Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
Finding old shipwreck treasure coins on the beach depends heavily upon beach conditions. The vast majority of beach treasure finds are made on a very few special days. If you hit it right, you can hit it big. On the other hand, most days you are lucky to find any kind of shipwreck item on the beach.
If you remember my five-point rating scale, as the ratng increased from one (poor conditions) to five (excellent conditions), the chances of finding some treasure coins on the beach increased dramatically.
5 ratings are rare. It happens only after a good storm or something that not only rips the beach but also the dunes. 1 conditions are summer-like conditions, when the sand is building on the beaches, and very seldom are treasure coins found during times like that.
Most treasure coins are found during a very few days. They are times like during the Thanksgiving storm of 1984, or after hurricanes Francis and Jeanne. Numerous finds are made during those kinds of times, but few finds are normally made during the summer unless something big happens. During those few special times people can find more treasure coins in a day than they might otherwise find during an entire year or even several years. I'd say that something like 95% of the treasure coins are found on something like 5% of the days - maybe less. Of course one percent of a year would be 3.65 days, and five percent would be just 18.55 days.
The point is simple: treasure coins are not found everyday, and most treasure coins are found during a few days.
When you find one, there is a very good chance that you will find more than one. And if conditions are really good, you might find 10, 20 or more. I've told about things like that before.
So what about all those times when beach conditions are nothing special? One option is to get out there, learn what you can, and maybe once in a while you'll find something that provides some good useful information, and once in a while maybe even find one of those rare finds when little else is being found. Another option is to target other kinds of things for a while. That doesn't exclude learning something relevant for hunting treasure coins. And during the slow periods, you might explore ways to stretch yourself and expand your hunting boundaries and techniques. Maybe a rare opportunity will present itself - perhaps a new construction project will turn up something. Stretch your mind and break out of old habits.
Another option is to research, do some cleaning and preservation, inspect your records, and come up with new strategies
It doesn't matter whether conditions are good or poor, skill always helps. And there could be an rare stroke of luck.
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I've been talking about memorable finds. For me, they fit into a variety of categories. They aren't always the best finds. Sometimes they are memorable for other reasons.
One memorable find for me was the one shown below.
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| Broken Spear-Point Found on Treasure Coast Beach. |
I saw the broken spear-point when metal detecting one day. That was the first indigenous point I ever found. I wasn't hunting anything like that and didn't expect to see anything like that. It was a complete surprise.
Here is a good web site for learning more about Florida projectile points.
Florida Projectile Points (ufl.edu)
And here is resource for projectile points.
Cultural_Resources_Point_Guide.pdf (usda.gov)
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The best Spanish treasure ring ever found on the Treasure Coast has not been posted yet. We can do that in complete anonymity.
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The tides are big now. We are having both good high tides and negative low tides.
The surf is only two or three feet.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net