5/21/24 Report - Metal Detecting Canning Jars With Coins: An Experiment. Trade Beads. Butterfly Clues.

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

Small Hazel Atlas Jar with Top Filled With Coins.

A few days ago I did a post discussing Hazel Atlas canning jars and mentioned the occasional association between canning jars and coins or hoards. I know of a few canning jar caches that have been found along the Treasure Coast.  Along with some other canning jars, in that post I showed the little Hazel Atlas piggy bank jar shown above.

I received some questions about metal detecting coins in canning jars, so I did a few little tests with canning jars and a metal detector.

First I filled the little piggy bank jar shown above with unsorted pennies and took them out to my test area.  I put the coin-filled jar on the ground and the Minelab Equinox 600 detected the jar of coins about a foot away from the coil.  The signal sounded pretty good - as I recall the reading was around 17.  Then I laid the jar down on its side and ran the coil over it.  When the coil went over the coin-filled bottom of the jar the signal was pretty good and in about the same range as the readouts obtained from the standing jar.  When the coil was swept more over the screw top (now on edge), there were more iron signals and readouts.  The detector did a pretty good job of separating the coins from the lid.  When the coil was swept over one end of the jar, the detector gave a different signal than when the coil was swept more over the lid, which resulted in iron sounds.  When the jar was laying down, it was very important what part of the jar the coil was passed over. It was a matter of inches.  The signal sounded much better when  the coil did not pass so much over the screw top.

Canning jars have different kinds of closures, so I tested a jar with another type of closure.  The second jar is shown below.   It is a much bigger jar.  I think it must be at least a half-gallon jar.  It has a wire closure with a glass top.

I didn't fill it with coins.  Perhaps I should have, but his jar gave a lot more iron signals, especially when the jar was put on its side and the latch part of the closure was on top.   This kind of jar would be easy to miss if you were discriminating iron. The wire closure caused more of an iron signal and readout than the flat round top of the piggy bank.

I know I didn't do a very extensive or precise test, but I thought these quick tests were sufficient for present purposes.  The conclusion is that you can detect a jar full of coins at a decent depth, but the metal closures can produce confusing signals in some situations and if you were using discrimination and only digging perfect coin signals, you could miss a jar full of coins because of the effect of the closure.

While it has been a while since I talked about the subject, trying to dig only good coin signals can result in missing a lot of very good finds.  I've said a lot about that in the past.

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Dan B.'s Mystery Objects.

Mark G. did an image search and didn't find a match, but did find the trade beads shown below.  

Trade Beads
Image Submitted by Mark G.

For some reason I keep thinking of garment weights, but I don't feel like that is it.  

What do you think?

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Giant Swallowtail Butterfly A Couple Hours
After Emerging From Chrysalis Saturday.

Raising butterflies is a pleasant and educational activity.  They host on very specific plants, so their presence suggests the likelihood that those specific plants are in the area. In fact, if you follow them, there is a good chance the females will lead you to those plants.  The very few specific plants they butterflies lay their eggs on and that the caterpillars eat are different from the many other plants that they feed on.  

If you learn about butterflies and other insects, it will provide you with clues about what type of plants are in the area.  Swallowtail butterflies, for example, lay their eggs on trees in the citrus family.  In our area, it seems to be mostly the lime pricklyash, which most people would eliminate from their yard or landscape because of the cat claw like thorns.

Longwing butterflies, such as the Zebra and Fritillary, which are common along the Treasure Coast, lay eggs on Passionflower plants, of which there are varieties.    In our area they seem to prefer the Corky Stems.  

I doubt if you remember, but the thing that really stimulated my interest in butterflies is when I found a Zebra Longwing roosting area while metal detecting a wooded area.  They happened to be roosting near a large Corky Stem.  I didn't know anything about all of that backk then.

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Here is a product recommendation.  I can imagine kids going wild with this.

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The wind shifted.  Expect a couple days of two or three foot surf.

Good hunting,

TreaureGuide@comcast.net.