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Find of the Month
It is
Tuesday, September
11th, and I have an Antique Bottle
Club meeting tonight and tomorrow I
promised to take my granddaughter to the Allegan County Fair. It is the
fair's 155 th year! I am at my store
and it has been a very quiet day. Some
teenage boy just drove up to give his
friend a ride home after dropping his
car off at the transmission shop. I
couldn't see them, but I could clearly
hear them talking. As they were
walking back to their car to leave, one
boy asked the other, "Hey, what do
they sell in there?"
The
second boy said, "Metal
detectors, do you want one? Then you
too can be a geek- nerd!"
They
just don't understand
us, do they? If that clown loses his
class ring at the beach, the first one he
will go crying to is one of us geek-nerds!
Well, here is the August,
Geek-Nerd
Progress Report!
JEWELRY FINDS
1. Antique
Rosary
By: Mike Walker
2. Scotty
Dog
Pin
By: Charles Turner
3.14-K Ring
with 44 Diamonds
By: John Wise
4. 14-K
White Gold
Ring
By: Rick Burch
5. 14-K
Gold
Ring
By: Deb Wittkowski
6. 10-K
Gold Gent's
Ring
By: John Federick
7. 14-K
Gold Ring with 7
Diamonds
By: Jim
Arnsman
8. Colonial
Pin
By: Tim Swenor
9. Antique
20-K Ring Yellow
Stone
By: Tom Becker
10. Lady's
Wrist
Watch
By: Ron Jenner
One of our deaf club
members pulled off the win and he
won by a landslide! That big quiet
teddy bear, John Wise was our winner
with a real sparkler! John's 14-K
yellow gold ring was teeming with a
cluster of 44 white diamonds. With a
value of well over a $1,000, John
thinks it is a keeper.
That's not my style! I'm a
find and release kind of guy! "Back to
where I found it," is what I always
say! Tee
hee!
COIN FINDS
1. 1892 "V"
Nickel
By: Mike Walker
2. 1795 Chien
Lung Coin (China)
By: Michelle
Rastoskey
3. 1874 Indian
Head
Cent
By: Jerry
Lipscomb
4. 3 Nickels Same
Hole
By:
Bill Westrate
5. 1888 Indian
Head
By: Jacob
Kudary
6. 1929 Mercury
Dime
By: Charles Turner
7. 1828 Large
Cent
By: Tom Herman
8. 1854 "O" Seated Liberty
Dime
By: Rick
Seymour
Tom Herman was
our winner with his beautiful 1828
Large Cent! Nice job, Tom!
Fob,
Badge, Token!
1. 1863
Ohio Civil War Store
Card
By: John Frederick
2. 1863
Civil War Patriotic
Token
By: Mike Walker
3. Age of
Dinosaur
Token
By: Ron Jenner
4. Honor
Student
Medal
By: John Wise
5. N.R.A.
Token
By: Billy Knapp
6. 2
Souvenir Rolled
Coins
By: John Dudley
7. 1916
Cooper Twp. Dog
Tag
By: Tom Herman
8. Captain
Braddock
Badge
By: Carlisle Flegal
9.1863
Civil War Store
Card
By: Bill Westrate
10. 1800's
Steam Ship
Token
By: Tom Becker
John
Frederick was our
winner with his Civil War store card
from Cleveland, Ohio. What a neat
store card it is! It was advertising a
man named C. G. Bruce and he was
an "Authorized War Claim Agent."
The token says that he deals in
"$100.00 Bounty Hunter Pensions,
Back Pay, Collected and Cashed"
Wow! This guy dealt with the likes of
the stagecoach robbers, and the
hunters of run-away slaves! What an
awesome token! How it ended up in
Plainwell, Michigan, is anyone's
guess! Nice find from your own yard,
John!
Our
interpreter, Kathleen, in
her desire to better communicate with
our deaf friends, asked me, "What are
Civil War Store Cards?" This is a
subject that many of our members
often ask about.
First of
all, let me say that
there are many varieties of tokens.
The ones that we most often see are in
the category that is known as "Good
For" tokens. These tokens are easy to
recognize because they will usually
say on one side something like "Good
For" 5¢, 10¢ or whatever amount on
for a cigar, drink, game, or any other
type of product or service. Store cards
are different but they are just another
type of token.
During
the Civil War, there
was a shortage of coins in the
northern states. Private minters sent
out salesmen to sell advertising on
penny- sized tokens that they would
promote as a way to supplement the
shortage of copper coins. This
shortage was claimed to be created
due to the military efforts. It is true
that very often during war, some
metals are needed to make military
hardware. During World War II, the
nickel coin changed to contain a high
silver content because the metal
'nickel' was needed for the
production of ammunition or shell
casings.
The
Civil War Store Card
salesmen had an 'easy-sell' because
what they were selling was considered
very patriotic to buy! If a merchant
wanted to sponsor 500, 1000, or
10,000 coins, he could have them
printed with an ad for his business.
We call this type "Store Cards"
because they usually promote a type
of store, shop or business. Non-
business groups also wanted to have a
part. The local Sunday School class
could raise funds to sponsor tokens
with patriotic messages like, "The
Union Must and Shall be Preserved,"
which was a quote from Andrew
Jackson.
All of
these tokens were
outlawed by the U.S. government in
late 1864, because they had no U.S.
Treasury backing. Today the term is
"funny money." These tokens range
in rarity based on desirability and
mintage. I have no idea how much
John's token is worth, but I sure like
it! You would think that, out of
application for all I do for the club, he
would put it in his will for me! Of all
the Civil War Store Cards I have seen,
this one is the tops in my book! But I
must add, it could be very common.
Maybe someone can do the research
and let us know by meeting day.
Lake Michigan Hunting
The
following is a letter that I
received by e-mail and my answer
contains information that I have
covered before in this newsletter. I
pray that the information will be
helpful to each of you water hunters.
"Hello
Al:
I was given your contact
info by Bob
in response to a request on the Find's
Metal Detecting Forum. I hunt the
surf around Bermuda with a Minelab
Excalibur 1000, and I was hoping to
get your advice on good areas to hunt
in Lake Michigan around Grand
Haven and Saugatuck. I will be there
next week 15th to 22nd and would
like to get a little hunting in while I'm
there.
Thanks for any and all
advice.
Eric"
Hi Eric;
You caught me on one of
those
really busy weeks where I am really
pushed for time. That is why this is
going to be short and to the point.
The most productive
beaches are always the busiest
beaches, and Grand Haven is one of
them. I must warn you that at the large
beach at Saugatuck, the Oval Beach,
there is a fee, and it is no place for a
family, because of uncontrolled open
and on-display homosexual activity! It
pains me to think we have sunken this
far in our society!
The busiest beach of all
on
this side of Lake Michigan is Warren
Dunes to the south. But you just never
know what you will find, or where
you will find it. There is very little
difference in water hunting here then
much anywhere else, but I can think
of two tips for you.
The Excalibur is one of
the best underwater detectors on the market today, but not the best
machine for the western side of Lake
Michigan because of all the buried
iron junk. During the 1800's, and up
to the mid 1900's, Lake Michigan was
a maritime traffic jam! You had
schooners, barges, and steam ships of
every description. All of this activity meant thousands of shipwrecks!
Even
if this wreckage was located near the
western shoreline, eventually anything
that could float would end up on
Michigan beaches!
To make a nasty task more
enjoyable, this wreckage was gathered
up by the locals in huge piles and
allowed to dry. Then, at a
pre-determined time, every available
body, young and old, would get
together for a huge bonfire and party!
Mingled with this wooden wreckage
were countless nails, bolts, iron
washers, metal roofing material and
other metal scrap. After the big fire,
the remaining cleanup was left to the
wind and shifting sands.
The problem that this
creates for
you is that you have to reject the iron
or you will go nuts! The Excalibur has
a very slow recovery speed. To
explain this, the way that all motion
discriminators reject junk is that they
read the target signature, then if it is
supposed to reject something, the
machine shuts itself down. After that
it automatically reboots or restarts
itself. You will know when this
happens because your 'threshold-hum' disappears for a time, then it
returns. Because your detector is
multi- frequency and was designed
around an older processor, the
recovery time is very slow. What I am
trying to say is that when your
threshold is gone, you are not
detecting, because your machine is
off!
If you scatter a few nails
around inside a 4 square-foot area,
and mix in a couple of coins and a
gold ring, chances are you will not be
able to get any good signal, no matter
how hard you try. This problem is
even more exaggerated with the
larger coil that you have. The best you
can do is work at a very slow pace
and pause when the threshold
disappears. If you are moving
along quickly when this happens,
slowly turn around and work back in
the direction of that piece of junk that
you rejected to see what you may
have missed. That is why, in many
areas of Lake Michigan, the Fisher
1280-X and CZ-20 work best. It is
because they have a lightning fast
recovery speed. They drop out for a
piece of junk, then they are back up
instantly.
Not all of the Lake
Michigan
shoreline is bad, but there are many
areas which really are! I know of
some areas where, if you are in iron
reject setting, the Excalibur is nearly
worthless or "off". Usually, the worst
areas are at the port cities like Grand
Haven, because of the increased
shipping activity. ( I have never
detected there, so I am not sure)
Also, Lake Michigan is
like an
underwater desert where the sand is
always moving around! Divers have
told me that in some areas they can
mark the location of a fully exposed
shipwreck and return a month later
and not be able to see it! That's
because of the ever moving and
shifting sand. For Lake Michigan, we
have a saying about water hunting,
"Work the troughs." On one day,
you can walk into the lake and, at
about 25 feet out from shore, you are
in chest deep water. Then, you may
walk up onto a sand bar where it is
only waist or knee deep. It is tempting
to detect that sand bar because it is
soft sand, easy to dig, and just plain
comfortable! The only problem is,
there is nothing there! The good stuff
is under the sand bar, down with the
rocks and that trash! On one day the
sand bar may be out at 25 feet and
one day later you will find it only 10
feet out. Sometimes the changes are
very slow and may take a month! But
at other times, it can change in less
than one hour!
It is when the sandbar is
close to shore when the real
trouble strikes! We have an
extremely dangerous condition at
times called an "undertow" or "rip
currents." That is where you have
currents under the water surface
that are moving in a different
direction than the surface water,
and these conditions really can
move the sand! In those
conditions, the sand under your
feet seems to disappear and the
best of swimmers have been
killed! They say if you are caught
off shore in this condition, the best
thing to do is to not swim toward
shore, but swim parallel to the
shore until you escape the rip
current. It is serious business on
our side of Lake Michigan!
If they have the undertow
signs up, it is best to detect on
shore! On July 4th, 2005, rip
currents killed 7 people at Warren
Dunes, all within the same hour!
Although the sand bar will
support your weight in the
'non-undertow' conditions, it will
not support a gold ring at all! We
tied a fine fishing line to a gold
ring and to the other end we tied
to a small piece of driftwood. We
tossed it in the shallow water and
checked on it after a couple of
hours. In that amount of time, the
ring had sunk a couple of feet! So
now you know why we say,
"Work the troughs."
RIP CURRENTS are
formed along the shore of Lake
Michigan when :
1. The winds cause waves to break
on the shallow underwater sandbar
near the beach.
2. The water is pushed over the
submerged sandbar, but cannot
easily return lakeward. Excess
water is held on the beach slightly
above the normal lake level by the
addition of water from the
on-coming waves.
3. Eventually, the excess water
starts to flow back into the lake
through low areas in the sandbar.
4. Water rushing back into the
lake "rips" an opening in the
sandbar, much like pulling the
plug in a bathtub. Lake Michigan
swimmers and beach users often
describe a mysterious force that
"sucks" or "tows" swimmers under
the water. This force is sometimes
called an "undertow."
The force that most
waders feel pulling at their legs in
shallow water is the "BACK
WASH" from a wave that has
washed up on the beach. This
force can cause a person to lose
his balance and even fall down in
the surf. Small children are
particularly at risk from this force.
Swimmers and waders near an
opening in the sand bar may
become caught in the strong flow
of the ' RIP CURRENT' and be
carried beyond the sandbar into
deep water.
If you are caught in a RIP
CURRENT, do not panic. The RIP
CURRENT will not pull you
under. Try to float on your back,
call or wave for assistance or
swim parallel to shore with the
LONG SHORE current
until you are out of the RIP
CURRENT and then swim
directly towards the shore.
Most often a RIP CURRENT can
be identified by a mushroom-
shaped plume of dirty water
extending from near-shore
outward beyond the waves. If you
cannot swim an overhand stroke
for 15 minutes, you should not be
swimming in the lake if there are
waves breaking. Take swimming
lessons.
There
you have it--
newsletter number 153. It is really
getting harder and harder for me to
do these each month. It is not that
I don't enjoy writing, because I
really do, it is that I don't usually
have the time anymore. I hope you
will forgive me, but in the future
some of the newsletters will be
just a bare bones meeting
reminder.
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