins, round is the norm and anything else is the exception.

Why is that?  I've seen many reasons proposed, but only one of those seems very significant to me.  

The rounded edges are easy to carry and maintain.  Sharp edges tend to catch or tear other surfaces.  

I've read that reales having very sharp corners had the corners intentionally folded or blunted so they wouldn't tear the bags. At least that is one interpretation.  It seems that many still came through with sharp edges.

But my point is that coins are so routinely of the same shape that there must be a reason.  The flat front and back allows marking the coin with a message, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were something deep in the human psyche that is consistent with the shape that is so characteristic of what we think of as a "coin." 

Birds are very common, as are crosses, both of which suggest transformation and a duality of domains - heaven and earth.  The essential thing about birds is that they, having as their domain the air element, mediate between the earthly realm and the heaven world. The alchemist in observing the flight of birds, recognized in them a picture of the human soul undergoing spiritual development.

The common forms that we see on coins go back much farther than a few centuries.  Here are some coins from around the time of Christ.  Here is an example of the type of coin that was referred to in

the verse about rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.  (See Render unto Caesar - Wikipedia)

A couple thousand years ago we still see round coins, a legend that runs around the outer edge of the coin as well as the familiar circle of dots.

But there are other possibilities for the type of coin that was referred to in that verse.  There were the "tribute" coins of Pilate, such as the one below.

Here we see the familiar ring of dots.  I can't explain why that was such a common feature.  I suspect that they were easier to produce with the tools available at the time, but there is also a wreathe on some of the coins, which might remind you of the wreathe on a wheat penny or any number of coins.

Pilate 's coins are Roman coins, the words on them are Greek, they were circulated in Judea, and today they are to be found distributed among world-wide collectors after having spent 2000 years buried in the earth. They were minted and used during a period which produced an event destined to change the face of the world, and issued at the command of one of the principal actors in that event. An amazing and dramatic destiny for apparently such humble and unassuming little coins...

The laurel wreath is a symbol of power and victory, and figures on various ancient Greek and Roman coins. In Judea it can be found during the reign of John Hyrcanus I (134 to 104 B.C.E.). After that, Herod Antipas, speaker for Pilate, used it on all his coins. On Pilate 's coins, the laurel wreath figures on the reverse side of the latuus, framing the date...

The legends on Pontius Pilate's coins are written in Greek. Judea, governed by the Ptolemy dynasty (301 to 198 B.C.E) then by the Syrians until 63 B.C.E, came under the same powerful influence of the Hellenic culture which touched the other territories of the ancient Persian Empire won by Alexander the Great. In spite of a certain amount of resistance, this Hellenistic heritage eventually crept into every aspect of daily life. Apart from the dates, the texts on Pilate 's coinage consisted of only three different words: - TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC (Of Tiberius emperor on all three coins; - IOYLIA KAICAPOC (Empress Julia) added to the coin of year 29...

The Laurel wreath is a symbol of power and victory, and figures on various ancient Greek and Roman coins. In Judea it can be found during the reign of John Hyrcanus I (134 to 104 B.C.E.). After that, Herod Antipas, speaker for Pilate, used it on all his coins. On Pilate 's coins, the laurel wreath figures on the reverse side of the lituus, framing the date

Overall, I'm left amazed by how little coins have changed over 2000 years, and I think there must be something more to it than practicality, aesthetics, or the lack of imagination.  

I highly recommend the source article on Pilate's coins linked below.

Pontius Pilate - NumisWiki, The Collaborative Numismatics Project

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It seems I'm always hear about the KKK, but personally, I've seen more UFOs than KKK.

---

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Eduard has moved inland and there isn't anything else to watch on the Atlantic NHC map.  It sure has been a slow storm season.

The Ttreasure Coast surf remains small.

Source: Surfguru.com.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

9/1/26 Report - Tropical Storm Edouard Hits. Stamp Collecting and a Few Examples of Stamps as Money. Jobs in Coins.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Edouard formed Monday in the Gulf of Mexico and was expected to gain strength before bringing potentially heavy rains and flooding into parts of Texas and Louisiana.

The storm was upgraded Monday night from a tropical depression and forecasters...

Here is the link for more about that.

Louisiana and Texas under tropical storm warning, while another storm aims for Hawaii | AP News

---

It seemed to me that getting coins graded was becoming a bigger thing.  Everybody wants graded coins.  I think the counterfeit problem is one reason.  Coins that are graded are generally easier to sell.

Somebody has to do that, so I was thinking that there must be a lot of job openings for people who grade coins as well as related jobs such as coin conservation.

I looked into it a little and found that there are a lot of those kinds of jobs available.  I noticed that NGC listed a long list of job openings, mostly based in Sarasota but some of their openings were for positions around the world.  I think they listed something like 75 openings.

From a few postings I looked at, it seemed that many of those jobs can be done remotely too.  I don't know what the credentials are.

Here is a listing that for a job with PCGS.

PCGS Grader

Maybe there are some of you that need a job and have the right stuff.  Good luck.

---

Stamp collecting is a very old hobby and a hobby that is very much like coin collecting.  I haven't posted ephemera very often, but I like collecting ephemera.  I like the graphics, especially when the graphics present a picture of historical times or is just aesthetic.  Coins do the same thing, to some extent.

Stamp collecting began in thd mid-nineteenth century, shortly after the introduction of the first adhesive postage stamps. The world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black was issued by Great Britain in May 1840.  This small, black stamp with a young Queen Victoria’s image was designed by Sir Rowland Hill and marked the start of prepaid postage. People began collecting stamps almost immediately, as the new system made them both practical and collectible.

Postage stamps were used as a form of money during the American Civil War, specifically in 1861–1862 and for a short period afterward, when a shortage of U.S. coins made small change.

When the Civil War began in 1861, gold and silver coins were hoarded for their bullion value, and the U.S. Mint could not keep up with demand for copper-nickel coins. This created a crisis for small transactions, as many goods and services cost less than a dollar

On July 17, 1862, Congress signed into law an act that gave the Treasury Department the authority to issue “postage currency.” The postage currency utilized the then-current postage stamp design, printing them on Treasury paper. People generally interpreted this to suggest that postage stamps could be used as legal tender...

John Gault developed a method to encase stamps in a metal frame shielded by transparent mica that he patented as “New Metallic Currency.” The “postage stamp case” featured a sandwich of materials the approximate size of a quarter consisting of a piece of brass with a hole in the center (the frame), mica, a stamp, a piece of cardboard, and lastly, a brass backing.  (Source: Numismatic Oddities: How Postage Became Currency in the Civil War)

If I ever dug up a metal postage stamp holder, I doubt that I would know its purpose.

Stamp collecting is a common activity, but my experience with it hasn't been very exciting.  

My first stamp collecting began when I was maybe eleven years old.  My parents brought me a bag of unsorted stamps and an album.  I sorted them and pasted them in an album.   First mistake.  You shouldn't paste collectible stamps in an album.  Also, contained used cancelled stamps, which you might think is good because you can often see when and where they were used, but like with coins, collectors generally prefer unused mint condition stamps.  Some people, however, collect First Day of Issue or First Day Cover stamps, that are cancelled and collected on the envelope.  Most of them aren't worth anything.

Below is a picture of one of the pages of my first collection.  You can see that I started to cut some out to remove them and put them in a better album.

 

There are a few stamps that are worth a lot, but there isn't much of a chance of finding one.

The Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill is one of only two known examples and is valued at over $5 million today.

Printing mistakes like the Inverted Jenny have become some of the most coveted—and expensive—stamps in history.

Mystic Stamp Company, which began in 1923, specializes in buying and selling U.S. and worldwide postage stamps for collectors. Known for its extensive inventory and mail-order services, it remains a key player in connecting enthusiasts with rare and unique philatelic items.  There must be more stamp collectors than I know about because the Mystic Stamp company has annual revenues estimated between $100 - $500 million and 10-100 employees.  Somebody must still be doing it.

There are other stamp companies.

You don't have to go back to the Civil War to find stamps being used as money.  I remember many years ago when ads in comic books or magazines advertised inexpensive items that you could purchase mail order by sending postage stamps as payment.  I also remember receiving perfectly mint stamps in the mail that if you wanted to purchase you could then send in payment.  I might still have some of those even though I never purchased any that way.

The blue envelope below contained a group of stamps from the Littleton Stamp Co.  Evidently that is evidently a group that I received unrequested.  At the top of the envelope is the price - 6 cents.

Under that is one of the little celophane envelopes that were sometimes sent out.  It still has one stamp in it.

Here is a sample ad for stamps by approval.   This match book advertises a banana stamp and 111 stamps free. 

And here is the coupon for those stamps inside.

You would send the coupon with 10 cents for mailing and receive the 111 stamps.  

I thought that was interesting.  I guess there must be somebody somewhere that collects stamps like this and specifically banana stamps!

People have collected stamps for a long time, from kings to kids.  There are high level collectors that can pay big dollars for super rare stamps.  Kids can learn a lot from stamp collecting.  One of the first things I learned was the various country names in the different languages.  I assume it is much like coin collecting, but I don't know how many people are doing it these days.  

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I don't know if you've ever tried Grokipedia.  It seems to work like Wikipedia, but I think it is better.

Grokipedia is a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system for Grok an AI-generated online encyclopedia developed and operated by xAI, accessible at https://grokipedia.com.

---

Source: Surfguru.com.

As you can see, no big change in the Treasure Coast surf.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/31/26 Report -The Legend of Finn McCool and the Giant's Causeway. Good Luck Coins Destroying a Geological Landmark. About the Author.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Conservation workers have pulled about 10,000 coins from the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Altogether, they weighed roughly 45 pounds.

The coins had been wedged, and sometimes even hammered, into tiny gaps between the ancient basalt columns as little good-luck or love tokens.

It may have looked harmless, just loose change tucked into the rocks. But over time, that pocket change started acting more like a slow-motion wrecking ball, damaging one of the world’s most famous geological landmarks.

Getting the coins out was no quick job. Some came loose with pliers, but a single stubborn one could take more than 20 minutes to remove....

If you don't know about Giant's Causeway, in myth or lore it was made by Finn McCool a Giant, however it was actually the result of volcanic rock and geology.  Here is what part of it looks like.

Giant's Causeway Stock Photo.

Back to the article...

A 2023 geological assessment found that the coins were harming the site both physically and visually. Damp air and salt spray sped up corrosion. As mixed-metal coins rusted, their layers separated and expanded, pressing against the basalt until nearby rock began to flake or crumble.

Think of a coin as a tiny wedge that slowly gets thicker while trapped in a crack. The pressure may be gradual, but it does not stay small. Copper, nickel, and iron compounds also ran down the dark columns in rust-colored streaks, changing the appearance of the natural stone....

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

10,000 coins are being removed from the Giant’s Causeway after ancient rocks were damaged by a ritual performed by tourists

The article didn't mention why people were putting the coins there to begin with. I assume it was associated with good luck or something, but I didn't find why the practice became so common.

---

About the Author.

Six-thirty this morning I heard a message arrive on my cell phone.  I didn't get up to check it.  Somehow I knew what it was. 

I wasn't surprised at all to find out another relative passed sway.  It was a very familiar pattern.  After a seemingly long-drawn-out decline, hospice starts medicating to make the patient comfortable.  They make them comfortable and eventually they quit breathing.  I've seen it multiple times.  It seems it always happens early in the morning right after a hospice visit but before the family arrives.  Just observing. 

Thinking I was sure I knew what happened, before I got up I stayed in bad a little longer and thought about life.  It seems like I've lived several lives - each one in a different world.

In the beginning, if I might borrow the first phrase in the Bible, it was a fresh green world.  Everything was new, and everyone was young - even the old people were young.  My parents and grandparents were young.  And everyone was there.  

That life lasted a good long time. Not much changed. Yes, the kids grew and once a year changed rooms in school.  Even when that world was covered by a cozy blanket of snow, the green world remained fresh, waiting for its time to reappear.  We exchanged baseballs and football and bicycles or snowball, sleds and skates.  And Santa capped it off.

The world changed so slowly and in such a predictable way, that we barely noticed the changes.  The kids and parents that were there at the beginning were still there at the end.  The sun rose over the hill at one end of the valley and set over the trees on the opposite hill - everyday. 

That was one world I lived in.

The next world for me stood out was a small world.  It went by quickly, but it was very consequential.  

I arrived at that world after taking my first airplane ride.  The plane landed in a flatter world.  The center of it was a group of brick buildings that defined the university campus.  I spent time at another college campus before that, but that one wasn't distinctly new to me.  While there, one foot remained planted firmly plin the fresh green valley.

The new flat world was populated by a lot of different people. I ate breakfast with an engineering student from Indian that cut his breakfast toast in neat squares with his fork and knife before eating each piece without ever touching it with his fingers.  I played soccer with guys from Thailand and Africa and ping pong with a law student from some city.  I seldom ventured out of that world, except to walk downtown on rare occasion or over to a nearby bowling alley. I worked on my thesis through the night and went to bed before sunrise.  

The most significant trip I made from the center of that world was to Fort Knox.  I rode there on a bus with a bunch of other guys I didn't know.  I followed the long-colored lines on the floor from one examination room to another.  I did good on the hearing test, but when they looked at my feet, they wrote something down.  I walked a long distance back to campus after failing the physical for some reason I never learned, but it kept me from being shipped off to Viet Nam.

Thanks to the night time work shifts, I didn't stay in that world very long before I graduated. Before leaving that world, I saw a job notice on a bulletin board after successfully defending my thesis. I quickly secured the posted job, which was conveniently located near my green valley, so I went back home, but now things were different. The other kids were no longer there.  

Again, I kept one foot in the green valley, but in my new life I was college instructor.  I won't go into that world very much, except to say, WOW.  I was a 23-year-old college faculty member during the at the dawn of the 70s.. Big changes!  Just like my other world's, I didn't stay there forever and there were others to take its place.

I'll skip many of those other worlds because it's probably on interesting to me and I've already gone on long enough., and now I live in a world where everyone is old.  All the people I knew from back in the beginning are gone. I know a very few that were once connected to that world, but they've moved on to other worlds too.

As I tell this, it might seem as if everything in my world got old, but that isn't true. My other lives still live.  All the memories are still there along with the feelings.  I can see those worlds as they were.  I wear them like layers of clothes. 

I can see each world as it was.  Each life still lives in me, along with my friends and family.  Those lives didn't disappear.  They were just layered one over the other - the first being closer to the heart of me forms the core of who I am, but each one adds on to that.

I'm sure there were bad things in all those worlds, but nothing I could blame anybody for, other than myself.  I nothing bad really sticks out to me.  Maybe I should, but I generally see the good of it.  I learned a lot along the way.  And I wouldn't give up any of it or have it any other way, except when I wasn't what I should have been. 

The advantage of being old is being able to look back through so many different worlds and lives and learning from each one.  I can look back at those lives various lives through many different eyes.  

I'm closer to the hill where the sun sets than where it rises.  In fact, I'm close enough to the top of that hill that I can see the other side of that hill faintly.  On the other side, I don't see anything that looks like streets of gold.  In fact, they look like winding unpaved roads leading to another green valley.  And further down the road, if I squint, I think I can see little homes and maybe hear children at play.  It is starting to look a lot like... where I started in the beginning.

Thank you, God!

----

Source: NHC.noaa.gov.

There is now a tropical depression five in the Gulf.  It looks like tropical storm conditions will be hitting Texas.

On the Treasure Coast we'll have a one- or two-foot surf for the week.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/30/26 Report - Filling the Holes in Your Swiss Cheese. Gridding, Recovery Speed, Target Separation and Strategies for Metal Detecting Coverage.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

A couple days ago I talked a good bit about gridding. I said the actual coverage area of a grid is like a block of Swiss cheese. By that I meant the coverage, despite your best efforts, will be spotty. There will be spots where the coverage is not as complete. There will be areas where the sensitivy is not the best.  In short, there will be holes in the coverage.

There are many things that can cause missing areas.  For one thing, your sweeps won't always be perfect.  Small and deep targets that might produce only slight signals can be missed or lost in other sources of noise.  There can be attention lapses, that combined with noise, results in misses. And there can be interaction between objects in the ground - sometimes one overlapping with another or two or more being in very close proximity resulting in masking.  That is just a brief summary.

As you sweep your coil, the metal detector is constantly adjusting to variations in the soil.  Soil mineralization occurs when minerals like iron oxides, salts, or other conductive/magnetic materials are present in the soil.  These minerals affect the detector’s electromagnetic field, producing background signals that can mimic metal targets or mask real ones. This reduces detection depth, increases false signals, and makes target identification harder. Metal object (trash or treasure) in the ground does the same thing. There are therefore shadows or holes in coverage -  some more complete than others.

Here is an illustration that helps make that clearer.  It is from the online Manticore user's manual.  It is about recovery speed.  If a detector signals in response to one target (or a source of noise, such as mineralization), the signal persists in time for a short time.  That can cause the next target to get lost in the signal if the first signal has not ended by the time the next begins.      

Recovery speed is adjustable on the Manticore and other metal detectors.  Here is a diagram from the manual to illustrate the effect.

The diagram shows, first, how a slow recovery speed with cause something like a screw to create noise that could overshadow that of a nearby coin.  And moving down the diagram, how a faster recovery speed results in shorter duration signals and better target separation.

    

+

But continue down the diagram. recovery speed interacts with sweep speed.  And a higher recovery speed, while helping to reject ground noise, will also reduce detection depth.  People are not always aware of the interactions and effects.  There are tradeoffs.  There are times when rejecting ground noise (a good thing) results in reduced depth (not so good), such as with the higher recovery speed.  You might not be aware of all the effects, but you will be giving up one thing or the other and need to make a good decision.  Which do you need at this or that situation?  It is a strategic decision.  But no matter which you select, you are giving up something.  The result will be what I called a "hole" in your coverage.  Be aware of the holes in your coverage.  And take that fact into account.

One way to reduce target masking is by sweep sweeping in more than one direction.  In the top diagram, the screw comes before the coin.  That is if you are sweeping left to right.  If after gridding in one direction, north to south for example, you can then go over the grid area another time in a different direction.  Don't be surprised if you pick up new signals that you didn't get the first time, especially if you have a target rich area, which would often be the case if you decide it is worth gridding.  I'd only grid if I believe there was either a target rich area, or the possibility of a very rich target.  It can be either because of the quantity or quality of expected targets.

When you change the direction of your sweep on a second pass, you can accomplish several things.  Besides eliminating some cases of masking, you can also hit areas missed or covered poorly by an imperfect sweep.  Soil mineralization can also be reduced in some cases by simply changing the direction of your sweep.

I remember a fellow using a high-level gold detector costing a few thousand dollars (maybe twenty years ago) telling me he got better sensitivity sweeping parallel to the waters edge.  He mentioned it possibly being due to the earth's magnetic field.  But that wasn't the reason.

The salt mineralization and set/dry sand lines will run parallel to the water as the waves come and go.  You minimize that effect by sweeping in the direction of those lines rather than over them.  Sweeping across those wet/dry lines and the abrupt changes in mineralization causes the detector to have to adjust to all that.  The result is reduced sensitivity to targets that the detector has to separate out from the noise.

Notice in the Minelab manual, that it says a good swing rate is two to three seconds for an entire swing that goes both ways.  I'd guess that most people tend to swing faster than that.  In one old post I told how you can test for the best swing rate for specific targets.  Do a ground test with the types of target you are more interested in, vary your swing and observe the response.  Notice how the signal varies.  Identify the sweep speed that gives the best signal and most depth of detection in the type of ground.  I recommend doing that at the area you will be working.  You can find the best sweep rate with the specific type of ground you will be working.  A ground test is also good since you'll get the feel of the correct speed.  Practice it a little so you get the feel.

Similar to sweeping parallel to the water line is sweeping parallel to other features.  For example, if you want to detect near a metal fence, you will do better sweeping parallel to the fence instead of towards and away from the fence.  Same thing with a plowed field.  You'll generally do better sweeping parallel to the rows.  And that is basically for the same reason.

I won't go into all my recommendations for ground or garden tests again, but the type of object you most want to detect should be used and it is best if the target is buried in the type of soil or sand you'll be metal detecting.  

Don't think there are no holes in your coverage.  You might want to fill them instead.

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Just because your focus on owning precious metals is on the potential appreciation in the value of the metal content does not preclude you from also being a collector. There is a wide variety of gold, silver, platinum, and even palladium coins available at bullion prices, but they could be acquired to form a collection.

Perhaps the most popular such collection is assembling a year set of U.S. Silver Eagle Dollars...

Among our customers, there are many silver stackers who are always on the lookout for different designs of 1-ounce silver rounds or rectangles...


For those purchasing gold, there are some who accumulate year sets of any size of the U.S. Gold American Eagles (depending on someone’s budget). But another popular variation is to collect different bullion-priced gold coins from as many different nations as possible...

Here is that link.

Purchasing Bullion as a Collection - Numismatic News

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov.

Nothing that will affect our beach coditions going on right now.

Still nothing more than about a two-foot surf for another week.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

8/28/26 Report - Remote Viewing by Ingo Swann. Mining the Dark Side of the Moon(?). Fictional Cipher for Captain Kidd's Treasure. Decoding: Ciphers and Symbols.

 

That is a simple symbol substitution cipher from  The Medjugorje Witness • The Language of the Cross

Armchair treasure hunters enjoy decoding coded messages, especially those that might provide clues to hidden treasures.  I don't know if it is that popular anymore. I don't think it is.

One of famous cipher was in the Edgar Allen Poe story, the Gold-Bug. The Gold‑Bug is about a fellow that discovered a hidden cipher on a scrap of parchment that provided clues to locate Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. The solved cipher gave step‑by‑step directions to the exact spot of the treasure.

The cipher, like the one above, was a simple substitution cipher.  The fellow used his knowledge of language to solve the cipher.  The process he used to solver the cipher is very instructive for anyone learning to decode those kinds of ciphers.  It started with the fact that the most common letter in the English language is e, so after counting the number of symbols in the cipher, you would have a start.  The next thing to help solve the cipher was the most common English words, one of which is "the."  

If you are interested, reading the story, which I'm sure you can easily find online, might be both instructive and entertaining.

If you are not the type that enjoys solving ciphers, you might enjoy looking at common pirate symbols that are supposed to point to buried treasure.  I showed some of those in an old post.  You can see a few of them by using this link.  The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 12/6/18 Report - Treasure Signs and Symbols. 3000-Year-Old Cache. EM61 Metal Detector. Your Personal Life Story.  You can find several pages of treasure signs and symbols by using the following link.  The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 12/6/18 Report - Treasure Signs and Symbols. 3000-Year-Old Cache. EM61 Metal Detector. Your Personal Life Story.

Frank Hudson also provided a list in one of his books.

Solving ciphers is good practice for general problem solving.  

We decode things all the time.  Take, for example, when we look at an old Spanish coin and try to interpret the abbreviated legend.  It is really a pretty similar type of decoding. 

Even when we go to the beach, we try to interpret what we see as it applies to our interests.   We look at the signs we see and interpret them. We look at the wind, waves, and shape of the beach, the cuts and shells and many other things, which you can imagine as a language of it's own.

I asked a couple AI agents to solve the above cipher and I didn't get the answer.  Chatgpt worked on it a good while.  Maybe if I had the more advanced version, it would have come up with the answer eventually. 

I did find one great web site that decodes many types of codes.  It even included things like the Klingon language, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Sumerian, braille, etc. etc., but not the language of the cross.  There were many pages of apps for simple symbol substitution ciphers, not counting numerous other types of codes.  Really impressive!  You should take a look.  

Here is the link. List of Symbols Cipher - Online Decoder, Translator, Identifier.

Let me know if you can solve it.  I've given the task to a few AI assistants and they have not managed so far, but I haven't tried the more advanced versions.  I was curious to see if they could, or would, do the job.

I also highly recommend reading the Gold-Bug.  It a good treasure hunting story that is both informative and entertaining.  There are many possible benefits to reading it.

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Remote Viewing Mining Operations on the Dark Side of the Moon.

The few posts I did in the past that talked about remote viewing were popular well beyond my expectations.  Since that seemed to be such a popular topic, I thought you might also be interested in the story of Ingo Swann, who was by some accounts one of the most successful remote viewers for the CIA.  He was involved in Project Stargate, a project in which he reported viewing alien manufacturing and mining facilities on the moon.  He reportedly saw buildings and vehicles working on the moon.  He said they were not friendly. 

Here is an excerpt from a recent article on that subject.

“They have told us to stay away… They are not friendly, are they?” This phrase, reported to be spoken by an anonymous U.S. official in a scenario involving remote viewer Ingo Swann, has become the kind of quote that goes further than any document number could particularly when the reported location is the Moon’s dark side, a region that is perpetually hiding from Earth’s observation.

It’s no wonder the phenomenon has endured. Between 1977 and 1995, a program dubbed Project Stargate attempted to harness the power of ‘remote viewing’ as if it were merely another arm of statecraft, as if the government’s commitment to satellites and signals intelligence would naturally include the study of mental perception at a distance. The images of the moon, the towers, the domes, the machines, and the sense of being watched, all of it is right at home in our contemporary fascination with secret agendas and concealed truths...

Here is a link if you want to read more about that.

CIA’s Remote-Viewing Files Expose a Hard Limit on “Moon Warnings” | Modern Engineering Marvels

If you were very imaginative, you might wonder at least momentarily if that is the reason we didn't go back to the moon so many years after the moon landings.  I doubt it, but....  It was kept very secretive.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov.

Tropical Storm Dolly disappeared, but there is still some disorganized moisture heading our way.

There is also some activity in the Gulf.

No change in beach conditions.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/27/26 Report - Historic Jackson Hole. Gridding: The Promise, Myth, and Value. Tropical Storm Dolly.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

One of my favorite vacation spots is the Jackson Lake Lodge in Jackson Hole Wyoming.  It is a very historic place and has the best breakfast buffets in the world.  I know I'm going to sound like an advertisement, but it is just because I enjoy the place as much as any I've ever visited, and this week, like every year around this time, it is where the world banking conference will meet, so you'll probably being hearing something about it on TV - definitely on the business shows.

Above is the restaurant and below is the lobby, both of which looks out on the Grand Teton Range. People gather in the lobby and enjoy watching the changing light on the Tetons after a day of hiking.  You can see some artifacts in the display case (below) and more artifacts in the bar just to the right of the lobby. 

Jackson Lake Lodge

During the summer of 1926, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his family spent several days touring Jackson Hole with Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Horace Albright. Albright arranged the tour to inspire Rockefeller to preserve land along the base of the Teton Range. Albright showed the Rockefellers how telephone lines, billboards, a dilapidated dancehall and uncontrolled development spoiled the majestic views.

The party hiked up Lunch Tree Hill for a picnic, enjoying an unobstructed view of the Teton Range. After the tour, Rockefeller and Albright launched a plan to purchase Jackson Hole land and set aside this exquisite landscape for future generations. Visit the hill today to view the panoramic vista of Jackson Lake and the Teton Range.

... Over the next five years until the Lodge was opened, the town of Moran was removed from the landscape and moved about 11 miles to the west. The remaining land was regraded and re-vegetated, removing all traces of its former location. The “ramshackle” town was an eyesore in the planned view shed planned for the new Lodge. Many of the original cabins built by Sheffield were moved to Colter Bay, and those that were in rough shape were burned.

Actually, some signs of the old town remain.  For example, you'll see glass and porcelain shards along the path at the top of Lunch Tree Hill, which is a short walking distance from the lodge deck. You'll find an area like that near many mountain hotels or lodges.

The Jackson Lake Lodge rooms are not luxurious or fancy, but that is not what I look for anyhow.

You can raft down the Snake River, as I've talked about before, or take a day tour to nearby Yellowstone.  The lodge will soon be closing for the season. 

The last time I was there, the cold was settling in and the lodge was scheduled to shut down in a few days, and I went out late one night to see the crystal, clear sky while the coyotes were howling.  I fondly remember before door closed behind me, a mouse scurried in and ran around behind the reception desk.  Maybe he planned to stay safe inside for the winter. 

Anyhow, a great place to visit even though you aren't allowed to detect in the park.

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Gridding: Myths and Value.

It seemed that decades ago, I read a lot about gridding.  It seemed to be the big thing.  I don't read or hear about it so much anymore.  But that might be because I don't read the same kinds of magazines, which might have something to do with that, but the point I want to make today, is that gridding was not everything it was cracked up to be.

People talked about thoroughly covering the area, but didn't always realize how much was missed.  First of all, it is unlikely that anybody covers every inch despite what they think - even with overlapping and being very careful.

Secondly, when coverage is considered, you are not attempting to cover a square or rectangular area.  There is another more important dimension - depth.  Even when depth is considered, the assumption is now that a cubic area is being covered.  The problem is that detection depth varies from area to area - sometimes very quickly due to things like changes in ground mineralization.  On a saltwater beach, especially in the low tide area, water is coming and going changing salt mineralization, not to mention other variations such as black sand, dug holes, etc. etc.  

We must consider a lot of variables, including our own behavior.  We aren't machines the coil doesn't move in straight equally spaced lines.  The coil speed varies throughout the sweep coming to a halt at the end of each sweep with the abrupt change in direction.  And the coil height also varies.  Most people tend to raise the coil near the end of the sweep.  The effects are subtle if you are very careful, but even then, the ground level changes, both gradually, sloping towards the water, for example, or suddenly where there are holes or other irregularities.  The point of that is that a variety of factors result in coverage that is irregular and inconsistent, at best, no matter how hard you try to cover it all.

I learned early on that I was missing more than I thought even when I had a small area to cover.  It was early in my metal detecting days, when a fellow at Hollywood Beach asked me if the metal detector really worked.  He buried his watch while I didn't look and then I searched for it.  I went over the watch and missed it.  I was very surprised and wondered why or how I missed it.  Now I know much more.  It could have been I thought my search was tighter than it actually was.  Now I know that the composition of the watch, how the watch was laying, and the settings on my detector could have had something to do with it.  Even the direction of my sweep speed relative to the watch.  But I learned that I was missing more than I thought.  Since then I've learned a lot, but I still miss things.  Even if you could thoroughly cover a defined area, you would still miss a lot to the north, south, east and west and below that defined area, but you are also missing things within the area.

The objects in the ground provide another obstacle.  There can be target masking, targets in stealth positions, such as coins standing on end at depth, disruptions in the soil matrix caused by holes or other things.  The direction of your sweeping coil can miss an object if it is position in a stealthy position.  I could go on, but I think that is enough to suggest that gridding does not necessarily provide perfect coverage even when done carefully.  Instead of detecting a cube, the covered area probably looks more like a block of Swiss cheese.  There are a lot of holes in it.

So, what is the remedy?

First, make sure that you really want to commit so much time and effort to the area as opposed to any other possibilities.  To help you make that decision, I recommend sampling that area as well as some other areas.  

Second, after deciding to focus your efforts on a limited area, be aware of the obstacles to complete coverage. Of course, you don't necessarily want to pick up everything, but that is another topic.  

Be aware of the tradeoffs.  Define what you most want to detect and what you are willing to miss and set up the metal detector and control your coil for best results.  

Cover the area multiple times with different detector settings and coil movement.  See (The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 7/22/14 Report - Tropical Depression Two Moving West & How To Conduct An Intensive Step Search.

Collect information as you go.  Don't finish just because you started.  Adjust.  As you assess your finds and what you see, consider the new information, adjust.  You might want to redefine your area of concentration.  It might not be a square or rectangular area anymore.  It all depends upon what you see and how you interpret the information you are collecting.  

There are many other relevant topics I could continue with here, but I'll stop now.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov.

You can see we now have a tropical storm Dolly in the Atlantic.  It seems headed in our direction but is predicted to fizzle before reaching us.

The surf charts are predicted nothing more than about a two-foot for the next week along the Treasure Coast.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net