Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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You probably don't recall this picture. I posted it years ago.
When my wife and I were going through a box of old clothing we discovered this.
There was a penny that apparently created a hole in the pocket of the 100% cotton shorts. You can see that in the insert at the bottom right corner of the picture.
Here is what I posted after finding it back in 2019.
Could this be the actual origin of the old idiom?
My wife was going through some old clothes that had been in a storage box in the garage when she discovered this surprising sight.
It looks like money can actually burn a hole in your pocket! I've heard that expression many times but never imagined it could be literally true.
I dig up a lot of corroded coins that have been exposed to salt water. I think this penny was corroded to some extent before being placed into the pocket, and I suspect the mineral acids interacted with the fibers. Florida's hot humid environment might have increased the reaction.
This is NOT a corroded coin that was simply falling out of a hole in the pocket.. When I first touched the coin, it was firmly attached to the fibers. You can see in the photo that the cotton immediately around the hole is discolored as well.
I pulled the coin out just a touch, at first, so I could see what it was, but the photo looks very much like what I saw when my wife first held up the pants to show me what she found.
The next photo shows what was holding the coin to the inside of the pocket..
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| Fibers From Pants Pocket Embedded In Corrosion on Penny. |
You can see how the cotton fibers were embedded in the corrosion from the chemical reaction, so even if the coin was corroded before being placed in the pocket, it evidently continued to corrode while in the pocket.
And below is a closer view of the two holes - the larger hole in the outer layer of the pocket, and a smaller hole in the inside layer of the pocket.
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| Hole in Pocket As Observed After the Penny Was Removed. |
You can also see some corrosion still attached to the inside layer of the pocket. That is where the fibers were attached to the coin.
It looks like the chemical reaction affected the blue dye as well as dissolving the cotton fibers.
When I first saw what was happening, I thought the pants were probably made of synthetic fibers, but the label says it is 100% cotton.
Perhaps a chemist could better explain the chemical reaction.
It does seem to be true that money can burn a hole in your pocket.
I noticed that people were recently looking at that old post, which is what reminded me of it. But now, with AI, it was really easy to get the answer I was looking for.
I queried copilot, and below is part of what I got.
A corroding penny produces acidic copper salts (especially cupric chloride and cupric acetate) when exposed to moisture, oxygen, and chloride sources. These copper salts are highly reactive and will attack cellulose, the main structural polymer in cotton. Over time, they break cellulose chains apart, weakening the fibers until a hole forms.
I know the process of how money can burn a hole in your pocket. Whether that is the origin of the idom, I don't know.
I supposed I could have learned the chemistry of the process years ago, but AI made it really quick and easy.
I guess this is example of how an item that has become a focal point of interest, you continue to learn from it for years. It works the same way with finds. When you keep them, they occasionally reveal more of their story.
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A 400-year-old shipwreck was found during a pipeline survey in Germany's Bay of Greifswald.More than 60 artefacts, related to the ship’s inventory and personal belongings have been recovered from the site. These include items initially collected by clearance divers during the investigation of target anomalies and redeposited to the wet store, as well as the finds encountered during the subsequent archaeological campaign.
Among the largest items of ship’s inventory recovered from site were two stock anchors...
Here are links for more about that.
400-year-old shipwreck found during pipeline survey in Germany's Bay of Greifswald
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Soldiers searching for old landmines found Korea’s oldest known gunpowder weapon.
In November 2023, troops sweeping a suspected minefield on Mount Geumseong in southwestern South Korea uncovered a small bronze object barely four inches beneath the soil. Fortunately, it was not a landmine, but a gun—one that may have been buried there for 600 years or more.
After nearly three years of analysis, researchers with the Naju National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage have identified the object as a Hwangja Hwatong, an early handheld gunpowder weapon. At 23.75 centimeters long and just over one kilogram, it could have been carried by a single soldier and used to fire gunpowder-propelled arrows or pellets.
More remarkable still, the weapon carries 28 engraved characters. Twenty-seven appear in six columns on the handle socket, recording its name, weight, manufacturing supervisor, craftsman, and an incomplete date. A separate character on the muzzle, 八, meaning “eight,” may have served as an inventory or production number.
Here is the link for more about that.
Soldiers Searching for Old Landmines Found Korea’s Oldest Known Gunpowder Weapon
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| South of Fort Pierce Inlet Saturday Morning. From Surfguru.com. |
Note the remains of a little cut produced by a combination of high tides and wind off of rainstorms.
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| Surf Chart from Surfguru.com. |
Looks like another little bump up in the surf is exected for later next week.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.netrrn as it always was. It is all still there. It is the same place