1/16/23 Report - Some Treasure Coast Beaches This Morning. Wishing Wells, Superstitions and Customs Resulting in Coin Filled Waters.

 

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

John Brooks Monday Morning.

I went out early this morning to see how things were shaping up.  There were slow swells parallel to the beaches.  At John Brooks they were breaking right on the beach, but down at Walton Rocks there were some surfers.

John Brooks looked very much like the last time I was out.  The slope was mushy.  there was a lot of Styrofoam scattered along the beach.

John Brooks Monday Morning.

It was cool this morning, but it quickly warming up.

John Brooks Monday Morning.

You can see the wind blowing the tops of the waves and the deep footprints in the mushy sand.

John Brooks Monday Morning.

The other beaches weren't much different.

Blind Creek Monday Morning.

Very few people were on the beach this morning.

Walton Rocks Monday Morning.

Overall beach conditions at these beaches was not encouraging Monday morning.  There were very few targets.

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Yesterday I mentioned artifacts being recovered from an old "wishing well."  Here is an interesting article on the human impulse to throw coins into fountains, wells and other water.  Of course, there are 

An example of a historical wishing well could be found in the county of Northumberland, located in the northeastern tip of England, which has a very famous well that was used to make offerings to the Roman Britain and Celtic goddess Coventina. The archeological discovery of Coventina’s Well unearthed thousands of coins from different eras of the Roman Empire. About 16,000 coins in all were discovered in this well, including coins issued between the first and fifth centuries (Aitchison, 1988, p. 274-275). The great range of coinage implies that people have been adding coins to the well for many generations. Because the well was found among temple remains, the coins were believed to be religious offerings made to the goddess Coventina. Aitchison points out, however, that most of the coins found in Coventina’s Well were “low denomination bronze issues” (1988, p 275). People who offered coins to the well chose coins that were either worth very little or nothing at all...

The article goes on to examine the continuing practice of throwing coins into wishing wells today.

Here is a link for the entire article.

Anthropology 125s (uci.edu)

If you go to DisneyWorld you will see that the practice is alive and well.  You'll see tons of coins in virtually every body of water as well as in the model train display in EPCOT, in which there are a lot of coins even though the model train layout only has miniature streams and the coins are way out of scale, occasionally derailing trains.  I can never figure that one out.  

For detectorists, it is worth checking virtually any body of water where people may have gathered or passed by.  Not only can you find the intentionally tossed coins, but perhaps also a ring or watch that came off when the coin was tossed.

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Source: MagicSeaweed.com.

Tomorrow the surf is supposed to peak and then begin decreasing again.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net