5/30/24 Report - Gold Star Families and Final Disposition of WWII Remains Project. What Can You Find on the Treasure Coast.

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

The History of the Gold Star Family Designation

The phrase “Gold Star Family,” dates back to World War I, when military families displayed service flags featuring a blue star for every immediate family member serving in the Armed Forces. The star’s color would be changed to gold if the family lost a loved one in the war, hence the term, “Gold Star Family.”...

Here is the link for more about gold star families.

What is a Gold Star Family? · United Service Organizations (uso.org)

I should have posted this on Memorial Day but hadn't found it yet.

My wife compiled a list of WWII deceased service men for a particular small town and included where they were buried.  A little over half of them were buried permanently overseas or elsewhere instead of being brought home to be buried in their hometown area.  Many that were brought home to be buried were not brought home until 1948 and some even later.  It was a huge project.  More on that later

The report that I am about to reference includes this quote from Harry Truman.

My wife quickly found out that many people did not know anything about the Gold Star designation or even that Memorial Day was for remembering those that gave their lives in service.  

There is a fascinating free online book about the immense project to recover and honor the bodies of every person who lost their lives in service during World War II.  I'm sure many of you will want to read it.  It is  Final disposition of World War II dead, 1945-51 / by Edward Steere and M. Boardman v.2:4.  And here is the link.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Final_Disposition_of_World_War_II_Dead_1/KGBeu7cXhekC?q=&gbpv=1#f=false

Here is an excerpt from the Preface of the above linked book.

The Quartermaster's Division was involved in the project, from estimating deaths at various battles and making plans and taking care of the bodies, searching for the deceased, creating temporary cemeteries, and finally implementing the final disposition of the bodies according to the wishes of the kin.

Good information on a little-known part of WWII history.  Too bad I didn't get it posted a few days earlier.

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I'm often impressed by the skill and accomplishments of some people.  I don't care if it is a musician, weightlifter, sportsman, philosopher or scientist.  To reach those levels of accomplishment requires many years of development, training and practice. 

You can be a generalist or a specialist but becoming a top-level specialist requires a lot of dedicaton to that one thing.  I can't describe myself as a specialist.  I've never stuck to one thing that long.  That is true of my treasure hunting.  I've done a good amount of metal detecting, but also did a lot of different kinds of hunting.  As you'll see below, I've hunted a lot of different kinds of things.  It was often a matter of location or opportunity.  Fossils and bottles presented themselves, or so it seemed , and so I started collecting them.  I never liked the idea that I might pass up something good simply because I didn't recognize it so I tried to learn a little about a lot of different things.  My curiosity kind of led me that way.

Fortunately for the generalist there some kinds of knowledge and skill can be common to a variety of different areas or specializations.  There is much in common between hunting coins and relics, for example.  There are some differences, but there are commonalities.  Fortunately, there is often "transfer of training," which is when learning one thing applies to, or helps you learn something else.  Unfortunately, there is sometimes negative transfer.  That is when learning one thing interferes, or makes it harder, to learn how to do something else.  

The general principles of reading a beach are very similar no matter where you go, but some things will be different. The generalization that northeast winds are best won't apply in other locations.  

If you learned that one particular spot or beach is a good place to detect, that can help you out, but if you understand the underlying reasons the beach or spot is good (the beach dynamics) you'll have more transferable knowledge that will apply to most any beach.  Enough of that little detour.

I've tried a few times to develop a taxonomy of treasures that applies to my own experience.  Below is one such imperfect attempt.  

                                                                                                                                        Pre     Pre    Pre

                                                21st C.    20th C.    19th C. 18th C. 17th C.   16th C.    16th     1000    1AD

Coins: Modern                        X            X

Coins: Silver and Gold US    X            X                X

Coins: Colonial                                                                    X            X            X

Coins: Other

Jewelry: Rings Etc.                X            X                X          X

Watches:                                X            X                X

Fossils                                                                                                                                              X        X

Military                                                X       X      X                                                                                     

Indigenous                                                                X          X           X              ?

Glass, Stoneware &: Bottles  X           X       X

Glass: Insulators                                  X

Glass: Marbles                        X          X

Glass: Seaglass                       X           X

That is just a rough sketch, and I'm sure it is not perfectly accurate.  I'll have to go back and check the details some other time, but this is about the best classification system I've come up with so far.  If you have any recommendations, let me know.  I left out things that I haven't hunted or found such as meteorites and things such as seashells, which can have value to collectors, but which I didn't include.  I could also include toys such as doll parts or action figures. 

When you find your first of a type, let's say meteorite, it can set off a whole new interest area.

As imperfect and inaccurate as it is, the taxonomy gives some idea of the large variety of types of treasures that I've found and that are available to treasure hunters in Florida and on the Treasure Coast.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

So you can see that the peak surf is a little later coming than originally predicted.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net