6/9/2021 Report - How To Date a Metal Detecting Site. The Value of Junk. Treasure Coast Nature.

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

Prince Albert Tobacco Tin.

I'm sure you haven't been keeping track as closely as I have, but the date range of the heaviest activity on the Indian River Ridge site that I've been metal detecting is being narrowed and confirmed by a growing list of finds.  The latest is the bottom of a tobacco tin.  

I didn't plan on writing about this today, but the clues are coming together nicely with the recent finds.  I wanted to show how each piece adds to the overall picture if you are detailed, systematic and stick to the data.

Bill Y., who once worked for the railroad, back a week or two ago said that his guess was that the railroad items found at the site suggested a date range running from about the 1920s to the 1940s.  From what I've gathered from several finds, including the most recent, that seems to be correct.

Just a day or two ago I posted this photo of the bottom of a tin that I dug up.  There appeared to be something embossed on the bottom.  Here it is again.

Here is what Scott B. said about the tin.

   The tin you showed yesterday looks like a Prince Albert tobacco lid or bottom. I zoomed in on the picture and it looks like some of the visible letters match. Not 100% sure, but it looks like the ones I used to find as a kid.

   I hope all is going well with you. Thank you so much for keeping this blog going, I always learn from your wisdom.

After doing a little rubbing and looking at it more closely, I agree with Scott. It does seem to read Prince Albert. So what does that mean? Here is what I learned from a little research.

Prince Albert tobacco tins first were first produced in 1909. They were very popular in 1930s, and lost popularity in the 1950s when cigarettes were mostly pre-rolled.  

You might remember some of the other clues suggesting a similar date.  I'll list a few.

Recently I dug up a rounded piece of glass with an embossed circle that appeared to be part of a round milk bottle.  It was found very close to the where the bottom of the tin was found.  Here is what I found online about that.

Milk bottles before the 1930s were round in shape. In 1935 slender-neck bottles were introduced in the UK. In the 1940s, a square squat bottle became the more popular style.

You might remember that I also dug up a Stuart Bottling Works bottle on the same site. Here is some  information that relates to that bottle.

In July 1913, James Elersly Weir, Jr., purchased a pitch pine wooden building owned by Joseph A. Lucas, a real estate developer, located on an isolated dirt road (Decker Street) south of Stuart; he had it converted into a bottling plant, Stuart Bottle Works. Soft drinks were bottled, sealed with large snap off caps and distributed in Stuart, Palm City, Jensen, Salerno, Hobe Sound, even to Fort Pierce and Jupiter. Weir only remained in Stuart a few years, joining family in West Palm Beach, in the plastering business and later, an auction house.

The bottling plant building was eventually owned by Ira L. Decker, who operated a concrete manufacturing business and was used primarily for storage. In the afternoon of Feb. 6, 1933, while Decker and local firemen were battling a brush fire nearby, the building caught fire.

So the likely date range provided by that bottle is 1913 - 1933.

Then there were the other stopper-top bottles that I've dug up, and the pieces of stoneware or pottery jugs.  And the four tin drinking cups that look like they once had a long attached handle for dipping into a barrel or something.

The pieces of the puzzle are coming together and more complete picture of the past of the site is being constructed.  I know you don't have the complete picture that I have, but I hope you get the idea.

Of course there are items that do not fit that time frame, but it is beginning to look like the peak of activity was a railroad related event, possibly a derailing, for which there is both anecdotal and artifact evidence.  

As you would expect, some items do not fit that range.  Some of the found items are definitely later.  There are junk items from the time period after homes were built in the area.  For example there is the shoe sole with a trademark that suggests a date of 1985.or later.  The north side of the lot contains a lot of recent items probably dumped (thrown into the wooded lot) from the neighboring lot.

The Prince Albert tin, the round milk bottle piece and the Stuart Bottling Works bottle all provide evidence that suggest a most likely date in the early 1930s.  I could make a chart showing the likely date ranges for the items found on the site.  Here is a quick and dirty example of what it might look like.

TG Date Charting Method.

On this fictional chart the the majority of items have a date range that overlaps in the 1930s.  There are also a couple of items from later periods.  I haven't yet actually made such a chart like this for my site - except mentally.

One of the things to take away from this is the value of junk finds.  To sum it up, junk finds can provide valuable information.

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This is bad.  A tractor ran over and killed a woman sleeping on a beach.

Here is the link.

'Tragic accident': Tractor runs over and kills woman sleeping on California beach (nbcnews.com)

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The following is from DJ.

Your post today was very timely. I found the following test items today at Turtle Trail. There was one other detectorist.

One reason was to keep my conditioning up while waiting for better conditions. Another was to see what lightweight and bigger surface area items were present. A third was to test a few settings on the machine. In short it was training. Also found some Beach glass and a Sharks tooth by chance.

Thanks and keep checking your possible derailment find. All the best.

Miscellaneous Detector Finds With Shark Tooth.

By looking at these finds you can conclude that conditions were not good in that area for finding things such as coins or gold rings, although it would be possible to find an item that was recently dropped.

Notice the shark tooth at bottom left.

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A Monarch butterfly deposited a bunch of eggs on a tropical milkweed plant.  My wife protected them, and now they are starting to turn into butterflies.  Since the Monarch butterfly population has decreased a lot in recent years, we are glad we could dramatically improve the survival rate of those we protected.  So far we have three that have made it from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis and have emerged as butterflies.  We released the first two days ago, the second yesterday, and the third emerged from the chrysalis this morning.  We have about a dozen more to go.

Here is the first being released the same morning it emerged from the Chrysalis.  

First Monarch of Batch To Emerge

Here is the third, still beside the vacated chrysalis and two other chrysalises.

Recently Emerged Butterfly
Along With Two Chrysalises.

We are going to plant some of the tropical milkweeds in are yard - also some of the plants they feed on.  The Monarch's habitat plant, the tropical milkweed, is disappearing due to a variety of causes.

A great biology lesson is provided by watching butterflies proceed through their their life cycle.

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No big change in beach conditions expected real soon.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net