12/26/25 Report - Ancient Gold Coin Cache Found. Silver and Gold Prices Now and Future. Promise and Limitations of AI Tools.

 

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

A thousand-year-old piggy bank has been discovered in Jerusalem. 

A small jug discovered in the Israeli capital's Jewish Quarter last month turns out to contain four gold coins — the equivalent of four month's salary for a common laborer at the time the coins were tucked away more than 1,000 years ago. 

Archaeologists discovered the hidden loot while surveying a site prior to the construction of an elevator to the Western Wall Plaza, a historic public square in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) inspector Yevgenia Kapil found the juglet, a clay vessel not much bigger than a coffee cup.,,

The coins were exciting not simply because they were gold, but also because they made it easy to determine the age of the treasure cache. They all dated to between the years 940 and 970, according to the IAA...

Here is the link for more about that.

Ancient gold stash found in jug | Watch

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Gold and silver and other metals have been hitting record high prices.

... Markets have been jittery. A Russian general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday in what is a suspected, but unconfirmed, attack by Ukraine. Separately, the U.S. launched rockets at 70 different Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday.

Futures contracts for gold traded in New York were 1.87% higher, at $4,469.40 a troy ounce, a new record high according to Dow Jones Market Data and surpassing October’s peak of $4,336. It’s been a strong year for gold, up 69% since January, with some could reach$4,900 in 2026....

Here is that link.

Gold and silver prices surge to record highs on Venezuela, Russia tensions. How they can soar in 2026

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... Silver's price will likely continue to see increases in 2026, Joshua D. Glawson, content manager for Money Metals Exchange, says, especially as the demand for other investment vehicles like precious metals exchange-traded funds and bonds increases.

"ETFs are creating more 'demand' than there is actual physical metal above ground. And some countries' governments are now promoting these silver ETFs, which are driving up the price of silver futures and silver spot price," Glawson says. "My prediction, although I cannot tell the future, is that the price of silver is going to continue to rise in 2026."...

Here is the link for more about that.

What is the silver price forecast for 2026?

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AI has become an important research tool.  I've posted several ways that it has been used by detectorists including gathering information about possible detecting sites to identifying finds.  You might remember the post in which Mark G. reported on his use of AI to give him information on a location before his visit.  If you didn't read that, you should Treasure Beaches Report: Pt. 2. (2020 and Beyond). : 6/20/25 Report - Using AI to Prepare for a Metal Detecting Trip to a New Location: A Case Study.) 

It is important to understand both the capabilities offered by AI, but also the limitations.  Here are an excerpt from a good article on why AI couldn't solve a historical research problem.

... I made an important discovery that was published last year: The baptistery was built not by Florentines but for Florentines — specifically, as part of a collaborative effort led by Pope Gregory VII after his election in 1073. My revelation happened just before the explosion of artificial intelligence into public consciousness, and recently I began to wonder: Could a large language model like ChatGPT, with its vast libraries of knowledge, crack the mystery faster than I did?

So as part of a personal experiment, I tried running three A.I. chatbots — ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini — through different aspects of my investigation. I wanted to see if they could spot the same clues I had found, appreciate their importance and reach the same conclusions I eventually did. But the chatbots failed. Though they were able to parse dense texts for information relevant to the baptistery’s origins, they ultimately couldn’t piece together a wholly new idea. They lacked essential qualities for making discoveries.

There are a few reasons for this. Large language models have read more text than any human could ever hope to. But when A.I. reads text, it’s merely picking up patterns. Peculiar details, outlier data and unusual perspectives that can influence thinking can get lost. Without eccentric or contrarian ideas, I never would have made my discoveries. For example, in his 2006 book “Toscana Romanica,” Guido Tigler, a professor at the University of Florence, argued the baptistery was built later than generally believed. It’s an idea that’s not widely accepted, and I believe that’s the reason the chatbots never presented it to me when I asked them what they would read to solve the enigma of the baptistery. Although I ultimately found reason to reject the later dating, Mr. Tigler’s unorthodox ideas taught me to more strongly consider the possibility that past scholarship had gotten the timeline for the baptistery wrong...

AI is a great tool, but don't forget it has limitations.  The above article provides important perspective.

Here is the link for more about that.

Opinion | What Happened When I Asked ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian Mystery - The New York Times

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Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

As you can see, the surf will be decreasing.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/25/25 The Timeless Treasures of Christmas.

 Under the Tree.

I talked before about how aging can add depth and richness to the soul.  It's true!  I'll show you how that is true for me.

First of all, I love the middle of the night when most of the world is asleep, and it seems so quiet you can hear the stars twinkle.  

Late last night on Christmas Eve, I awoke in the middle of the night, as I often do, and gazed at the scene under my Christmas tree. Above you see part of that scene as it appeared this year.  It is an odd or incongruent scene composed of items not carefully laid out or situated.  

The items are not expensive.  In fact, some are downright cheap.  Most show the wear of the years.  Some are broken or incomplete.  They come from different years and different eras and even different homes.   

The items in the scene aren't as magnificent as the items I imagine under the trees of Elon Musk or any of a million other rich and famous people, but in a way these pieces are much better.  Each item under the tree has a richness of depth of feeling that only accumulates through the years.  It is deep, like looking into the starlit sky at night and into the black darkness in between the bright spots that you know must also hold distant stars yet unseen.

Looking at my little scene under the tree, I see my mom, and dad and grandma and grandpa.  They, like some of the items, according to the vision of the eye, are now missing from my personal Christmas scene - but they are still there. I see what is there in the present, but in my heart, I see much more.  I see the accumulated depth and richness of the years.

I see the ornaments my grandma made.  I see how proud she was of her crafts.  I think she intended all along for those items to be around well beyond her years.  And they are.

She always tried to make the Holidays special.  And she did.  They are not forgotten.

She was not alone.  In my scene, I see my dad working hard each day, getting up and going out to work before I awoke.  He got to work early, got his tools ready, and climbed electric poles in rain and sleet and hail.  His hands were thick and hardened.  He was tough.  He did it for a purpose - one that made my life much easier for me and provided many of the extras, as little or large as they might have been. 

Under the tree, I see much more than is really there.  I see the Lionel trains dad purchased and the toys that filled the front room of the house he built with his own hands.  And I see myself through the years excitedly emerging from my bedroom to see what awaited me under the tree each Christmas morning.

In my little scene, I see the cheap little cardboard houses covered with glitter that were made in Japan and sparkled under my tree.  Some of my wife's little houses and figures are there too.  Our scenes became combined.  I can see her excitement as a child too.  I've seen some of her pictures as well as the items she brought from her childhood.  But I can also see it in her very being.  Maybe she had fewer toys under her tree, but I'm sure it was no less special as the kitchen buzzed with her grandma and mother as they made potica (pronounced, po-TEE-tsa), a traditional Slovenian food that my wife was taught to make by her mother.  My wife came from the same optimistic post-World War II world although she grew up in somewhat different circumstances.  Now are two worlds have become one.

But as I sit late at night in the room lit only by my Christmas tree and gaze at the scene under my tree, I can see through the years.  I see the skater and skier frozen in position exactly as they always posed around Christmas time on grandma's buffet, which was a piece of furniture beside the dining table where we always had our Christmas eve meal.  Grandpa sits at the end of the table, my sister and I next to the windowed wall, dad at the other end and grandma next to the kitchen door through which she disappeared and appeared several times through the progress of each meal.

The metal skater with one leg raised and extended was always on a mirror that looked like and frozen icy pond, and the crouched metal skier skied on a layer of cotton cloth.

I could go on to describe the history of each piece under my tree, including the missing pieces as well as those that are present under the tree this year, but I won't.  To do so would be to describe what made me and who I am.

Just the other day I saw the metal sledder somewhere.  He's still around here, and of course, he is still wearing his blue jacket, but I didn't see his yellow sled.  His mitten covered hands are still grasping the yellow sled that isn't there, but I can still clearly see the sled.  Another scene appears.  I was riding my own sled down a snow-covered hill behind grandma's house when the sled hit a small stump buried in the snow.  My sled came to a sudden halt while I continued to slide across the encrusted snow in the same position but without my sled.  I always thought that was funny.  

When I gaze at the scene of miscellaneous surviving pieces under the star-like twinkling lights, the magic happens.   Some important pieces are missing - most importantly many of the people that made my life are no longer here.  That part brings a tear to my eye.  But when I look again at the little scene under the tree, it all comes back.  I can see the years of life all combined into one deep rich scene. 

The years aren't gone.  They are still there.  I can see them.  Grandma is still orchestrating the holidays.  Mom is helping.  Dad watches after making so much of it happen, and grandpa is smoking his pipe.  And sitting here in the midst of all that on Christmas Eve, I smile.  Thank you, God.  It was a wonderful life.  It was a wonderful life, but It still IS.*

Merry Christmas to All.

And Wishing You the Many Timeless Treasures of Christmas.

12/24/25 - Merry Christmas to All from the Treasure Guide.

Christmas Greetings from the TreasureGuide.

12/23/25 Report - Condition of Some Treasure Coast Beaches. Surprising Find. Reader Review of Minelab Manticore Metal Detector.

 

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

John Brooks Beach Around Noon Tuesday.

I checked out a few beaches on South Hutchinson Island Today.  The first was John Brooks, which you see above.  There were two other detectorists there.  The beach had very small rounded cuts in places.  Overall, it was sorta mushy.  Not exciting at all.

I also took a look at Walton Rocks.  As you can see below, there were no cuts visible from the main beach access.  I didn't walk up around the bend.

Walton Rocks Beach Early Tuesday Afternoon.

I also stopped across from Archies.  At the top of that beach, there was a layer of sand over top of seaweed and other junk.  My timing wasn't good.  

I thought I took some photos there, but didn't have any when I got home, so maybe I didn't.  You can see it on the Fort Pierce Jetty beach cam though.

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Below is a find I didn't pay any attention to at all but when I was at the microscope took a closer look and found a Taffany Co. maker's mark.  It is a 14 inch necklace with littel hearts and a clear stone in the center of the big one.

Tiffany Necklace Find.

Tiffany Co. Label on Necklace.

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Below are Mark G's impressions of his Manticore metal detector after his first four outings with it.  

First of all let me say I love my legend 2 full years with it, plenty to show, I will still use it for specific applications. Bought myself a new Minilabs Manticore for Christmas had it out 4 times already. First thing I noticed is the power it puts out I have to keep the scoop a good distance away always, almost twice the distance than the Legend. Second, with the power comes the depth, I’m finding targets at 3 to 4 scopes deep, I would give up after the second scope depth with the legend. I think that’s the only down side to the Manticore; more targets and deeper holes. I thought the target trace was going to be hard to figure out but I had the number and the conductivity sliding scale on the legend, the Manticore just plots it for you on the little screen. I still have to read the manual a few more times on target trace but had a good time with it tonight at the JB Dunes Café sight. This target trace works very well in the junky sites I was picking up multiple targets in short sweeps trying to find the higher conductivity targets, 9 out of 10 holes I got a coin in areas I had cleaned out with the Legend.

Thanks for your observations Mark. I agree. I have only a few times out with the Manticore but found it easy to use and effective.  I haven't explored all the adjustments yet.  Basically, I've just been selecting the beach mode and going but am still impressed with the finds and performance.  I also find the target ID features very easy and effective.

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Good hunting to all,

Merry Christmas,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/22/25 Report - Tons of Church Bells Lost and Some Found. Old Food Container Bottle Finds and Purpling. Brisk Wind and Higer Surf.

 

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

Old Food Bottles (3 Purpled)

These are old food container bottles found along the Treasure Coast..  This type of bottle seems to be more likely than others to turn purple.  That is said to be caused by manganese dioxide used in the glass before 1914, although that is not a perfect cut-off date and some bottles, including more recent example, were artificially purpled.

In my finds, it seems the most sun-purpled bottles are food container bottles.  Maybe pickle bottles.  I always wondered if the contents might have some effect on purpling, but I've seen no evidence of that in the literature.  

I do have a couple pharmacy bottles that are nicely purpled, but other than that very little purpling among my finds.

The bottle on the right is the only one marked with a patent date - Aug. 20, 1901.  Of course, the patent date isn't the date of manufacture, which you'd expect to be somewhat later.

None of these are blown bottles.  The unpurpled bottle has the seams that would suggest an older age than the others.  The general impression would be that older bottles are more likely to be more purpled, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

It seems you can't tell much about age from sun-purpling other than the general date of 1914 being generally accepted as general dividing line.

Below is another food container bottle, but that one has a maker's mark (J. K. & S), which dates it to around 1857 - 1900, older than the above bottles, and obviously a different type of glass (light green) that did not purple

The J K & S bottle, which features a rare marker's mark, was previously posted in the tgbottlebarn.blogspot.com site.  I just posted this material about other four bottles on the bottle site.

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Here is an interesting story.

For centuries, the joyful pealing of church bells was the heartbeat of European life. The bells marked holidays, called parishioners to worship, and rang at times of celebration. But during World War II, a chilling silence fell across the continent when Hitler’s troops began confiscating the bells to melt them down for armaments. During the war, Germany stole some 175,000 church bells. Still others were removed and hidden to prevent them from being looted. Following the war, extensive efforts were made to reunite surviving bells with their original homes. That effort continues to this day, with buried bells uncovered as recently as 2021.

Starting as early as 1939 and escalating dramatically, Nazi troops began systematically confiscating church bells... Nazis divided the looted bells into four groups – categories A through D. Category A bells were the newest and the first to face the furnace.  Category D bells, which were as old as 200 years, carried the most historical value.

The bells were made of bronze and once smelted, were incorporated into the German armament industry...

Decades after the war, communities whose beloved church bells were hidden from the Nazis are still finding buried treasure. In 1994, a 450-pound bell was found buried in Emmaste, Estonia. In 2021, researchers near Krosno, Poland, uncovered a bell that had been buried for 80 years...

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

The Lost Church Bells of World War II - Fold3 HQ

If you study World War II history you will discover the worst of humanity along with a seemingly endless number of feats attesting to the best of mankind.

Check out fold3.com for a very extensive collectoin of U. S. military history.

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Fort Pierce South Beach Zoom View from the Surfguru.com Beach Cam.

The above clip was captured right around high tide.  The water at high tide was right up to the foot of the dune.

The tides are not real high but we are getting a gook brisk east wind.

You might want to check some of the beaches today.

Surf Chart From Surfguru.com.

As you can see, the surf is supposed to build through the night, reaching a peak and then decreasing tomorrow.

Good huntng,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/21/25 Report - Rare Lead Seal Found. 2026 Semiquincentennial Coin Designs Revealed. Treasure TV Show.

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

Discovering a symbol of Jewish faith within an excavation of Jerusalem typically wouldn’t prompt much surprise, but archaeologists recently made an exceedingly rare find during an excavation of the Temple Mount in the form of a lead pendant decorated with a menorah. The 1,300-year-old pendant, only the second like it ever found in the world, is dated to the Late Byzantine period, from the sixth to the early seventh century C.E., found left in Jerusalem in a time Jews were prohibited from the site.

The piece was located during archaeological excavation in the Davidson Archaeological Park of Jerusalem under 26 feet of fill that piled up as part of construction activities during the creation of an Islamic monument at the beginning of the eighth century....

The disc-shaped pendant features a loop at the top, likely so it could be worn as a necklace. The identical menorah—each one has three arms on either side of the central shaft, a horizontal crossbar at the top of each arm, and flames—fits inside a circular frame. The researchers said that one side was well-preserved, while the other had a high level of patina. Analytical laboratory testing confirmed the pendent is 99 percent lead....

During the Byzantine period, Jews were prohibited form entering Jerusalem, leading to questions about how the pendant could have made its way to the temple area. The experts surmise the pendant could have come from a secret pilgrim entering the city under unofficial circumstances, or from a Jew visiting on an administrative mission or as a merchant....

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

Archaeologists found a rare pendant beneath a temple. It shouldn’t have been there.

Things are occasionally found in unexpected places, which leaves you with a bit of a mystery to be solved.

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On Thursday, Dec. 11, the United States Mint unveiled imagery showcasing the one-year-only designs of its semiquincentennial circulating coins for 2026. As part of the year-long celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary, the Mint is producing an updated cent and nickel and completely new versions of the dime, half dollar, and five quarters recognizing the Mayflower Compact, the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address — three of them replacing earlier proposed themes.

 

The one cent coin will not be for circulation. It will be available for collectors.

Here is the link for the rest of the article and images of the other semiquincetennial coins.

First Look at 1776 ~ 2026 Semiquincentennial Coin Images

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Oi Vey!  I know that isn't the standard English spelling, but its close and expresses my feeling when I catch a segment of the long-running "reality" treasure show on the same channel as Ancient Aliens (another TV show that evokes similar sentiments).  Could it be that drunken ancient shipwrecked aliens that look like the one-eyed lead cross created the tunnels?

What I love most about the treasure program is the humor.  Every find is followed by something like WOW!  It's a --- .  Sure it is.  

Besides the humorous conclusions, the program astoundingly avoids any acknowledgement of actual local history.  For example, they for some reason, they never mention the indigenous peoples that inhabited the area or the Acadians or the rich gold mining history of Nova Scotia despite the actual archaeological dig that is being conducted on the island.  The avoidance seems too blatant to be accidental.  Perhaps it would provide a distraction from the central narrative of the program.

And you have to have a short memory.  Whatever happened to the ship's spike and planking from the treasure ship conjectured to be buried in the swamp?  Could it be... (to repeat once again that famous and oft repeated phrase) that it wasn't a ship's spike at all, but maybe something like a railroad spike?  There was a lot of talk about that spike at one point in the program, but has faded aways, like many other now forgotten BIG finds.

Or, remember the "gold" object in the water-filled void?   What happened with that? 

Or Josephine's jewels that looked more like a plated piece of junk jewelry.

But the program does teach you to mark your finds with flags so when you happen to run aimlessly across the same spot with your metal detector you can recognize that you've been there before.  

I figured they'd want to be somewhat systematic about their searches, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  I'd think that after all these years the entire searchable area could have been systematically and thoroughly detected.  There seems to be no search pattern for the metal detecting other than wondering around aimlessly.  I can't tell though, because I'm sure there is a lot of editing.  It don't think the search strategy can be as bad as it looks.  I would have thought that GPS would have been used, but it doesn't look that way when a flag marking a previous find is the sign that tells you that you've been there before.  But that could be an artifact of program production so select finds can be dug and pinpointed for the camera.

At least there is the humor to make viewing the program more tolerable when trying to outwait a commercial interruption on a program of more interest.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

A six foot surf can be of some help if everything else is right, although I doubt it will help beach conditions much.  The tides aren't huge.

Christmas is getting close.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

12/19/25 Report - Narrowing Down the Date of A Cob When the Date Is Not Shown. Shield Devices. How Stray Finds are Made.

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

Recently Found One-Reale Showing Partial Shield.

Yesterday I showed both sides of this one-reale that was found while metal detecting a Treasure Coast beach.  I thought it might date to 1702 -1710.  I did not find the date on the coin but approximated the date from what I could see of the shield. 

Before 1702, I'd expect to see the Hapsburg shield.  After that I'd expect to see the Bourbon shield.  Below are each of those.

Illustrations from Menzel's Cobs Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins Book.

The shield seems to be well centered on the coin, but you can see much other than the middle portion of the shield.

If you check the picture of the coin, in the middle you'll see something like the Feur de Lys design shown on the Bourgon shield. It is not crisp and blurry on the coin, but it is matches the Fleur de Lys much better than the the device in the middle of the Happsburg shield.

On the coin you can also see the three vertical bars above and to the right side of the center shield and above and to the left you can see the partially occluded castle and the lion above that. And to the left, you can see the three horizontal bars.

The matching parts of the shield and some other contextual factors lead me to believe the reale dates in the range from 1702 to 1710.

If you can correct me on any of that, please do.

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Here is a nice link to the evolving coat of arms of Spain.

History of the coat of arms of Spain

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There was an interesting article in Past Times and Present Tensions, which is a blog that discusses archaeological and various other issues. The blog once had a post on the ways "stray" coin finds are made. Stray coin finds are finds that might be called "isolated finds." They are not made as a part of a systematic archaeological excavation or salvage operation. They are often made accidently.

If you've been reading this blog, you probably have a good idea about how many such finds are made. I often report on such finds.

The post in the blog reported on an article from a book entitled Iron Age Coinage in South-East England: The Archaeological Context, by Colin Haselgrove, Oxford, 1987, p. 104. The article provided data on 286 "stray" British Celtic coins finds.

Here is the list with the percentages for each of several types of finds.

• Large scale earth-moving, including extractive industries and railway cuttings 4%
• Building and construction works 14%
• Cultivation and ploughing 16%
• Digging and allotments, such as drainage trenches and pits 13%
• Home gardening 10%
• Coastal or riverine erosion 20%
• Erosion or other disturbance to the grounds surface 13%
• Archaeological prospecting (field-walking) and metal detecting 10%

The numbers are several years old now, being from far back as 1987, and they are limited to Celtic coins found during a single year. Those are serious limitations that make it difficult to generalize to today, but it is interesting nonetheless, and probably still somewhat useful.

You'll notice that archaeological prospecting with metal detectors is included. Those are considered to be stray finds, unlike those found during a systematic archaeological dig. That accounted for 10% of the finds, but might be much higher in recent years as metal detector use of archaeology has increased. 

Erosion accounted for 33% of the stray finds.

Construction, large scale earth moving and digging drainage etc. make up 31% of the stray finds.

Farming and gardening accounted for 26%.

Those categories point to opportunities.  On the beach we pay a lot of attention to erosion, but I always check out any erosion I notice.  Rivers, creeks or any kind of erosion can be worth checking. 

People routinely check freshly plowed fields for arrow heads or other kinds of finds.

\

Construction projects are also good.

According to these numbers, home gardeners are every bit as likely to be involved in making such finds as prospecting archaeologists.  It isn't easy to villainize a petunia-planting granny as a looter.

As I said, there are serious limitations to this data. Nonetheless, it is eye-opening. I don't know of any other similar data. Maybe there is more somewhere.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

One little bump coming up.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net