3/11/26 Report - Mystery Find. Treasure Coast Emerald Finds and Tips for ID.

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

Three Views of Small Mystery Find Beside Toothpick for Comparison.
Photos by Austin Y.

I received the following email along with the above photos from Austin Y.

I got a metal detector and did research on the shipwrecks down in Melbourne area since I was there for the week and happened to see what emeralds look like from the wreck. I was walking the beach and happened to see something green in a shell pile and thought it looked similar. The wooden thing is a tooth pick by it. I'm not trying to sell it or whatever, I just wanted to know if it is a emerald or just some other trash or sea glass. 

I contacted Spanish Maine in st Augustine bc I have bought from there and talked to the guy a bunch but he said there's people buying real emeralds and taking them to the beach to fake finding a shipwreck one. So he basically told me don't bring it in my shop. I'm not trying to sell or make money on it I just want to confirm it's an emerald. 

I told Austin by email.  I'd like to see what you think.  

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I've done some posts on emeralds found on the Treasure Coast in the past.

Below is a picture of a 68 karat emerald found by a lady at Golden Sands Beach.

Treasure Coast Found Emerald
Photo submitted by Darrell S.

Here is the link to that post.

The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 8/19/16 Report - 68 Karat Treasure Coast Emerald Find. More On The Recent 1809 8-Escudo. Tropical Storms.

Emeralds vary immensely.  Good gem quality specimens are more transparent, while others are opaque and don't look nearly as good.

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Below are some tips for testing emeralds as provided by Copilot.

Testing for Emerald

To test for the authenticity of an emerald, consider the following methods:

• Observe the Color: Genuine emeralds exhibit a deep, slightly bluish-green tone. If the color appears too vivid or uniform, it might be an imitation. 
• Use a Loupe: Magnifying the stone with a jeweler’s loupe can help detect authentic features. Real emeralds commonly have visible internal inclusions known as ‘jardin.’ 
• Test Transparency and Clarity: Genuine emeralds typically have some cloudiness or inclusions that affect their clarity. An emerald that looks overly clear might not be the real deal. 
• Inspect the Cut and Shape: The cutting style provides another clue. Emeralds are often fashioned into the classic ’emerald cut’—a rectangular or square shape with truncated corners. 

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Below is the MOHS scale for hardness. 

I've done posts on the MOHS scale and scratch test before.

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There are some nice gem testing pens that will identify diamonds and other gemstones.  I might demonstrate one of those for you in the future.

You can also find a gemologist or good jeweler that has the equipment that can test it for you.

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You can see the excavator at work at Sebastian.

Sebastian Web Cam This Afternoon. - South Beach View.

I guess an insignificant front will be coming through around Thursday and we're supposed to get some rain, but nothing exciting.

Surf Chart for the Fort Pierce Inlet Area from Surfguru.com.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/10/26 Report - Heavily Encrusted Sword Found by Swimmer. Dicey Bottle Hunt. Importance of Story.

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

Yoav Bornstein/University of HaifaThe sword was designed to be held with one hand, despite being made of iron and measuring more than three feet long.

Shlomi Katzin found this three-foot blade in the seabed just offshore at Israel's Dor Beach — not far from where he'd found another Crusader's sword in 2021.

... archaeology student Shlomi Katzin was not looking to make any discoveries when he went to Dor Beach, and instead sought only to swim. However, he had indeed found a Crusader's sword while scuba diving not far away in 2021. But while Katzin was swimming, he noticed scuba divers with metal detectors, who he suspected were antiquities thieves.

While chasing the thieves away, Katzin happened to notice the hilt of an historic sword peeking out of the seabed. He immediately notified university officials, who alerted the Israel Antiquities Authority, which quickly approved the sword’s removal from the sea.

The sword, just over three feet long and estimated to be from the 12th century, was safely recovered and brought to the University of Haifa for further study. Researchers examined it with a CT scan, which helped them to determine that the sword was meant to be held in one hand, that it was forged in Europe, and that only a small sliver of its original iron had survived.

Here is the link for the entire story.

12th-Century Crusader's Sword Discovered By Swimmer In Israel

So he returned to a place where he had made a remarkable discovery with nothing on his mind than a leisurely swim when he discovered detectorists who suspected were thieves whose presence make him a hero and justifies the swift removal of the sword!??!  Good thing he is either a mind reader or at least suspicious of unknown folks!  

How many times have I said where you find one thing, the probability of finding another similar item dramatically increases?

Just yesterday I took a little walk hoping to find some old bottles or something.  I caught the tide low, which I hadn't done for a while, and the water was clear - both good things. 

I saw more glass than I had for quite a while, which got my hopes up even though most of it was broken like these few fragments of older glass.





The one piece is part of an embossed McCormick and Co. bottle.  The other two are just nice necks.  The one at the top is older, making me wish I found the entire bottle.  But the oddest thing was a green die I found. Then about a hundred yards, or maybe a bit less, but a good distance, I found another.  On the first, I saw the four, which I noted for some reason, and then on the next green die, I saw the five.  Pretty soon I turned around and went back and in between found nine more.  

Here they are.





I've found several die before.  In fact. I remember a day or two ago noticing one or two of them in my junk.  Sometimes it seems like there is something between past events that you'd take to be random and future finds.  I sometimes think of it as a kind of "seeding" like they used to talk about with dowsing for gold, even though I always took those metal gold dowsers to be nonsense.  There is a very useful tendency of the working mind to put things together, but sometimes the connections are coincidental.  Coincidental connections can become superstition. 

I wonder why someone had so many die and why they were lost discarded.

The best bottle I found on the hunt wasn't anything great - just a tiny graduated pharmacy bottle.  Here it is.





I haven't done well with the bottle hunting over the past year. 

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The story of an item can add to the economic value of the item.  A documented shipwreck provenance will do it, for example.  So will a connection to a famous collector.  Compare a cob coin with a documented connection to a famous shipwreck to your common beach found cob.  A documented story can add a lot.

Even for an anonymous beach found cob, the story still adds to the find even if not in an economic way.  Maybe the find can be connected to a time period or a nearby shipwreck or some other event.  We all wonder how items ended up where they were found and say, "If only it could talk."  Of course, in some ways it does. We may understand a little of what it is saying, but there is also the remaining mystery that also excites the imagination.

There is the story of the hunt and making find and perhaps some other events or observations. The story points in many directions and asks us to wonder, imagine, test and prove.  

The best finds make us want to tell the story. We refine, solidify, and complete the story as we recall and tell it.  Others are drawn into the story and make their own connections.

What makes people different?  Isn't it their stories?  Our accumulated stories shape the world we live in and how we look at ourselves and the world around us.

Families have stories.  They have stories about ancestors, times and events that shaped and reflect the identity of the family and individuals.

People seem very eager to give away their story-making these days - and in doing so, their authentic identities.  

It has become too easy.  They adopt "their" story from other sources, such as fact checkers, the media or automated language systems.  Lacking authenticity and experiential rootedness, their processed, manufactured, easy, quick-serve stories have only a fragile connection to their experience and, as a result, is fragile and seems under constant attack and therefore must be strenuously defended, even to the point of violence in order to avoid being exposed and falling apart.

Authentic stories that connect to the deepest levels, on the other hand, lead to connection, centeredness, peace and joy.  You don't see enough of that anymore.  

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.




Nothing very exciting there.

Anybody know what they are doing with the beach south of the Sebastian inlet?

Good hunting,

Treausreguide@comcast.net




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3/9/26 Report - Equinox and Manticore Metal Detector Target ID and Conductivity Comparison on Seven Test Objects.

 

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches report.

I decided to do a little experiment to compare Minelab Equinox conductivity numbers with Manticore numbers.  I used the Beach 1 setting on the Equinox and the General Beach setting on the Manticore.  Sensitivity on both was 20.  The test targets were a copper memorial penny, clad nickel, clad dime, clad quarter, junk ring, silver ring, and gold ring.  The first chart below shows the results for the Equinox and the chart below that shows the results for the Manticore.

The charts look very similar, but there is a big difference in the numbers.  There is a big difference in the range of numbers.  The vertical axis on the Equinox chart goes up to thirty while the Manticore vertical axis goes to 90.  

The lowest numbers were produced for the same objects on the Equinox and Manticore.  In fact, the relative position of each object was the same for both detectors.  The conductivity numbers produced by both detectors going from lowest to highest were first, the junk ring, then the gold ring, followed by the nickel, penny, dime, silver ring and then the quarter, which produced the highest number on both detectors.  

The differences between the numbers produced by each object increased as the numbers got higher.  For example, the difference between the Equinox and Manticore numbers was for the junk ring was only 3 points. 

For the high conductivity objects, such as the quarter for example, the difference was 58 points.  The Equinox reading for the quarter was 29, while the Manticore reading was 87.  So, for the higher conductivity items the difference between the Equinox and Manticore readings became larger, but for all objects the Manticore conductivity number was the higher or the two.

 

The main thing to know is that if you transition from an Equinox to a Manticore, the conductivity numbers will be different.  The nickel number on one will be different than the nickel reading on the other.

The conductivity numbers for both detectors seem to be similarly consistent although there will inevitably be some error variance.  The numbers will differ as a result of a variety of factors.  I've talked about that before. 

Manticore numbers will generally be higher, and the difference between detectors increases as you get into the higher conductivity items.  At this point, I don't know if the higher end of the Manticore scale permits greater discrimination between high conductivity objects.  I don't know if the variance in the numbers for those higher conductivity numbers also increases. 

The graphic Target ID map of the Manticore seems to provide additional useful information.  Of course, both detectors provide tone differences that are also useful.

I didn't compare depth of detection in this experiment but might do that in the future.

Here are the approximate conductivity numbers for the Equinox for the seven test targets in order of conductivity.    The Manticore numbers are on the next line.

Equi.  3.    8. 13. 21, 25. 27 and 29.  (junk ring, gold ring, nickel, penny, dime, silver ring and quarter.

Mant.  6. 13, 27, 60, 77, 85 and 87.  Objects are in the same order.

So the differences are 3. 5, 14, 39, 25, 58 and 58.  Again, same order.  Increasing differences with increasing conductivity numbers.

The danger, which you might have noticed, is the similarity between the junk ring and the gold ring.  The gold ring number in this case is a low number, which unfortunately falls in the range of other junk targets.

I've discussed several times before the wide range of numbers than various gold items can produce.  We only used seven test targets in this short test, but gold items of various types produce a very wide range of numbers.  So do junk items.  And occasionally other items will produce the same numbers as a clad quarter, for example.  T

I suspect that across various detectors that show conductivity numbers, similar results will be seen as related to the Equinox or Manticore.  Different detectors will produce different numbers of different items, but relative position of various objects will be the same.  I haven't verified that, so let me know if you know that is wrong.

You won't always get the same number when you seep over an object.  A number of an item like a quarter might be an 87 and and 88 or something else.  It might center around 88, for example, but you'll occasionally see on your screen some other numbers.  Among the factors that affect the number is the coil position relative to the item as well as other things.  The variance also increases at near borderline depths, for example.  But if you continue to center the coil, you might get a pretty repeatable specific number. There numbers popping up on your screen might be imagined as distributed something like the bell curve shown below.  There is a best number, or center number but also some variance.

If you can narrow the curve and get good consistent readings, that reduces the error variance and makes the numbers more precise and meaningful.  In that case, the larger range or scale of conductivity numbers you get on the Manticore as compared to the Equinox might actually be useful in discriminating between items produced by different numbers.  As far as I know, that has not yet been determined. 

The test I conducted to compare the Equinox and Manticore on conductivity numbers is just a sloppy little test with many serious limitations, but it seemed worthwhile.  I might follow up with some other tests in the near future.  There are many interesting things to look.  

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Sebastian South Beach from the Beach Cam.

It looks like they are building a wall to the south of the pier.  Is that what is going on?

Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

It looks like a few days of really small surf.  Good time to get down at some low tides.

Also with the freeze and drought we had this year, it might be a good time to hit some of the overgrown areas.

Good hunting,

Treausreguide@comcast.net

3/8/26 Report - Development of Drones and Metal Detectors. Heavy Insulators. ACL Soda Bottles. Sebastian Project.

 

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

During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first ‘drones’
Lawrence Sperry’s autopilot proved planes could fly themselves.

Although military funding diminished after the war ended, commercial interest in remote-controlled aviation continued for applications such as aerial photography and crop dusting...

In a July 1925... Popular Science shared how French engineers were developing radio-controlled aircraft that would deliver bombs and return to base, anticipating modern drone warfare by a century.

Sperry and others had shown that aircraft could stabilize themselves, respond to remote commands, and even follow simple programmed behaviors. But their autonomous machines lacked location information. Early radio-controlled aircraft had no reliable way of knowing where they were, how far they had traveled, or whether they were drifting off course. Radio signals could command movement, but the same signals could not confirm position.

That missing layer, today known as positioning systems, would take several decades to arrive...

Here is the link for that article.

During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first 'drones' | Popular Science, Bill Gourgey. Published Mar 6, 202

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One of the things that hasn't changed much while the electronics of metal detector technology changed, is the physical rod assembly.  I mentioned years ago about the possibility of using a remote controlled vehicle to carry and sweep the metal detector.  The rod assembly is still made and used very much like the old World War II era detectors.  That would take away the physical exercise benefit of the hobby but some might like it.  Like with robot lawn mowers, a similar thing could be done with metal detectors.  Perhaps the biggest challenge would be the construction device that wouldn't interfere with the operation of the metal detector.  I can think of a couple ways to do that.  One is to have an arm that maintains some distance between the coil and frame much like the current rod does.  Anyhow, it is interesting how some designs are far ahead of their time and how long it can take to make a device more practical and useable.  Same thing with AI, which was around in a much more limited form before they became widely used in recent years.

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Locke Insulator Assembly.

Here is an unusual huge insulator find for those who collect electrical insulators.  From the top to bottom of what is shown is about 26 inches.  

This is a high voltage porcelain underhung suspension insulator.  Depending upon load, they can start out with one or two and added to as the load demands increase.  

It is very heavy.  I'd guess around forty pounds.  I could only find one place to hang it for the picture and had a hard time getting it up there.  It is in the end of a heavy well pipe.

The lead units read LOCKE MADE IN USA.  The bottom one reads 10,000 LBS.  

The reason for using suspended insulators is largely a matter of cost, since it is entirely possible to build porcelain insulators of the conventional type of sufficient size to successfully operate at any voltage, but the extreme height and diameter of a pin-type insulator for 100,000 or 150,000 volts make the cost prohibitive. A suspended type of insulator has several advantages which it is well to understand before going into details of design....

Here is the link for more about that.

Oct 17, 1908 : Locke Manufacturing of High Voltage Insulators - By H. R. Noack

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Here are some bottle finds.  They aren't real old like some finds, but I like the graphics on the painted label or ACL bottles.  Too bad that found ACL bottles are usually in very poor condition.

Royal Palm, Mason's Root Beer, Frostie, and Canada Dry ACL Bottle Finds.

For example, Mason's Root Beer was begun in 1947.  That bottle would have some nice graphics if it was in better condition.

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Beach Cam View of South of Sebastian Inlet.

An excavator is down there piling up sand.  You can see a big pile of sand down there.  I don't know what they are trying to do.

Nothing exciting on the surf chart today.

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HIGH RIP CURRENT RISK NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH LATE SUNDAY NIGHT

Description: * WHAT...Dangerous rip currents. * WHERE...Beaches of Volusia, Brevard, Indian River, Saint Lucie, and Martin Counties. * WHEN...Through late Sunday night. * IMPACTS...Rip currents can sweep even the best swimmers away from shore into deeper water.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/6/26 Report - Gold Hoard Metal Detecting Find and the Lessons It Teaches. Roman Era Gold Mines in Spain.

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

Gold Stater Part of Hoard.
Source: See Noonans Mayfair link below.

Tom started metal detecting as a young boy but took a more serious interest in the hobby in 1994 as a teenager. While walking through Rye in East Sussex, he found a Charles I Rose Farthing in a flower bed, which immediately captured his imagination...  From the hoard, Tom and the landowner have chosen to keep a single Stater each and after splitting the money with the landowner, Tom plans to use some of the money raised to support local archaeological work in Suffolk.

As Tom explains: “The reason I went to this new field was because my niece was keen to go metal detecting, so I wanted to find a suitable location to take her. It was when I was there that I noticed that the field rose from a nearby stream in a gentle gradient and had dark silty soil, which was in a perfect condition on a dry October day, so I decided to use my trusty metal detector!

He continued: “Later that afternoon, I started to get signals and found two pieces of Viking hack silver. I continued searching and was astounded to find a gold stater, and after changing the settings and going up and down rows that I had marked out – I went into hunting mode and found another six staters! When it got to sunset, I called the landowner and took the coins to show him and his wife. Later that week, I returned to the field and found more coins – making a total of 17 coins!”...

Here is the link for the entire article.

HISTORY PROFESSOR FINDS IRON AGE GOLD! | Noonans Mayfair

Several things to notice there.  

1. Tom had a good knowledge of history.  

2.  He tried a new location.  There are tons of new areas out there to be explored.  It is easy to fall into habits even when they become unproductive.

3. He observed the lay of the land, including details of the soil and saw the significance of each.

4. He found some hack silver, which indicated old activity, so continued.  There was information in the first finds that encouraged continuing.

5. After finding gold, he changed settings, adapting to conditions according to the information obtained.

6.  Another stater was found.  How many times have I talked about birds of a feather flocking together, or to put in in more direct terms, how finding one type of an item increases the probability of more being found.  I once conducted a pole that showed that when people found one cob there was a very high probability that they would find more than one.

7.  He went into "hunt" mode.  He changed search strategies, going from exploratory, or what I would call "sampling" mode to a "hunt" mode, which, after taking into account all the information gathered to that poine, would be a very systematic slow careful and intensive search mode

I've described my progressive step-search strategy before.  See Treasure Beaches Report: Pt. 2. (2020 and Beyond). : 3/6/23 Report - If You Don't Like The Result You've Been Getting, Try Something Different. More On Step-Search Strategy.

The hoard recently brought in around $44,000 at auction.  Here is that link.

Detectorist’s Iron Age Gold Hoard Brings £33,200 at Noonans - Numismatic News

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A study by the UAB and the University of A Coruña has succeeded in demonstrating the existence of Roman-era alluvial gold mines in the Eastern Pyrenees...

The presence of gold in the alluvial deposits of the Segre River, as in other rivers originating in the Pyrenees, is a well-known phenomenon: it is secondary gold, originating from the Miocene deposits of the axial Pyrenees...

The Roman technique for extracting alluvial gold was based on eroding the gold-bearing deposits with water. They used various washing methods that ranged from simply channeling water through the sediments to constructing galleries and flooding them with pressurized water...

Here is the link for the source article.

Evidence of the existence of Roman-era gold mines in the Eastern Pyrenees - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - UAB Barcelona

When we read a beach, we analyze how the water is moving sand and other objects such as coins.  We take advantage of what nature is doing to the beach.  I often think about ways of taking greater advantage of the same forces.  When I see any of the Gold Rush programs, for example, I can't help but think of the hydraulic mining techniques of the old miners.  The same techniques were once used on Padre Island.  I'm talking about hydraulic mining of the beach.  Of course, that is now illegal, but there are more passive methods.  Carter and Trevillian, in Diamonds in the Surf, told about meeting a man who created gold traps on the beach by arranging rocks.  You might still be able to find copies of that book.

If I were a gold miner, I would often think of hydraulic mining.  It would be fun to control the water rather than waiting on nature to erode sand.

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Over 18,000 views on the TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com yesterday.

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Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

No big changes here, just a slight decrease over the week.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

3/5/26 Report - Bit of Local History Exposed. Some Tuesday Coin Finds. Detecting in the News. New Coin in Circulation.

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

Encrusted Coin After Some Cleaning.

I think the coin shown above is a mercury dime.  After about 24 hours in vinegar, I can almost make out the winged head of mercury.   It took perfect lighting to show that.  There is still a heavy black and very hard crust on the coin.  It is very much like the crust on a cob I found back in December.  The vinegar wasn't very effective on that one and so I began electrolysis but got interrupted and didn't finish it yet.  It looks like this one will require electrolysis too, but it probably isn't worth it except to satisfy my curiosity.  When I dug it, I could see no details at all but from the look of the corrosion and size of the coin I thought it was probably a silver dime.  That find encouraged me because I thought I might find some more old stuff.  Even though the other coins were mostly encrusted, they were on average only about fifty years old and the gold ring didn't look very old.

The coin shown below was also heavily encrusted and showed no details, but I could tell that it was clad by looking at the edge of that coin.  The mercury dime, on the other hand, shows a solid blackened and worn silver edge.

Edge on a Corroded Clad Dime

 

When you can't see a date, you can often tell if a coin is clad by looking at the edge of the coin where you'll often see some copper.

Tuesday I was also digging some small chewed up pieces of copper and other metal such as the piece shown below.

Encrusted Small Piece of Dug Metal.

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The story is that some podcasters recently scanned Annie Guthrie's yard with metal detectors.  The story doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.  They said they were looking for jewelry or anything that might have fallen off.  But the article continues as follows, "We didn’t find anything, but we’re just trying to do as much as we can without trespassing," he explained, while his volunteer partner shared that the "powerful" device they used could detect 15 feet underground.

I don't know what they were using that would be good for detecting jewelry that just fell off but that would detect 15 feet underground.  I don't know about that whole story.  

But here is the link.

Nancy Guthrie's Yard Scanned With Metal Detector; Annie To Get Car Back

Hope isn't just some podcasters trying to get some attention, and I really hope they aren't detectorists trying to get attention.

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Last month the first of the new semiquincentennial coins went into circulation.  This is what they look like.

 

AnnounceMints: The First 2026 Quarter Enters Circulation - Numismatic News

Anyone seen one of these?

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On my last metal detecting outing, I saw the remains of an old building foundation that was exposed on the beach as a result of the erosion.  All four outer walls were evidenced by a remaining foot or two of concrete..  There were gaps, but all four corners and most of the bottom of most of all four walls could be seen.  There was evidence of two rooms.

Remains of Foundation on Beach.

The photo above doesn't show all four walls well, but they were visible when I was there.

There were also concrete erosion control structures on the beach, but this foundation was something different.

A decade or two ago I saw a foundation uncovered on the beach a mile or so to the south.  I only saw it once when the beach was eroded way back.  It was right up near the water line and at times actually covered by the water.  It was near the end of the access road just south of the condos just north of John Brooks beach. I thought there was a World War II watchtower near the same location but much closer to A1A.  There was a lot of junk there, including iron and other things that could have been remains of the watchtower.  I forget how I found out that is where the watchtower once stood, but the foundation slab I am saw was out at the waters edge instead of being back behind the beach.  I don't know what kind of building or construction the slab came from.

I found a WWII watchtower on an old U.S. Geological Survey map.  It was located to the south of Frederick Douglass but north of the next beach access.  I visited teh site and located the remains of that one, which back then, was in the Australian pines just behind the beach.  I'm sure about that one, and don't know why there would be two so close together although there were once more than 15 thousand  of them around the United States.  Many counties had more than one.

I don't know what building the foundation up near the jetty was.  It could have been associated with World War II activities, but I don't know that, and now I'm not so sure now about the one to the north of John Brooks beach.  I don't know now how I originally learned about it.

Preserved World War II Coastal Watchtower at

In any case, World War II America is fascinating history.  Everybody pitched in.  They had fund raising drives, and communities actually funded, built and volunteers manned the watchtowers and watched for enemy aircraft or ships.

Here is one link to a little bit about that interesting part of our local history.

World War Two Watchtower Ormond Beach

It amazes me how little people know about such recent history of the land they walk on.  Landmarks quickly disappear and people quickly forget and young people generally aren't interested.

If you can shed any light on the newly exposed building foundation, let me know.

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Wabasso Beach Cam Thursday Morning.

SurfGuru.com Surf Chart for Fort Pierce Inlet Area.

Not much change this week.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

3/4/26 Report - A Nice Rainy Day for Beach Metal Detecting: Finds, Observations and Impressions.

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

Tuesday's Metal Detecting Finds.

In Tuesday's post I pointed out that there was some beach erosion, and I showed a beach cam view of a cut south of the Fort Pierce inlet.

I always liked rainy days.  One of the reasons is that I've had way too much sun over the years for my skin type and try to limit my sun exposure.

First, I stopped at John Brooks beach.  Here is what that looked like.

John Brooks Tuesday Around Noon.

John Brooks looked very much like the last time I was there several days ago except the scallops were even smaller.  

John Brooks Around Noon Tuesday.

I did a quick scan at Brooks, but it didn't seem very promising.  I wasn't going to spend a lot of time at the beach, so I moved north a ways.

A fellow that has been a regular at that beach was hard at work and I could tell by his tracks had already spent some good time there.  I went the other direction.  

One of my early finds there was what I'm pretty sure is a silver dime although I couldn't see the coin at all because of a heavy black crust.  It is being cleaned now.  The crust is really solid, and it looks like I might have to resort to electrolysis again.  After an hour or so, very little progress was made by the vinegar.  Still, I'm only guessing that it is a dime.

There were a good number of coins.  I felt like there was a lot more there, but I only stayed around an hour or probably a bit less.   

It was interesting detecting.  All the coins were well seasoned and there were some odd little bits of metal that I'll have to clean and give another look.  I think the silver dime is probably the oldest of the day.  The dime was encouraging and I hoped to find some more older stuff and maybe something much older.

I found two rings.  One is junk and the other marked 14K.  

Found Ring Marked 14 Kt.

In the find photo at the top of this post, the gold ring doesn't show up well against the coins, but it is there.  

By the way, the 1.9 gram gold ring only showed a 13 on the detector's conductivity scale, so beware of smaller items like that.  They can give some low conductivity numbers.

Overall, the hunt left me with two major impressions.  One is that there was a lot of good targets and some interesting detecting out there on the beach, and I could have, and perhaps should have, spent a lot more time before quitting.  The other fellow had already spent some good time detecting before I arrived and was still hard at work when I left.

My other big impression was about the Manticore.  I was impressed once again.  The Manticore has impressed me more than any metal detector I've tried in the last thirty or more years and is close to becoming my new all-time favorite.  I almost hate to say this because I don't want to sound like I'm doing an ad or anything like that, but that detector keeps impressing me.  It was detecting small bits, and detecting deep items and it provided good target information, and all that with just the general beach settings.  I'm not saying that there aren't better detectors out there because I haven't tried many of them, but this detector has impressed me.   I'd guess I've used it on the beach maybe ten or twelve times and haven't spent a huge amount of time with it, and I've not spent a lot of time optimizing settings or anything.  It has been both easy and effective.

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I've talked before about the target information it provides (the target ID map is nice), but the information is only as good as how you use it.  You can have good information, but you still have to make good decisions based upon that information.  The small ring is a good example.  People who only dig strong coin signals could have easily passed up a target giving such a low conductivity number.  Discrimination is risky business.  And you never find out what you passed up.  That is why I recommend at least occasionally digging a wider range of signals.  A 13 can be a lot of things.  And some of them - like the ring - are good.  It did show as a solid disc shaped object on the middle line of the target ID map, so I figured it was not iron, but it could have been a piece of foil or a small slice of copper, or something like that.  Even with all the information provided by the detector, there is still a range of uncertainty and the possibility of making a wrong decision both type 1 and type 2 errors.  No matter what the detector does for you, your decision making still plays a major role.  I also found a greater than normal number of nickels, which is often an indication of other detectorists discriminating.  There is a good chance the other fellow had been over the area where the ring was found and either missed it or passed it up.  There were no coins around it, and it was very near where you walk onto the beach.

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I noticed that some how I ended up with two 3/3/26 posts.  It looks like I did two posts yesterday or something.  I don't know how that happened, but if you saw one of them, I just wanted you to know there are two.

I hope to get the dime or whatever it is cleaned enough to see what it actually is.  I'll post it when I can tell.  If I have to resort to electrolysis, it might take a while.  I still haven't finished one object I started to do electrolysis on back a couple months ago.  Got interrupted and never got back to it yet.

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A Mexican cartel boss was buried in a gold coffin.

Mexican cartel boss buried in gold coffin

Hmmmm.  

I guess the ancient practice of burying high status people with their gold is still around.  It would seem they'd have to guard against grave looting.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net