Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Source: See Artnet News link below. |
Archaeologists have made a stunning find inside a prehistoric grave in Romania: a cache of 169 gold rings, some 800 mother-of-pearl beads, and an ornate spiraled copper bracelet.
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Rings in Situ.
Same Artnet source. |
“The gold hoard is a sensational find for the period, considering that all the gold pieces from the Carpathian Basin total around 150 pieces. Well, here there are over 160 in just one inventory,” Ghemis said.
Archaeologists identified the remains as belonging to a woman based on the size of the skeleton, and the fact that there were no weapons buried in the grave. The gold rings would have likely been used to adorn her hair...
Here is the link.
Archaeologists Have Uncovered a Vast Trove of Gold Rings Buried Alongside an 'Extremely Rich' Ancient Noblewoman in Romania | Artnet News
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You might remember that I mentioned Frank Hudson's book, Florida Shipwreck Treasures. In response, here is what Warren D. had to say.
I have a copy of Florida Shipwreck Treasures by Frank Hudson, the 3rd edition, the Expanded Edition as well as Treasure on the Chesapeake Bay by Bob Trevillian and Frank Carter, publ. 1983.
I guess I acquired them back in the 90's. They came with a bookmark which is an old Post card called Treasure Map of the Florida Keys, probably from the 80's and printed in Ireland, of all places.
Time flies and it's worth mentioning these books do contain tidbits of information on old beach locations that is not on internet forums. Believe me I would find it.
Good reason for the younger generation to go back and read books?
Warren D.
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Gaylen C. said the brass mystery item I posted is a latch from a suitcase. It does look like one. I don't know what one of those would be doing where it was found, but that isn't unusual.
The brass hinge or latch is pretty big and gave a very strong signal. I could tell that it was a stronger signal than I'd expect out of a regular size coin. If I was going for common coins, I could have left that one in the ground, but I was curious.
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Here is another piece of recently found blue and white china.
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| Another Piece of Blue and White China. |
I've been finding a good bit of that lately.
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It is not always deliberate, and it is never precise, but detectorists are constantly assessing probabilities and making decisions based upon their estimates.
When it comes to dig/no dig decisions, your estimates of the probability of junk versus good targets helps determine what you dig. One thing that I think is often underestimated is the huge difference in the value of different good targets. A good diamond ring, or some other high value object can be worth thousands of times what a common coin is worth, so when there is a decent likelihood of the presence of such a high value target, that needs to be taken into account. Of course, now we are talking about economic values alone, which are fairly easy to quantify, but you might consider other things such as the historic value or just your curiosity.
Lets say you are working in an area where you have reason to believe there is a decent chance of a $10,000 coin or ring. That ring is worth 100,000 common dimes, so when you decide to dig or not dig a questionable target, that should be taken into account. Also taken into account will be any target ID information you have, which changes your estimate of the probability of the target. When there is a remote possibility of a very high value target, you will probably be willing to dig a lot of junk instead of taking a chance on missing the high value target.
If I took the time I could probably come up with some equations and charts that show the effectiveness of various decision strategies, but I'm not up for that right now.
Your expectations are likely to determine to a large extent how much junk you are willing to dig. Even if there is a ton of junk, you might be willing to dig a lot of it if there is a better chance of digging a high value target. It seems that many people, though, are more motivated to not waste time digging junk even when the probability of missing something really good is fairly high. That has to do with personal characteristics and preferences, which can lead to the adoption of less than optimal decision making. Just give it a little thought.
Here is an old post on math for metal detecting. I'd change a few sentences of that post and may have done so in subsequent posts.
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No important changes in the weather or predictions. The tides are not as big.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
