10/23/26 Report - Valuable 1715 Fleet Gold Escudos and Finger Bar. How to Date an Engagment Ring. Even Higher Surf Coming.

 

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

See Treasure, World Coin & Paper Money Auction 40 : Session 1: Gold Cobs, Shipwreck Coins & Ingots - iCollector.com Online Auctions

I just did a quick browse of some of the Sedwick Auction #40 listings.  Above is the coin with the highest bid that I saw.  It is 1715 Fleet 4-escudo.  The second highest bid I saw for a coin was a very nice roundish 1715 Fleet Mexico 8-escudo.

The highest bid I saw was $55,000 for a 546-gram 18K gold finger bar from the Santa Margarita.

There may have been higher bids somewhere in the auction.  I didn't look at all the lots.

I'd guess that only about a third to a half of the lots had bids at this point, but that is a rough estimate.  I didn't really count them.

I'd say at least half of the lots had no bid yet, but there is plenty of time left before the auction goes live, so I'd expect much higher bids and very few lots, if any, not receiving bids.

Among the silver cobs, it appeared that the  Mexico 8-reales were doing very well along with some of the Peru cobs.

One Jupiter wreck coin that was PCGS-certified had an especially good high bid.

 

There are still many lots without bids.  Give it a look.  

---

You can pretty well determine the age or period of an engagement ring from stylistic features.  I'll give you some of the main trends for the different age periods.

From 1900 - 1915, rings were made in the Edwardian or Belle Epoque style. Platinum became commonly used. 

Until the early twentieth century, gold and silver was the choice for fine jewelry. Silver was used for diamond settings.

The garland style with lacework, filigree, millegrain edges, and settings so fine the metal nearly disappeared. Bows, ribbons, laurel wreaths were common.

Stones of this period were old mine and old European cut. They are chunkier, with small tables, high crowns and large open culets. 

The next period was the Art Deco period, which was roughly1920 to 1935. In contrast to Edwardian jewellery , which would be curled, would be characterized by step cuts, emerald and Asscher with broad flat facets, baguettes, calibre-cut coloured stones, sapphire, onyx and ruby shape set inm channel.

1930 to 1950 was the Retro period. Platinum was no longer used since during the war it was needed for the war. Yellow and rose gold was common with bolder, heavier, more sculptural, with large curves and less fine detail.

Stones were smaller, so there was more metal. Rose gold was very common.

1947 to 1950 was the deBeers period. Rings were characterized by a single round stone raised on claws.

The 1960s and 70s feature yellow gold again with rougher textures and colored stones. Asymmetry, hammered finishes, organic forms, cluster settings, and several stones arranged as a flower or a spray, were most common.

In 1981 Lady Diana Spencer set the trend with her large oval blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds. Sapphire engagement rings became popular. Catherine Middleton later reenergized the trend.

1990s rings were sharper, cleaner, more angular with a princess cut and a square modified brilliant. Tension settings were used with the stone appearing to ber suspended between two ends of a band. Channel-set shoulders were very common.

In 2000 the halo returned dominated. A center stone surrounded by small appeared larger. Economy was featured.

White gold rather than platinum became the default. With rhodium plating it looked similar.
The 2010s rose gold with elongated shapes became fashionable. Ovals, pears and elongated cushions look larger.

'
The 2020s is characterized by individuality over trend. People want something nobody else has. Rings are often custom made. Some common trends include two-stone designs, bezels, lower profiles, colored center stones.  To make things difficult, vintage and antique becamme popular.

And in the past couple of years lab-grown diamonds became popular for economy sake. A lab-grown diamond can cost 5 to 10 percent of what a similar natural diamond can cost, and it looks very similar.

With large center stones being so inexpensive settings have become more elaborate, more architectural. More of a ring's cost is in the workmanship rather than the stone.

Another common trend is having an ancestor's stone reset in a contemporary setting.

Trends come and go.  Nobody wants their parent's style. which is what they grew up.  It takes a while for a style to fade from memory before it is brought back again.

Here is an excellent link for more on that topic.

A century of engagement ring design - Our Culture

==

Wabasso Beach Cam Friday Morning.

Fort Pierce Jetty Areas Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

Take a look at that. It looks like Sunday the surf will be up again. 8 - 12 ft. That will continue on into the week too. Combined with this weeks effects, that has a good chance of opening up some good opportunties.

Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

10/21/26 Report - Turtle Trail and Seagrape Trail Photos. Adapatation Levels in Metal Detectors Not Unlike Human Senses. Around the Bend.

 

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

Seagrape Trail Tuesday.

Alberto S. sent these photos of Seagrape and Turtle Trails.  He took the photos Tuesday.

Seagrape Trail Tuesday.

Turtle Trail Tuesday.

4

Turtle Trail Tuesday.

Thanks much for sharing, Alberto.

If you remember, a few days ago I talked about a few miles of beach in South Florida that I metal detected a lot decades ago.  I pointed out and characterized a number specific of spots.  There were a lot of different areas in that stretch of a few miles.

And a couple days ago, Mark G. told about how he was recently metal detecting at Jensen Beach and looked at a few spots before he finally found a cut area to the north where he made most of his finds.

On the Treasure Coast, you might stop and look at the beach from the beach access, but that won't tell you what is around the bend.  Some of the best cuts I reported from Sunday were a good distance from the beach access and couldn't be seen from the beach access.

The Treasure Coast beaches aren't a straight line.  The bend in the shoreline changes the angles the waves hit.  At one spot the waves will be hitting straight on but around the bend they might be hitting at an angle. Sometimes you have to take a good long walk from the access to find the cuts and hot spots.

There are some beaches that correlate pretty well even if not perfectly.  For example, Fort Pierce South Beach has a stretch that correlates somewhat with the beach at John Brooks.  And Frederick Douglass Beach often looks very much like John Brooks, but there will be some differences between the two.   It seems like more often than not, Brooks will be more cut than Douglass.  Even though they often look similar, different spots along the way also will be different.  

In conclusion, you should remember that some of the good spots will be around bends and you'll have to walk a good distance if you want to check them out.

===

I talked about sensory adaptation levels yesterday and a little about how that can affect your metal detecting.  Your metal detector also attempts to adapt in much the same way your body and sensory system adapts.  For example, when your metal detector ground balances, it attempts to filter out signals from conductive minerals such as salt mineralization or black sand.  It attempts to minimize false signals from those things, which can be a good thing, but you should realize there may also be a cost.  

If you use all metals mode enough, you'll learn to be able to discriminate fairly well between things like black sand and signals from actual targets in black sand.  It will take some time but it can be done. However. some of the deeper or smaller targets causing fainter signals will be missed from whether you depend upon ground balancing or use all metals mode.  There is some amount of information that will be lost in the filtering process.  

---,

Fort Pierce South Beach Wednesday Morning
From Surfguru.com.

The surf has decreased a bit.  The wind is NNE while the surf is NE.  

The Wabasso surf is a couple feet bigger than the Fort Pierce surf this morning.

Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/20/26 Report - Beach Developments. Turtle Trail Report. Psychophysiological Adaptation Levels Relevant to Metal Detecting.

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

Turtle Trail
From Al C. Monday.

Yesterday I asked for some photos from Indian River County beaches, and as usual a frequent contributor came through.  These photos are from Al C. and below is what he had to say.

Down between the second and third flagpole. Still need a lot of sand to move. The very tops of the bags are showing.

Turtle Trail from Al C. Monday.

Good photos Al.  Thanks.

That shows a lot.  Notice the two-step cut.  Also, the stairs that were probably replaced after the renourishment.  Also, what looks in the picture like some black sand.   

This is just the start of the winter season after a very long summer of accumulating sand.

DJ another long time and frequent contributor sent this picture from Pepper Park yesterday.

Pepper Park Yesterday
From DJ.

Looks like the same rainbow I saw from Douglass, but more little clearer.

Thanks DJ.

---

Yesterday I mentioned that there was a bunch of deep junk at John Brooks beach on the slope in front of the beach access.  I was digging deep stuff whereas the day before it was totally different.  There were coins and sinkers and things like that all near the surface.  So it was a real change and a real contrast.  One day there were decent smaller targets barely covered and the next day I was digging bigger stuff a foot or more deep.

When you are digging all big deep stuff, it might appear that there are no small targets such as coins present, however if they are present and you might not be detecting them.  I'm not saying coins were or were not there.  I'm just saying that if they were too deep, I wouldn't know if they were there.  Like I always say, you never don't know what you are missing.  

I've always recommended removing big targets when that is practical.  It seems that one you remove the big targets, you have a good chance of then finding smaller or deeper targets that you didn't notice before.  Of course, we know there can be a masking effect, but I think something else tends to happens.  When you are hearing big targets, your perception isn't as keen for small sounds.  It happens all the time.  If you are accustomed to loud noises, you don't notice softer sounds around you.  There is a perceptual adaptation.   It isn't just psychological.  It is psychophysiological.  

As you have probably noticed, people from the north find Florida's heat more unbearable than residents.  That isn't surprising.  We just say we are used to it.  But I when I was doing research in the 1970s I found that people who have been in Florida a long time didn't show the same peripheral vasodilation to cold that others did.  They lost a cold adaptation response.  A northerner when putting left had in ice water would adapt by the blood leaving their hands where it would lose more heat to the environment.  People often say that southerners have thinner blood, but it is the distribution of blood that changes rather than the thickness of the blood,  

The sensory system adapts too.  It adapts to the environment. 

This baseline, or adaptation level, acts as the zero point against which your brain evaluates everything new. It isn’t fixed. It shifts continuously based on three things: the intensity of current stimuli, your memory of past stimuli, and the surrounding context. Your nervous system is doing this constantly and automatically, recalibrating so rapidly that you rarely notice it happening.

In vision, for instance, your eyes adjust to enormous changes in brightness throughout a single day. Retinal cells physically change how much they fire depending on overall light levels and contrast, and these adjustments happen on different timescales. Some shifts take fractions of a second; others unfold over minutes. '

When you are accustomed to hearing loud signals in your earphones, you will not be as sensitive to the lower sound level of smaller or deeper targets.  I believe that happens physiologically to some extent, but also psychologically.  When you aren't getting loud signals, you pay better attention and more intently listen for those faint signals.  You might also better tune or adjust your detector.  That is one reason I recommend the sequential step search strategy.  Remove the easy targets and then you can focus on the smaller signals.

---

Fort Pierce South Beach Tuesday Morning
From Surfguru.com.

As you can see, this beach is now washed flat this morning.  The same thing happened at Wabasso.

Wabasso Beach Cam.  Far South View Tuesday Around New.

Surf Chart for Fort Pierce Aera from SurfGuru.com.

The surf is decreasing and the angles aren't as good as a couple days ago, but the water is still pretty high and rough.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/19/26 Report - Recent Reader Metal Detecting Finds and Beach Developments.

 

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

Chasing Rainbows on the Treasure Coast Monday Morning.

I checked a couple beach cams Monday morning (Wabasso and Fort Pierce) to get an idea of what was how the beaches changed since Sunday.  On both those beach cams I could see that the cuts that were there on Sunday had decreased some and had migrated north a bit.  As the wind and surf changes angles, you'll see the cuts change.  Very often from one tide to another they will increase or decrease and move either north or south, depending upon the angles.

Before I get into what I saw today, here is a report from Mark on his Sunday hunt. 

First, here is a picture of what he found. 

Finds by Mark G. Sunday.

 And here is his email.

This Sunday morning, I headed out to Jensen beach knowing that the wind and the surf have been busy moving sand around. From the camera's view I did not see any cuts on the south end, so I checked out the hotel there first and was correct, no cuts. I headed north toward the busiest part of the beach. I was working the surf line being low tide the sloop was steep so maybe some slope back, I did not find much I think 1 penny and some aluminum. Then about mid beach I saw it, the entire north end from the last tower to the mansion was a 3-foot cut. I wasn't expecting much, this is renourishment sand and relatively newly washed in from when the last king tide washed it out. I had time for one pass up and one pass back down against the bank before the tide washed me out. I wasn't disappointed in the number of targets, there were plenty I was busy digging quarters and dimes a few pennies and some lead so I was in the right place if there had been some gold or silver there. One thing I noticed today that doesn't happen often, especially on the weekend; I was the only detector out there. 

And here are his pritures of Jensen from Sunday.

Jensen Beach Sunday.
From Mark G.

Jensen Beach Sunday
From Mark G.

Thanks for sharing Mark.

Today I went back to John Brooks.  I was expecting to see some changes, as I mentioned above.

Here are the pictures of John Brooks beach.

John Brooks Beach Monday Morning.

The first thing I notice is how the surf was banging into the bar in front of the beach.  It was really stirring things up there.  Pretty strong swash too.

The beach was very different today.  A lot changed since yesterday.  Not only was the cut smaller, but there was a layer of shells about a foot under the sand near the top of the slope and there were a lot of targets, including a lot of junk, down in that lower layer.  It was really trashy.  The first thing I found was a pair of destroyed eye-glasses down a little over a foot.  Then an entire foil cigarette pack down about a foot.  

There were more targets today, but they were mostly junk and they were all pretty deep, unlike yesterday when the targets were mostly modern coins and fishing gear, but all near the surface.  It was much easier digging the targets yesterday.

I also took a look at Frederick Douglass.  You can see that below.

Frederick Douglass Monday Morning.

Frederick Douglass didn't look great Monday.

There was a faint rainbow seen from Frederick Douglass before it started raining.

Fort Pierce South Beach Monday Afternoon.
From the Beach Cam.

This afternoon the water was breaching the cuts and hitting the foot of the back dunes at Fort Pierce South Beach.

That rounds the cut off and drags sand down to the slope.  That will cause a mushy slope, like I saw at some beaches Monday morning.  

The same thing was happening at Wabasso.

Wabasso Beach Cam Monday Afternoon.

Looks like the cuts there are completely washed out now.

I think I showed cuts there yesterday or the day before.

The more northern surf angle causes a slicing action instead.  It just keeps cutting the cliff back farther on the beach.  The more easter surf washes up and down, breaching cuts at high tide when the surf is big enough. 

Looking ahead, it looks like the surf tomorrow will be slightly smaller, but there might be more of a north angle.

Surf Chart for Fort Pierce Jetty Are from Surfguru.com.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/18/26 Report - Some Treasure Coast Beaches Cut Overnight and More High Surf Is Expected Tomorrow.

 

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

John Brooks Beach Sunday Morning.

Last night a four-foot cut was created at John Brooks Beach.  You can see that above.

I did a little metal detecting.  This beach produced some seasoned modern coins, including some greenies.  There was the normal junk, which included some fishing hooks, sinkers etc.

Low tide was around 8 AM this morning.  I got there a little later.  

John Brooks Beach Sunday Morning.

John Brooks Beach Sunday Morning.

Not all the beaches were cut this morning.  For example, Walton Rocks was mostly not cut.  There were some creases and farther to the north there was an area that was cut, but it was still in renourishment sand.

Walton Rocks Sunday Morning.

Walton Rocks Sunday Morning.

Sunday morning Fort Pierce South Beach was cut.  You can see that below.

Fort Pierce South Beach Sunday Morning.

Below you can see that it was not eroded Saturday evening.

Fort Pierce South Beach Around 6 PM Saturday.

The same goes for Wabasso.  It cut overnight too.

Wabasso Beach Cam Just a Little After 6 PM Saturday.

Below you can see the Saturday morning cut that was found on the Wabasso Beach Cam (far south view).

Tomorrow the surf is supposed to be up around ten or eleven feet.

Surf Prediction from Surfguru.com for the Fort Pierce Jetty area.

The surf report shows more NE wind tomorrow.  I'd like to see more NNE, but at least some of the sand is moving out.

If you can send some photos from Indian River County, I'd like to report that too, but the bottom line is, it could be worth checking around because there has been some nice erosion in spots.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

10/17/26 Report - High Surf Coming to the Treasure Coast. Metal Detecting Thoughts and Strategies.

 

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

Surf Chart for the Fort Pierce Area For Sat. - Mon. Oct. 17 - 19.
From Surfguru.com.

Definitely the big news is the predicted higher surf that is coming soon.  Monday it is predicted to be up to 10 or 11 feet when the wind will be wnw switching to nne.  The tides will still be pretty high too.  That will definitely cause some improved beach detecting conditions on at least some spots and likely many places even with all the sand that is on the beaches now.

But it should start tomorrow.  According to the predictions, tomorrow we'll have a seven-to-nine-foot surf, which is something we haven't seen for quite a while.  

Last time we actually had something like that, there were some areas that opened up that haven't produced for quite some time.  

Get your detectors charged up and your equipment in good order.

----

As of Saturday morning, the surf is still small and the beaches haven't begun to cut yet.

Here is a clip from the Wabasso Beach Cam.

Wabasso Beach Cam Saturday Morning Around Ten.

Yesterday I talked about some of my old hunting spots.  I knew each of the spots, the kind of finds they were likely to produce, the number of finds, as well as other factors such as the conditions and how they were affected by tides and weather.

Each site was rated.  Some were my favorite spots, some were maybe not so good, and then there were spots that seemed to almost never produced or produced very few times.  The quantity of finds as a factor.  The quality of finds was a factor,   How long it took to get there was a consideration.  And of course, beach conditions are always a consideration when the site is affected by the surf and tides.

You can multiply the average find value times the average number of finds per visit or hour of hunting time to get an expected find value per hour or visit.  So, a site that produces typically only produces moderately valuable finds can be as good as a site that produces very valuable finds but not as often. 

Finds are not necessarily valued by economic value alone.  You might have your own value system that, for example, might value old items as have more value than newer items that you would be able to sell for more.  There is the subjective element.  You might just like to find old items even if they aren't that valuable.

But the thing about knowing numerous sites along a stretch is that when one isn't producing, you can quickly decide to go hit another.  You can even start at a more distant site that might produce only sporadically, for whatever reason, knowing that if the distant site isn't producing you will have time to stop at another site or two on the way back. 

I considered some sites to be drive-bys.   I might hit them even if they aren't normally great sites to hunt if I was driving by, maybe between two other better sites, and had some spare time.

On the Treasure Coast my favorite beaches are farther apart than the spots I often hunted in South Florida.  In South Florida I had a lot of good sites packed together within a fairly short distance.  That helps.  

On the Treasure Coast my favorite hunting spots can be a good distance apart and some require a lot of walking because the parking isn't close to my favorite spots.  All of that is taken into account.  And when a hurricane hits and we have closed bridges and beaches, that makes it even more difficult and time consuming just to get to a particular spot.

On the Treasure Coast if you check one spot and it isn't cutting, you can move on to another spot so you can schedule them according to the tides.   For example, this morning the Fort Pierce Jetty low tide as shown to be 7 AM.  The Vero Pier low tide was shown to be at 6.43 AM.  That isn't a great difference, but if you decided to visit Vero first and wasn't excited by how it looked, decided to then drive to Fort Pierce, which is a good drive, the tide being a little later in Fort Pierce would help you out just a little.

It is better if you have a few good options if they aren't too far apart.  Of course, there is always the next low tide, if that is what you want to hit, and there are other strategies as well.

---

Get your equipment in good order

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

10/16/26 Report - Bigger Surf Coming. You'll Find Many Good Metal Detecting Choices If You've Done Your Research and Know Your Beaches.

 

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

Virginia Key and Key Biscayne.

In my previous post, I mentioned the Frederick Douglass Beach wreck in earlier days being known as the "Colored Beach" wreck.  That brought back a lot of metal detecting memories for me because I liked to detect a few "colored" beaches.

Besides the Colored Beach Wreck near Fort Pierce, I did a lot of metal detecting at some other Colored Beaches that were near more heavily populated areas.  One was on Virginia Key just across the causeway from Miami, and another was at John U. Lloyd Park near Hollywood, FL.  When I was detecting there, those two beaches weren't visited by many people, and were not kept up well, but I found them interesting, and they produced good numbers of older U.S. coins.  Those beaches were seldom detected by others.  I would check out-of-the-way overgrown areas where few others seemed to go, and as a result I found those coin areas that were once Colored Beaches.

I've mentioned Virginia Key in previous posts and once pointed out some of the different detecting areas I found there.  More recently, Virigina Key has been renovated and is now a much more popular and heavily visited area.

When I remember that area, I think of the several different detecting zones.  Virginia Key was a place where a few TV shows were made.  As you work down the picture along the right side, there was a rock groin, inside of which was a deep hole in the otherwise shallow water where a lot of modern gold jewelry could often be found.  In the shallower water outside of that and next to the where the seaweed grew was a sand bar where people would lounge and leave nice gold jewelry.  The gold there was less concentrated than in the deep hole, but it was easy detecting.  Those were more recent losses than the silver coins from the beach areas used more during the segregation era.  The overgrown areas around the picnic area produced a few artifacts from much older times.  That is the general area where I have the "1" on the picture above.

Then as you work your way around the beach, there are several rock groins were I never found much of anything.  Eventually you get to the area heavily used in the days of segregation but not at all when I was detecting there.  It was like a ghost town, with a few skeletal building structures such as the one use for a merry-go-round and train ride as well as concession stand in earlier days. 

Merry-Go-Round On Viriginia Key.
Illustration from link below.

Just the shell of the building for the Merry-Go-Round was there when I was metal detecting there.  The horses and all that were gone.

Below you can see where I see that area when it was heavily used.

See link below.

For me, this wasn't one of my first choice detecting areas, but it could be fun when I had time and was passing by.  I might stop there on the way to or a spot where better things could be found.  I'd pull of the highway and park by the bridge.  At the time it was dangerous to park there.  It was a high crime area so precautions were necessary.  But taking the necessary precautions and remaining vigilant, you could park and walk along Bear Cut past a sea wall until you got to what was in the past a busy area. You could see the remains of old wooden groins in the water.  The best spot was on an area protected from erosion by some bushes, but when those dunes did erode there were nicely preserved silver coins from the 30s - 60s that would come out of the dunes.  That was a small but very productive area for silver coins that made for some efficient hunting when the dunes were eroding.  The shallow water and beach around the groins produced very little and almost not gold.  

Check this link.

The Story behind Miami’s Colored Beach - Historic Virginia Key Beach Park

By the way, Viginia Key also produced a few shipwreck artifacts.  

Key Biscayne had even more detecting zones than Virigina Key and some of those areas produced higher value targets.  I'll go though some of those zones quickly.

At the far end of Key Biscayne was an area where treasure chests were once found.  That area had pretty much eroded away and a sea wall was built.  The interior at that end of the island was once a coconut plantation, and artifacts could be found there as well.

Moving closer to the lighthouse, you could see remains of the old well that was visited by some of the earliest ships to the area.  Around the lighthouse was a battle site where the indigenous burned the lighthouse and killed the keeper.  Musket balls could be found there.

Right next to the lighthouse was a narrow swimming area next to the parking and picnic tables.   That shallow water produced a lot of modern gold of slightly better than average value.

As you work back around the bend there was another beach inside the park that was not as good, but OK for detecting.  That area didn't produce as many finds and not as high quality.

Then you keep going along the beach, exit the park and start detecting in front of the condos.  Not bad, but not great.

There was an abandoned building.  The beach there occasionally eroded and produced some decent detecting,

Next came the beach club.  Decent detecting in and out of the water there too.

Then you get to a better area for detecting.  There was the Sonesta Beach Resort.  Some kind of nautical wreckage was under the beach at the head of a sandbar.  The beach was OK detecting, but the shallow water was very good.  It was a small well-defined area that produced high-quality finds if you were sharp.  They weren't the easiest.  There was competition, but you could pull some high quality stuff out of there if you worked it well.

Then you come to another stretch of condos. Not very good detecting there.

Then you come to Crandon Park.  Many people detected there. Most detectorists focused on the area by the sand bar where a lot of swimmers waded out, but it could be worth the time to check the wide open area around there as well.  In fact, I preferred the area around where most people detectec.  It was a big area to cover but could be worthwhile.  

Keep going back towards the causeway and you come to an area where old coins as well as other nice things would frequently erode out of the beach.  There was evidently once a parking area or something around there in the past that continued to produce old finds (coins and other) as the beach eroded.  Strangely, it seemed few detectorists discovered that nice honey hole of older stuff.  The water just off there produced some great stuff too.  I never saw anyone else detect there either.

Then there was a long stretch, where gay guys liked to sunbathe.  You could find stuff there when no one else was around.  In the past there were shipwreck coins reported in the shallows there too.

Keep going to a coral point.  When eroded many older silver coins could be found there.  After Hurricane Andrew there was a virtual carpet of silver on the uncovered coral outcropping. 

Through the mangroves and around the bend almost back to the causeway and along Bear Cut, old U.S. coins were plentiful.  They were usually heavily corroded though, due to rotting biological material.  That little area is also the area where I found my first old bottles after Hurricane Andrew.  

So there you have a quick overview of the detecting zones I found on Virginia Key and Key Biscayne.  Of course, it has changed since I was there.

There are several things to point out.  First, don't neglect areas just because nobody seems to go there.  The area could have been used a lot in the past.  They might not look promising on the surface, but you it helps if you know what went on there in the past.  The Colored Beaches provide a good example.  But even those beaches could produce finds from even older periods of time.  You might only learn that by checking it out.

Secondly, if you know the areas along a stretch and know what they are likely to produce under various conditions, you can efficiently select your target zones.  You might set out to your preferred detecting spot but find it not producing and move on to another convenient spot along the way.  Maybe as you drive by you notice some erosion and decide to check it out.  You have numerous choices, so depending upon the conditions and what you see, you can either stop or move on to the next spot.  There are a lot of variables, but if you know your spots, what they produce and under what conditions, you can make good choices.

---

Fort Pierce Thursday Evening.
From Surfguru.com.

The beach looks about the same this morning.

But check this out.  Sunday we're supposed to have a five-to-six-foot surf.   That will be a welcome change, especially with the continuing high tides we are having.

From SurfGuru.com.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

when my dissertatio