Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| 300-Year-Old Silver Coin Find. Source: See SomersetCountyGazette link below. |
A silver coin found near Swindon may be unique and is being examined by the British Museum.
Detectorist Robin Godwin made the discovery in September 2019 on farmland near Broad Hinton...
“The edges of the coin had been crudely cut so that it was more like a rough octagon than round, and it was thicker than most.;.’
On his return home, Robin had the coin’s metal content analysed and found that it is 84 per cent silver.
This, coupled with the fact that it is likely to be more than 300 years old, meant that he was required by law to declare it. He did this via the finds liaison officer in Taunton, at the South West Heritage Trust...
"Their first thought was that it is a Saxon test piece, though a much lower grade of metal would normally be used for that.’
The other possibility is that it is a piece of Viking silver that the invaders used to try out a King Alfred stamp. ‘Apparently the Vikings loved Saxon coins and tried to mimic them, or they may have just stamped a piece of silver in order to verify it as such.’
Here is the link.The detectorists said he followed an old unused path before finding the coin. Good tip.
Thanks to Timothy M. for the link.
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I started thinking last night about all of the swimming holes that I have metal detected that were not on an ocean beach. They were swmimming holes with sand bottoms that were on lakes or streams. Most were in parks. Most were popular at one point, then went throught a period when they were not much used or abandoned and overgrown and then at some point were renovated and became popular once again. At many of them the popular areas changed over time, and from where people were mostly swimming at the time, you could look around and see other overgrown weedy areas where people once congrgated but where they seldom went anymore. Those weedy areas would not attract detectorists but would usually still produce good finds.
It seemed like I thought of more and more of those kinds of places the longer I thought about it. It was really surprising to me how many of those types of swimming holes I had detected.
The most southern one was at John Pennekamp Park. Like I said the other day, I don't know if you can still metal detect there, but there was a square (as I remember it) swimming hole where I never saw anybody swmimming, but was obviously used because I always made good finds there.
The most northern ones that I ever metal detected included some of the lakes around Minnesota. I found a lot of silver and older coins in those lakes but not a lot of gold. I don't think as many people did water detecting up there. Some of those lakes were filled with old coins and silver jewelry. Some of the lakes had rocky bottoms that made scouping difficult. From the number of finds I made there, it seemed like I was among the first to detect some of those lakes, but I'm sure there must have been others.
There was one that I never metal detected myself, but was an older swimming hole that was no longer used by the time I became aware of it, but was still detected heavily by a few people. At that time is was overgrown and weedy. It was just below the Fort Lauderdale airport, not far from Jerry's Pot of Gold metal detector shop. It might be TigerTail Park, which if that is it, I think it has been renovated and is now popular again.
There was one more down there that I never metal detected. All of the rest that I'll mention I have detected. I think this one was in Griffin Park. I might be wrong about the name, but it was a sand bottom swimming hole that you had to pay to use. Once a year they drained it and there was a fellow that the park had metal detect it thoroughly while it was drained.
Then there was Oleta River State Park. There was a swimming hole that was not much used when I was detecting it, but which produced a lot of good finds. There was also an old shipwreck, not in the swimming hole, but on the other side of the park in the intercoastal. I suspect that park has been renovated and is probably popular once again.
Then there was Quiet Waters Park. C. B. Smith Park, and Jonathan Dickinson State Park, and there was the swimming hole at Camp Wilderness in Disneyworld, which is no longer used for swimming. All of those had swimming holes that I detected. And at Jupiter, there was a hole on the Loxahatchee just west of the beach at the inlet.
C. B. Smith was a fancier park with a well maintained sand bottom swimming hole. It was the kind of place where you'd think they wouldn't allow metal detecting, and they probably don't now, but they did then, and it produced good finds.
In contrast, when I stopped at Jonathan Dickinson the first time, the swimming hole was completely overgrown with weeds and you might not think it was ever a swimmng hole, but there were plenty of finds.
I also metal detected a lot of swimming holes up around the Pensacola area since I used to travel there for business. Business also took me to Minnesota, which is why I did so much metal detecting there.
My point is that there are places other than the ocean beaches to metal detect. Some of them no longer allow metal detecting, but there are still places that do.
My secondary point, is that not all of the places that were once used as swimming holes are obvious now, but they can still produce finds if you can metal detect them. Some are overgrown and do not look like they were ever swimming holes. For example, there was a popular swimming hole in the Savannahs Preserve. Probably more than one.
At many of the lake beaches, the popular spots seem to change over time. For a while one spot will be popular and then another part of the beach will become popular, so check for areas that might have been popular in the past but are now weedy and overgrown.
That just reminded me of another. There was a dam in Pennsylvania, which was very popular party spot and swimming hole in the 1930s. They had dances and there was even a narrow guage railroad that would take people there on the summer weekends. It was a great metal detecting spot, and is a good illustration of the kinds of metal detecting spots that are still out there if you do your research.
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov |
The National Hurricane Center map has been busy lately. Now we have tropical depressions seventeen and eighteen.
The Treasure Coast surf is supposed to build a little for next weekend, but not much.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net