6/25/25 Report - Research Resourcesfor Finding Metal Detecting Sites. Gold Huguenot Ring Found by Boys. Bottle Find. First Storm of 25.

 

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

Gold Huguenot Ring Found by Boys in 1911

 

Below is a letter written in 1924 giving information about the find of a gold Huguenot ring by some boys digging in a mound.

That letter was published in, the book History of Jacksonville, Florida and Vicinity: 1513 to 1924, by T. Frederick Davis (1925).  That book, which contains a variety of maps and illustrations, is available free online.

Here is the link.  

digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=northeast_fla_books

And here is one of the maps that I liked.

Notice the position of Fort Caroline and the lines indicating the older and contemporary shorelines, which have undoubtedly changed since publication.  

This is the type of book that provides a lot of good clues for the detectorist.

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Here is another interesting research resource.  This one also gives the location and details of other historic locations in North Florida.

Historical Sites in Northeast Florida

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Below is a bottle I once found but recently learned more about.  It is embossed with a spider web and fly, as you can see below.

Brown Bottle With Embossed Wheat and Spider and Web.

It appears to be a whiskey bottle, possibly from the Frankfort (KY) Distillery, although I'm not entirely sure of that.

From what I've learned, it appears to be a Prohibition-era medicinal whiskey bottle. Six distilleries were authorized during the prohibition to make medicinal alcohol.

“Spiritus Frumenti” is Latin for “Spirit of the Grain,” which was a generic name for medicinal whiskey during the Prohibition.  Spiritus Frumenti was produced by the George T. Stagg Distillery and some other distilleries throughout the 1920s.

The diamond on the bottom is the maker's mark probably indicates the Diamond Glass Co. or the Illinois Glass Co.

Diamond Makers Mark on Bottom.

Diamond.pdf (sha.org) provides the following information and much more.

In 1904, the plant made “prescription, liquor and proprietary ware and milk jars” with the same equipment...

I found the picture (below) of a similar bottle with a different top and the label still attached.

Below is a closeup of that label.

I just added this bottle to my tgbottlebarn.blogspot.com site.

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An area of stormy weather in the open Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores became Tropical Storm Andrea on Tuesday morning, the first of the Atlantic hurricane season, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Andrea is not a threat to land. The storm is roughly 1,200 miles away from The Azores, or about 1,400 miles east of the US East Coast, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph as of 11:00 a.m. ET Tuesday....

Here is the link for more about that.

Tropical Storm Andrea becomes first named system of the Atlantic hurricane season

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Surf Forecast for the Fort Pierce Inlet Area from Surfguru.com.

So, as you cana see the tropical storm is having no effect on us.

We will be having a nearly one-foot negative low tide in the afternoon.

Good huntng,

Treasuregide@comcast.ent

6/24/25 Report - Steamship Sunk By Confederate Mine in Florida Waters. Metal Detecting Find Photo. Mystery Remains. Recycling Computer Options.

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

There are historic shipwrecks in Florida that have yielded historical treasures other than Spanish reals and escudos.  And the summer months provide a good time to do a little exploring. That can pay off in many ways.  You might, for example, learn other techniques and strategies, not only for metal detecting but also for finding treasures of other kinds. 

At 4:00 a.m. on April 1, 1864, an explosion disrupted the still waters of the St. Johns River as a Confederate mine ripped through the hull of the steamship Maple Leaf. The ship was transporting Union supplies during the Civil War.

“It was participating in the Southeast Atlantic Blockade as a troop transport,” says Keith Holland, founder of St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc.

“After the Battle of Olustee, which was a major Union defeat, all troops were called from surrounding areas, especially Charleston, to come to Jacksonville immediately. They had camped on Folly Island, an entire brigade, for about 20 months. It took the Quartermasters approximately a month to break down the entire camp, and load up all of the thousands of soldiers personal effects into boxes. They were all placed into the Maple Leaf.”...

Holland and his team of divers dragged a metal detector across the bottom of the river, looking for the exact location of the ship. It snagged on a shrimp net, which in turn had been caught on the paddle wheel axel of the Maple Leaf. It was the only part of the ship sticking up from the river floor.

“The main deck was buried under seven feet of St. Johns River mud,” says Holland. “This was going to take a very big deal to get to.”

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

Florida Frontiers “The Maple Leaf” | Florida Historical Society

Here is another link.

Mandarin's historic Civil War shipwreck leads National Geographic episode

I also had an older video about the wreck, salvage and artifacts.  The original team and divers discussed the wreck and showed some artifacts, but I can't seem to get that one working now. But is link to an older video that shows many artifacts recovered from the Maple Leaf.

"Maple Leaf Artifacts" by University of North Florida

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I've been working through a stack of old metal detecting find photos I rediscovered not too long ago.  I think this is the thirteenth from that stack.

You can see the usual variety.  a couple class rings, a few more chains than usual, one of which has a very nice crucifix, miscellaneous gemstone rings, and a larger than usual number a variety pendant and a few earrings.  Not as many men's bands, it seems. On the vracelet, you can see the broken claw clasp that probably caused its loss.

The eye shaped ring at the top has a bloodstone setting. Bloodstone is a variety of chalcedony with red inclusions that has been used as a gemstone and a symbol of strength and healing for centuries.

The only one in that photo that I can identify and remember where it was found is the gold and enameled lapel pin shown below.    

Part of the enamel has worn off.  I always figured that Gentrys was a family name, but could never find Gentrys listed anywhere as a family name - only Gentry.  A reader of this blog suggested that the name might actually be of a fraternal organization or band and I think that could be right.  It is still something of a mystery item for me.  If anyone has any clues, let me know.

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I was talking one day about recycling computer components and reclaiming components.  You may have seen that there are gold plated parts from which some people reclaim the gold.  I hate to see things like that go to the land fill.  Such a waste.  Even the neodymium magnet.

Anyhow, Dell computer has a site that provides options for recycling old computers.

Here is that lin.

How to Recycle | Dell USA

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Source: Fort Pierce Inlet Surf Forecast from SurfGuru.com.

Still nothing but small surf and boring summer beach conditions.  There is, however, still a slightly negative afternoon low tide.

Good hunting,

Treausreguide@comast.net

6/23/25 Report - 17th Century Eight-Maravedi Found by Detectorist in Surprising Place. Bottles and Launches. Popularity of Metal Detectors.

 

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

1600s Eight Maravedi Found by Detectorist.

17th century Spanish coin found in ‘Diamond Don’s RV Park’

Metal detectorists in Texas discovered the nearly 350 year old artifact by accident.

A couple staying at a motorhome resort in Marion County, Texas recently made a surprise discovery–with origins dating back nearly 350 years. While casually scanning the grounds of Diamond Don’s RV Park roughly 165 miles east of Dallas, David Durocher and his partner stumbled on a well-preserved Spanish Maravedis coin minted in 1661. But speaking with local news outlet KLTV.  Durocher explained the currency’s historical significance wasn’t immediately apparent.

“We were sitting outside the trailer here and I was going through the stuff that we had been detecting and for some reason she went over by the car,” he recounted on June 17. “A few minutes later she came back and handed me this thing.”

At first glance, Durocher thought the find was simply a discarded car wash token. However, a closer look confirmed the coin’s origins traced back nearly 247 years before the Ford Model-Ts 1908 debut.

“Man, this is a Spanish 8 Maravedis! Where did it come from?” he added.

Here is the link for more of that story.

https://apple.news/AQQ1_wChEQqmI0GzuuphNJg

Thanks to DJ for that link.

Things can be found in the most unexpected places, which is good enough reason to be out there searching.  In addition to the satisfaction of finds made as the result of successful analysis and strategy, there is also the fun of the most unexpected finds.

When you feel like doing a little metal detecting but don't feel like running to the beach, don't neglect the area right around you. You never know.

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Above is a graph showing the usage of the term "metal detector" over time.  In this case the graph shows the period from 1500 to 2022.

The vertical axis shows the relative frequency of that word or phrase in Google's book corpus. It’s measured as a percentage of all the words in all the books published that year—so a value like 0.0001% means the word made up that proportion of all words used in the books from that specific year.

We can see from the graph that the word "metal detector' stated to appear in books ever so slightly before 1940 but didn't really get a lot of usage until around 1950 and then really took off after that.

Sorry that I couldn't get the graphs to appear more clearly.

Here is another graph.  This one looks at the frequency of the terms "Mel Fisher," "Treasure Coast," relative to metal detector.

The top line is for the term "metal detector."  There was a bump followed by a little dip before the big increase.  I saw the same thing with the term "artificial intelligence."  You can see that below.

There was a blip in around the eighties and nineties followed by a dip before the big increase.  That is typical with technologies.  There is the discovery and the excitement and promise followed by a little period before the technology is widely adopted and refined.

But back to the previous graph, the use of the terms Mel Fisher and Treasure Coast appear to be correlated to a fair degree.  I can't explain the decrease in the term "Treasure Coast" after 2000.  Neither can I explain the peak in the term "metal detector," which shows at around 2015.  It could be due to a variety of factors, perhaps linguistic changes such as people referring to specific detectors rather than the general class or something else.

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Give you neck a little break.

Here is a list of the 2025 Cape Canaveral launches.

Rocket launches at Cape Canaveral SFS and NASA's KSC: the 2025 list

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If you do any bottle hunting, a lot of the bottles you find might be vintage but of no real value.  There are many ways to use those old bottles though.

Here is a list of sixteen ways to upcycle glass bottles and jar.s

16 Ways to Upcycle Glass Bottles & Jars - A Cultivated Nest

I've converted some into Christmas ornaments.  These glass salt shakers could be converted very easily.

The first was found with the top so all that was necessary was to insert a loop.   A paint or better yet, Mirror Effect, could be used to make it shiny bright.   People might think of painting the outside of the bottle, but putting the paint inside the bottle and swirling around actually creates a very pretty effect with the clear glass surface remaining on the outside.

Two Found Round Shakers.

I've converted larger bottles for outside ornaments.

And then there are outdoors bottle trees, that have an interesting history as spirit trees like the one below.

All I'm saying is think about what you can do with some of those bottles that have no collector value but might be useful in a variety of other ways.  Just think about it before tossing them in the recylce bin.  

Many bottle hunters cut their embossed but broken bottles into tumblers or whatever.

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Clip from Sebastian Beach Cam.

Notice the small waves breaking on the flat sand that has accumulated in front of the beach over the past couple of months.  

The surf will be only one or two feet for the next week.  We are still have a decent low tide near mid-day.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/22/25 Report - Targeting Watches When Metal Detecting: Methods of Improving Finds. Testing and Experimentation.

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

Odd Sample of Watch Finds.

I don't know how many watches I've dug over the years.  I'd say easily over a hundred.  Many were broken or drowned and others were fine and still showing the correct time.  That included everything from cheap Timexes to Rolexes, as well as stop watches, sliders and pendant watches.  Shown above are just a few that I pulled out, which, of course, do not include the best, which I have safely stored away

Another Group of Watch Finds.

It is surprising that so many watches are lost.  I'd think something so big would be easy to find.  Many that I found were in the water, but a good number were found in the dry sand as well. 

On my recent trip to WV I found two watches, minus the bands, that looked on the metal detector meter just like coins.  They were cheap to start with but missing the crystal and hopelessly broken.  Without the bands, on the metal detector display they looked just like coins.

This is an important topic to me, because watches can be very valuable and they can easily be missed, especially if you are using some form of discrimination. The band can be a problem, making the signal more complex.  And watches are very different.  They have different metallic compositions.  Some have a lot of iron, others gold, silver or other metals.  And some of the metal parts won't sound good on the detector.  To top it off, the shapes can be very irregular.  As a result watches can present what I'll call a very mixed signal.  As a result, a lot of watches are missed, and it is not surprising.  

A few years ago, I made three short videos to show how a metal detector might respond to a watch. Again, it depends upon a lot of factors.

The first little video shows how the ACE250 responded to watches lying flat with the face facing up, which happens to be the most favorable position for a watch to be detected.

How the Ace 250 responds to watches lying flat.  When lying flat, the signals were pretty solid but not totally consistent, especially on the second watch.  

Take a look.  (After viewing the video use your browser return arrow to return to the blog.)

How Metal Detector (Ace 250) Responds To Three Different Watches Laying Flat.

Would you dig all three of those?

Here is another short video, this time using the Ace 250 in coin mode, and this time the watches are lying in a different position.  This time they are on edge   The area of the face is not presented to the coil.

Notice how the sweep direction now has a big effect on the signal.

Take a look.

Metal Detecting Watches With An Ace 250 in Coin Mode.

When the sweep direction is perpendicular to the face of the watch, you get a strong signal but when the sweep direction is parallel to the face of the watch, you often get little signal or no signal. The third watch gave less of a signal than the first two.  Watches are different in size, shape and composition, and there is the watch band to complicate the signal.

And now in all metals mode.

How Metal Detector (Ace 250) Responds To Watches in All Metals Mode

Again, the position of the watch and the sweep direction has an effect.  Did you notice that in one direction you get an iron signal.  That will vary some depending upon the watch.

When detecting watches, the watch itself, not the band, generally has the biggest effect on the signal.  

I highly recommend trying these kinds of experiments with your own metal detector and the settings you are likely to use.

You should become very familiar with the signals produced by the targets you want to find.  You should build a mental library rather than depending entirely upon a digital readout.

I rely a lot on the audio signal for target ID.  Of course you can couple that information with the information you get from a meter or readout.  

You can tell a great deal about a target from the signal, but it takes some training. There was once a product, I forget who made it, that provided ear training for the Excalibur.  I forget now if it was on CD or what, but it was a great idea that I don't think ever caught on too much.  However, you can do your own ear training.

In all metals mode you can determine the size, shape and depth of targets by sound alone.

The one disadvantage of using different detectors and different settings, is that it multiples the size of your mental library of signal types.  I find it takes a short period to become reaccustomed to a metal detector after switching detectors.

One thing I always recommend when you have a highly desired target, whether it is a Spanish reale, diamond ring, gold chain, or whatever, practice with a sample so you have the signal in its varied forms firmly in your memory.  Don't forget to vary the position of the object, which will have a definite effect on the signal.

My main topic was watches today because watches can be great finds and are easy to miss. You will have a better chance of finding valuable watches if you learn exactly how your metal detector responds to them.  You don't want to pass over the Rolex watch when it is right under your coil.

If I had a specific target for a particular hunt, I would try to get something as similar as possible to test with before the hunt, so the sound or sounds were firmly in my memory.  If my target was a Rolex, I'd try to test my detector with a Rolex before the hunt.  Or if I didn't have a Rolex for the test, I'd try to get something as similar as possible.  If my target was an eight-reale, I try to test with an eight-reale before the hunt.  Of course, that wouldn't be necessary if you already were very familiar with the sounds of those targets.  And it wouldn't be practical if you didn't have specific targets for the hunt.

I've seen people hunt reales with settings that would not detect a half-reale.  Or hunt a small gold chain with way too much discrimination.  You can avoid those kinds of mistakes.

I've written numerous times on the issue of discrimination and identifying targets in all-metals mode so I won't get into all that again now.

I will reiterate a couple of important points.

1.  Some good targets, such as watches, are complex and can present a variety of signals, and can easily be missed or passed over.

2.  No target or ID meter will tell you that a signal is coming from a watch or any of a variety of other good targets.

3.  You can improve your results by taking the time to learn how your metal detector will respond to different targets.  Practice and experimentation will help.

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On a related subject...

 Many people talk about how deep their detector will detect a quarter.  That is one measure of a detector's sensitivity, but is it the most important measure?  It is useful to some extent but why test your metal detector on a quarter if what you really want to find is a gold coin, or a Rolex watch.  One of my biggest recommendations is spend time working with your detector and various settings on the types of targets you'd really want to find.  And your target might change on different hunts.  I recently told of a hunt in the WV hills.  That was much different than a beach hunt. My first pass, I was targeting coins.  I went back, the second time, targeting relics.  That is when I found the flat button.  Adjust not only to the conditions but also to your expected and desired targets.

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Surf Forecast for the Fort Pierce Inlet Area from SurfGuru.com.

Nothing much new in the surf forecast.  

There will be a slightly negative low tide around noon.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

• 
  

6/21/25 Report - More Metal Detecting Finds. Mariner's Cross. Dominic B&B Embossed Bottle and History.

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

Another Florida Metal Detector Find Photo..

As you probably know, I recently discovered a group of old metal detecting find photos. I think I've shown about twelve of the photos so far.  Here is another.  It is the smallest group but shows fairly high quality and mostly heavy items.  No big gem stones and also no silver or lower quality stuff is included.  

Anyhow, there is one item in this small group that I definitely remember finding.  It was not found at one of my primary go-to beaches but, rather, a third sting beach.  I stopped there because I had a left another beach had a little time when I was going by.  I had been there a few times before and knew the site a little.  I knew that it produced some, but not like my top tier beaches.  It was a matter of convenience. I was going by decided to get in a quick hunt.  

The finnd I'm talking about is the big class ring.  The reason I remember it so well I guess is because it is one of the heavier class rings I've found.  There was nothing remarkable about the hunt.  I do remember that the tide was pretty high and getting higher.  It is probably the second heaviest class ring that I've found.  

The photo is clear enough that I can tell which ring it is.  I can't perfectly identify some of them.  The photos just aren't clear enough.  For example, the big round ring in the top row I think is a coin ring, but I'm not sure which one because I just can't see it well enough.  I think the two at bottom left are signet rings.  

Oddly I don't remember where I found the Mariner's crucifix (below) or the heavy gold chain.

I have an idea about the big chain but am not sure for certain which it is.  

It seems I don't remember where a lot of good finds were made.  It is often something about the day, circumstances or recovery that makes a find really stick in my memory.

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Two Views of Benedictine B and B Bottle Find.

The above bottle is embossed  

MARQUE DEPOSEE

BENEDTICTINE 

B AND B

Marque deposee means trademark registered.

The bottle has a nice big kickup, which you can see through the glass.  No other marks on the bottom.

Experience changes your view.  It changes what you see and what you look at. An experienced eye simply sees things differently.

When I just got into picking up bottles, naturally I didn't know much about them.  I still don't know a lot, but I know more than I did then and I look at different things.

Almost anyone will recognize a screw top bottle as probably being not too old, but there were actually some older and very interesting screw top bottles.  Early screw tops were on Mason jars as early as the 1850s, for example.  And certain kinds of bottles, like wine bottles, still use corks for the enclosure.  And everybody knows about looking at the seams, which is a decent, but not perfect, indicator of age. I once paid more attention to those things than I do today after gaining a little additional experience with bottles.

Now I look more at the glass than even the embossing or other marks on the bottle. You can see a lot in the glass.  You can get a good idea of the age of a bottle just by looking at the glass and nothing else.  

Just because a bottle is hand blown doesn't mean it is old either.  There are modern blown bottles, but even they are generally more perfect than old blown bottles. 

I think glass, especially blown glass, is interesting as well as pretty.  The thickness varies.  You will see bubbles, waves, occasionally pontil marks or other marks of tooling and finishing.  You can see the touch and workmanship of the people who made the bottle in the glass.  I didn't see all of that when I began picking up bottles.  It only came from additional experience.

It is similar with coins and other objects.  The more you handle them and learn about them, the more your view of them changes.  You notice different things and look at different things.  The thing about glass is its transparency.  You can look into it and through it.

In the past I paid a lot of attention to the embossing on the face of a bottle and paid little attention to the bottom marks.  Now I find the bottom marks just as informative as the more prominent marks.  There are now some good resources to help you unlock the information in the bottom marks.

The bottle above is not a screw top and is embossed, but the glass screams 20th century or later.  You don't have to even look at the mold seams.  I haven't done enough research to give a more precise date, but I'd say it is after 1937 for sure, and likely around mid-century or later.  

Let me know if you have a better date range.

The bottle isn't old or interesting, but the brand has a long and interesting history.

Here is the link for a detailed history of Benedictine B&B, which goes back to the 1500s.

Bénédictine: History of French Herbal Liqueur & B&B

I posted this bottle in tgbottlebarn.blogspot.com yesterday.

I haven't posted many bottles in that blog recently, but I have a number that I am still researching and will post eventually.

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No big change in Treasure Coast beach conditions.  It is very hot.  Wouldn't be a bad time to be in the water

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/20/25 Report - Using AI to Prepare for a Metal Detecting Trip to a New Location: A Case Study.

 

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

Vancouver Beach Recently Detected by Mark G.

Today I'm going to tell about the experience of Mark G. as he researched Vancouver beaches before a business trip, then metal detecItted the beaches sand then sent in his find photos.  It presents a bit of a case study, beginning with the planning and ending with a presentation of results.

This time of year many Floridians take do a little travel and do some metal detecting in less familiar places.

As you will see, Mark used Copilot for some pre-visit research.  AI provides a nre tool for research and site selection.

First, here how Mark described the process he went through.  Here is how Mark described it.  First are Mark's words, and the red type is what Copilot's response.

I don’t know how you have been testing the AI models but I always start with a conversation first about what I Am doing and where before I actually ask the question so it has built up knowledge about me. When I asked about my upcoming trip to Vancouver and metal detecting my “Copilot” knew what I was asking. After getting some information Copilot offered to set up a plan based on tides and foot traffic for some of the most popular beaches in Vancouver BC for the weekend I will have to hunt. Here is what Copilot came up with:

You’ve got it, Mark—let’s build you a smart sweep plan to ride those tides and beat the crowds. Here's a beach-by-beach breakdown for June 14–15 that balances low-tide exposure, foot traffic, and the kind of student-friendly spots you’re targeting:

🏖️ Day 1: Saturday, June 14

🔹 Morning — Kitsilano Beach (6:30 AM – 8:30 AM)

• High tide around 6:40 AM, but it’ll be ebbing—just in time to scan the upper wet sand where party gear or jewelry might’ve been dropped the night before.
• Fewer early birds here, so you’ll get some quiet detecting in a high-traffic zone.

🔹 Midday — Jericho Beach (11:30 AM – 1:30 PM)

• Start scouting as the tide pulls back toward low. This beach sees less congestion, giving you space to check near picnic areas and walkways.

🔹 Afternoon — Spanish Banks (2:00 PM – 4:30 PM)

• Prime time. Lowest tide hits around 2:30 PM, revealing loads of terrain. Hunt near the tidal pools and edges of any old seaweed lines where heavier targets settle.

🔹 Evening — Optional: English Bay (7:30 PM – Sunset)

• High tide's creeping back in, but if you’re still going, the tourist and student crowd here means constant turnover—and good surface drop potential.

🏖️ Day 2: Sunday, June 15

🔹 Morning — Wreck Beach (7:00 AM – 9:00 AM)

• Great post-high-tide timing, and early hours keep the crowd minimal. Student-heavy and offbeat—could be a goldmine for personal items.
• Bonus: The steep descent filters out the casual crowd, so items stay relatively undisturbed.

🔹 Midday — Second Beach (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)

• Chill zone with grassy areas and sand mix. Less picked over than English Bay but still sees student hangouts and weekenders.

🔹 Afternoon — Back to Spanish Banks (2:30 PM – 4:30 PM)

• Another ultra-low tide, slightly higher than Saturday but still excellent. If you missed any zones yesterday, now’s the time to double back.

Let me know if you want to mark tide times or pin spots on a map. And if you score something wild—maybe a class ring or vintage tag—I’d love to help you ID it. This trip’s got all the right signals. 🪙🌊🔍 Ready to tune your coil and chase the tones? Let’s roll.

So, Copilot put together a fairly detailed plan and there is some decent information in there.  Remember, Mark started with additional discussion to let Copilot know more about him.  You can see how you might be able to get some useful information out of Copilot.

Of course you could query Copilot on other details.  You could ask where you might have a chance of finding old relics, or what areas were most prone to erosion, or where the most exclusive resorts were located, or about old historic landmarks that were located along the water, just to give a few examples.

Below is what Mark said when he got back followed by his find photos.

Just got back from Vancouver BC had a good trip and got some metal detecting in while I was there. Not in the specific order suggested by the AI plan but hit most of them. Found very similar finds as the US south Florida beaches; Bottle caps, pull tabs, tent stakes, trash, coins and some jewelry. Only good find other than about 10 Canadian dollars in change (cost more to park) was an 8 gram silver ring with the Aztec calendar on it. Canadian coins were hard to find with little to no signal or sounding like a bottle cap but I dug everything and did find them. I was able to hunt 5 beaches as pictured. It was hard digging as I could only pack my “National Geographic” plastic hand scoop in my carry on so I’m sure I left some stuff behind but very deep, detector traveled well never stopped at TSA. Kitsilano Beach was looking the most promising on Father’s Day morning but when I got there at 7:00 AM there were already fresh scoop drag marks, very distinctive marks. So I avoided the lines and searched around the parts of the beach that didn’t have marks and came up with the silver ring near the edge of the blanket line near the high tide line. Every beach has these logs that attract the beach goers so those are the first targets around the logs but not the only target rich areas.

You can see some of the logs in the photo above.

Below are Mark's find photos.

One of the things you might get out of this is encouragement and ideas on using Copilot for research.

Is that a U.S. dollar in the pull-tab.  I have a suspicion on how that might have been used.

Some foreign coins are aluminum, and others contain a lot of iron (the German pfennig, for example).  The different materials, of course, will result in different conductivity numbers or readings than you may be accustomed to.  That can mean a change in hunting settings or techniques.  

In St. Lucie, for example, I found the very light coins in areas where you would not often find U.S. coins.  The different composition and density of the coins affected where they were distributed and found as well as the way the metal detector responded to them.

It can take a while to become familiar with the idiosyncrasies of new beaches or detecting sites.  It puts you at a bit of a disadvantage.

I always enjoyed detecting new locations though.  You can start to get the lay of the land fairly quickly though.

Travel presents another difficulty besides transporting metal detecting equipment.  There can also be the problem of transporting finds.  For example, I found Revolutionary War era grape shot that I left behind because I didn't want to take a chance of being charged with carrying explosives on a plane.  I've left other things hidden at foreign locations, such as sharp digging tools, in case I return to the site and want to use them again.

By the way, the grape shot was still where I left it when I returned a year or two later.  That was a bit surprising to me.  

You might want to explore ways that you can use AI.  It can definitely help find information more quickly.  Like anything, you will learn to use AI more efficiently the more you use it.

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No new changes to the Treasure Coast surf or beach conditions to note today.

Thanks much to Mark G. for sharing his preparations and trip results.

I got yesterday's post published late.  You might have missed it.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/19/25 Report - Another Group of Metal Detector Finds. Spanish Colonial Sword Information Resource. Traits of Successful People.

 

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

In yesterday's post I talked about Spanish Colonial swords and sword finds.  I neglected to mention a good resource for more information about that.  I am referring to the book shown above, by Noel Wells, the Chief Conservator at the Mel Fisher Center in Sebastian.

The book, as you can see fror the title, is about the small arms of the Spanish Treasure Fleets.  The book includes chapters on knives and swords, as well as other arms.

The chapter on swords is 19 pages with many helpful illustrations.  If you are interested in the topic, the book should be considered.  You can probably find it at the Mel Fisher Center or inexpensively used online.

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Another Group of Florida Metal Detector Finds.

I think I've already posted ten or eleven of my recently rediscovered old find photos from back in the day. I've been going through the old photos and pointing out finds that really stuck out in my memory for some reason. Some of the most memorable finds are the best finds, but not always.  Sometimes a find is memorable for another reason - perhaps the circumstances or something about the day.   I remember a few finds in great detail.  It is like a vivid video was stored in my memory. That is a relatively small number though. I'd guess something like one in fifty or something like that.  I don't remember where or when most of the items were found - even some of the very nice ones.  As I've said before, I wish I kept better records.

This is a smaller group and there are none in this group that I recall where I was when I dug them.  Many are plain bands, but there are some better finds.  Some of the best finds I can't recognize in the pictures because the photos just aren't clear enough.  

There are some kinds of finds that I didn't include in my find photos.  I never included coins o4 watches and I seldom included silver jewelry.  I didn't include relics or bottles or fossils either.  The primary purpose of this group of photos was to keep track of periodic modern jewelry finds.

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One day a few weeks ago, I did a post on how to be lucky.  Below is a brief discussion of the traits of successful people. 

Have you ever wondered why some people are so successful while others always seem to struggle and never seem to get anywhere?  Of course, there are a lot of reasons but there are some traits that successful people generally show.

When I was in graduate school, I had some interest in psychopathology but unlike most of my fellow students, I was even more interested in creative problem solving and effective behavior.   

One common measure of success in this culture is wealth.  Many people will accept wealth as a measure of success, but there are other possible measures of success.  To spiritually minded people, wealth might not have anything to do with their estimate of success.  Nonetheless, the super wealthy do commonly exhibit certain traits.  

The Wealth Elite: A groundbreaking study of the psychology of the super rich, by Rainer Zitelmann, describes the common traits of the super wealthy.

The author says, My study also found that the rich are less agreeable and less neurotic, but more conscientious, more open to experience, and more extraverted. Beyond that, however, other key findings emerged in the interviews:

• The super-rich are overwhelmingly nonconformists who love to swim against the tide.
• They deal with defeats and setbacks differently than other people — they blame themselves, not others or society at large.
• There is no correlation between performance at school and university on the one hand and financial success on the other. ‘Implicit learning’ and ‘implicit knowledge’ — or more simply put, gut feeling and intuition — are more important than what psychologists call ‘explicit learning’ and ‘explicit knowledge’ (that is, academic learning).
• The pursuit of luxury (such as expensive cars and mansions) is a key driving force for some of the super-rich, but there are just as many for whom this motive is quite irrelevant. Above all, the super-rich are motivated by the pursuit of freedom and independence. They want to decide for themselves whether to work, what work to do, when to work, where to work, and with whom they work.

Here is the source link for more about that.

Personality Traits | Centi-Millionaire Report | Henley & Partners

I can see how those traits would contribute to success in metal detecting and treasure hunting.  For example, being a non-conformist can be very productive.  I often recommending doing different things and using different methods than the crowd.  Following the crowd can leave you behind the pack.  If you are detecting the most detected beaches or sites, you might do better to go out and do something different.  If you are doing the same thing the same way as everybody else, you are likely to have to share your finds with a lot of other people.  How many times have I said, "Go a little farther," or things like that?  It applies in many ways - far too many for me to get into all of them now.  If you follow the crowd, you might consider going against the crowd and doing something different - maybe very different.

I always remember the first time I hunted the WV path I recently talked about.  I was told there is nothing there, and on one of my first outings I found a 1920s or 1930s class ring. That find surprised me too, but if you are listening to the crowd, you will learn some things, but you might want to go a little farther and do something different.  There are often advantages to using a different kind of detector.  It might even be an unpopular detector, or even going to alternative techniques such as dredging, sifting, or something more uncommon than that.

Dealing with defeats and setbacks is important.  You all know that.  We always talk about the need for patience or perseverance.  Setbacks are learning experiences.  When you don't find something try to learn something from the experience.  Don't blame your detector, the conditions, other detectorists.  Learn how to overcome the challenges.

And the successful employed more "gut feeling" or "intuition."  I've talked a good bit recently about intuition, it is the result of self-confidence and shows a willingness to go against common thought and practice 

I highly recommend sampling and am a very empirical data driven person, but after observation and data collection there still must be synthesis and decision making, which is where a lot of the intuition comes in.

Here is another observation from the study.

Above all, the super-rich are motivated by the pursuit of freedom and independence. They want to decide for themselves whether to work, what work to do, when to work, where to work, and with whom they work.

Metal detecting is an excellent acetifying to express freedom and independence. Some look at metal detecting as a way to pursue independence and freedom. it offers the freedom to choose how, when, and how hard to work.

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Surf Forecast for the Fort Pierce Inlet Area from Surfguru.com.

No significant change in the surf or beach conditions.

No tropical activity in the Atlantic either.

There is a slight negative tide in the AM.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

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6/18/25 Report - Beautiful Old Sword Dredged from A River. Spanish Colonial Swords. Sword Finds from the Treasure Coast

 

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

In March of last year, during dredging work in the Korte Linschoten River in the Dutch province of Utrecht, a medieval sword dated between 1050 and 1150 was found in an exceptional state of preservation. It has now been donated to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden.

After thorough cleaning and analysis, experts confirmed that it was a complete sword one meter in length, with a hilt featuring a wide crossguard and a nut-shaped pommel—typical features of weapons manufactured between the 11th and 12th centuries. This was a time when the bishop of Utrecht held dominion over the area, a period also marked by the rise of the counts of Holland and Flanders.

What makes the sword particularly valuable are the intricate motifs engraved on its blade. On one side, a sonnenrad or “sun wheel” can be seen—a symbol consisting of a circle and a cross that, during the Middle Ages, was considered a sacred emblem used in the consecration of churches, especially in areas where Christianity was beginning to take hold...

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

An Exceptional Medieval Sword Found in Utrecht Bears an “Endless Knot” Engraved on Its Blade

Dredging has turned up a lot of nice finds.  Some cobs have come up with some of the dredged material on the Treasure Coast in past years.

Any detectorist would be pleased to find an old bladed weapon and several have been found on the Treasure Coast, as well as some sword parts from 1715 Fleet wrecks.

For example, here is a sword hilt recovered by the crew of the Capitana.  

The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 6/15/14 Report - Capitana Crew Strikes Again, More Finds - Sword Hilt & Silver Plate & Important Tip For Storing Finds

And here are a couple finds from Treasure Coast beach detectorists.

And here is the link for more about them

Treasure Beaches Report: Pt. 2. (2020 and Beyond). : 1/17/23 Re;port - Two Sword Handles (Quillons) From Treasure Coast Beaches. Innovative Experiments and Implementation of Metal Detecting Success Formula.

You'll find many posts on swords and parts in both the TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com and the tbr2020.blogspot.com.

Here are a couple great illustrations from a great site on the swords of Mexico and Spanish Colonial America

Check that site out.

Here is that link.

The Conquistador Swords that Conquered the Americas

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I checked the dimensions of the tombac button I posted a few days ago and they match almost perfectly the dimensions on the tombac button found at Mount Vernon.  The width is ever so slightly just above 15 mm.  I added that to the post I did about the button.

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Clip from This Morning's Sebastian Web Cam

No change in surf or beach conditions are expected for a week or more.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/17/25 Report - A New Mystery Object Find. Opportunity for Buying and Selling Coins and Relics. Mel Fisher Days in Sebastian.

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

Sprinkler Top and Bottle Neck.
Left: as dug.  Right: top removed.

I detected this sprinkler top on a broken bottle neck when I was on the old wooded trail.  I removed the top.  It was not a screw top. The bottle isn't very old either.  I would say early 20th century.  

I can't say what the product was but I'd guess maybe a cologne or perfume.  If you know what it would have been, let me know.

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From Sedwick Coins...

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From the Mel Fisher organization...

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Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net