I thought I would include an appendix with some information on surface hunting in order to impart some general \u201ctreasure awareness\u201d to my readers.\u00a0 Surface hunting is not (for most of us) about finding arrowheads although that may be what comes to hand.\u00a0 Surface hunting is a mindset\u2014or rather an open mindedness<\/em> to the possibility of finding treasure by eye.\u00a0 As a beach hunter, about half of the gold I find comes from just being in the right place and remembering to look as I detect.\u00a0 It’s worth noting that most of these finds are ones I just barely saw as I stepped forwards to begin another coil sweep.\u00a0\u00a0 Point being that the more open you are to eye finds the more of them you will make.\u00a0 As well, part of being versatile is having other ways to recover treasure than with a detector.<\/p>\n What can you find by eye?<\/u><\/p>\n You can find: valuable bottles, old tools, caches of liquor, or redeemable empties, native artifacts, clay pipes, coins, paper money, jewellery, valuable artifacts, designer sunglasses, scrap copper, brass aluminum and lead, electronics that have scrap value\u2014the list is endless.\u00a0 Anyone who had watched an episode of one of those \u201cStorage Wars\u201d type shows knows that a big part of defining what treasure is involves recognizing the sale-ability of something\u2014having the contacts to move it.\u00a0\u00a0 A pal of mine posters neighborhoods asking for any scrap lead batteries, then drives around the following week to collect them.\u00a0 He then scraps out the lot for usually about $500.<\/p>\n Another pal of mine did a lot of eye searches of old areas.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0One of his best finds was a large ball of soft drink labels bearing the name of a local company: \u201cWilson\u201d (c. 1930). John (see below) found this ball of labels and quickly recognized that there were about 25 complete sets of all the half-dozen or so varieties of pop that the Wilson company made: Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Root Beer and so on.\u00a0 John soaked this ball for months to separate these labels and pasted each set into frames.\u00a0 These very rare sets sold for $900 to $1200 each\u2014quite a haul.<\/p>\n Point is that treasure is in the eye of the beholder.<\/p>\n What equipment do you need to surface hunt?<\/u><\/p>\n The most basic tools are a pack-sack to carry what you find and a stick\u2014to literally \u201cpoke around\u201d with.\u00a0 Each year the large beach near my house hosts several fireworks displays the attract huge crowds.\u00a0 Because people don’t really sit and formally \u201cbeach-go\u201d–there isn’t much in the way of coins to be detected.\u00a0 However, several of us walk around with packs and sticks just examining what’s on the ground.\u00a0 Some great finds have been made this way including big gold bracelets, designer sunglasses, paper money\u2014all kinds of things\u2014just with a stick. Edge Sifting \/ Boarding Kit<\/p><\/div>\n Other equipment can include: a shovel, light plastic buckets (to carry dirt), polarized sunglasses (to see under water), flashlight, rubber boots, bad weather gear, shoulder length gloves, a hand sifter, a full sized \u201crack\u201d sifter, a heavy duty garbage bag for beer cans…<\/p>\n These are all handy tools to have and once you get the surface hunting \u201cbug\u201d they will be made good use of.<\/p>\n Where can I find surface treasure?<\/u><\/p>\n When I first started detecting I was sure that this was the best way to find valuable items.\u00a0 As I began going to the appropriate places <\/em>it became clear that detecting was only one of many ways to find treasure.\u00a0 Years ago I met what I can only call a surface hunting \u201cmentor\u201d–an older fellow named \u201cJohn,\u201d\u00a0 This guy was (as I recommend you become) an \u201call arounder.\u201d\u00a0 He dug bottles, eyeballed historic finds in the underbrush and sifted at a local shoreline incinerate dump by finding where\u00a0 the heaviest objects were being channeled, (placing a sifting rack on stones in the water and shoveling material onto it).\u00a0 He had found two gold coins and a ton of silver this way.\u00a0 The point is that he was able to go to locations that others had been walking past for years and see the potential.\u00a0 He was then able\u00a0 to develop methods that worked.\u00a0 Other surface hunting sites include:<\/p>\n old home-sites, shorelines, rivers, (especially where you have high, flat\u00a0 ground nearby and access to water for\u00a0 horses as colonial campsites required), rail spurs, (insulators, padlocks, artifacts), creek beds, dumps, incinerate waste, excavations, snow dumps, curbs, parking lots, cellar holes, swimming holes, cleared house flats, stone walls…<\/p>\n There is just no end to the number and variety of places where there is treasure to be found by eye.<\/p>\n It’s also important to recognize that at shoreline sites, there is constant change.\u00a0 Wind, rain, tidal erosion\u2014all these act to expose treasure.\u00a0 Also, as touched upon earlier, often classification can sometimes do part of the work for you\u2014bringing the heaviest, densest targets together into certain areas of shoreline.\u00a0\u00a0 My surface hunting \u201cmentor\u201d John, specialized in digging bottles at the outside corner of rivers.\u00a0 These were bottles and ceramics that had been carried downstream and deposited on the outside corners.\u00a0 Some of the ones he found this way were\u00a0 contents intact and very valuable.<\/p>\n A 14k ring fragment spotted amongst incinerate scrap.<\/p><\/div>\n At many locations its possible to discover patterns as to where certain types of objects are carried by the current.\u00a0 At one Caribbean site I hunt a local guy has found a \u201csunglasses mine\u201d where hundreds of designer glasses are carried by the current.\u00a0\u00a0 He is there daily in a sea kayak popping in and out of the water retrieving\u00a0 them.\u00a0 I have a spot nearby where beer cans from a peninsula are carried to the mainland by the current. These wash up in a single spot and I fill a garbage bag with about $10 worth every visit.<\/p>\n As with detecting, all these ways of finding proceed from observation\u2014and awareness.<\/p>\n Methods:<\/u><\/p>\n Walk, Grid, overturn, peer though brush, dig, eye melting snow…<\/p>\n On the beach–just as with detecting the key is to get into the high traffic areas\u2014at first light if possible.<\/p>\n When you are at the right location at the right time, eye and detector searches are interchangeable.<\/p>\n Sifting and \u201cBoarding\u201d<\/u><\/p>\n These are mainly methods for finding small objects in sand or soil.\u00a0 A well made sifter can\u00a0 be used with floats to detect in the water with too.\u00a0 While I won’t include plans for one, materials used can be wood, a \u201cbread rack\u201d or PVC pipe.\u00a0 It’s best to avoid any metallic materials so that it can be used in conjunction with a detector or pinpointer to locate objects on the mesh.\u00a0 The mesh itself can be square grain 1\/4\u201d plastic \u201cchicken wire\u201d available at Home Depot and other stores.\u00a0 For in-water use, \u201cpool noodles\u201d can be attached around the outside with \u201czip ties\u201d and these can be removed for inland use.\u00a0 This sifter can be placed upon four rocks in shallow water, or suspended using a long pole anchored at one end, two upright struts, and four suspension ropes to keep the sifter up and clear of the ground so that material can drop though.\u00a0 This is a great system for examining large amounts of dirt of sand for artifacts.<\/p>\n \u201cBoarding\u201d is something that’s widely done in England on the tidal flats of the Thames River.\u00a0 A large board is placed on a dry area of the mud and material is shoveled up onto it.\u00a0 This material is then examined by hand and \/ or detector.\u00a0 This can be a bit messy but it’s a great way to search for treasure. An alternative is to place your board up on the beach at an old or busy section of beach then wade out into the water and fill buckets with sand.\u00a0 Then walk these back and dump them onto the board.\u00a0\u00a0 When\u00a0 the board is full, rest your shovel and go in and sort though the material by hand.\u00a0 At my local shoreline, incinerate was dumped from the 1920’s through to the 1950’s and we have found a lot of gold jewelry, silver coins, brass, copper and lead scrap and artifacts this way, where as to operate a detector would be impossible.<\/p>\n How do I develop my surface hunting skills?<\/u><\/p>\n Part of developing your \u201ceye\u201d is to know what you are looking for.\u00a0 When I met with John at a coffee shop\u2014he found a gold earring right there where the lineup stands.\u00a0 I recently found a gold ring in several feet of water at this incinerate site.\u00a0 While it was a small ring\u2014I’m still surprised by just how much the color stood out.\u00a0 This ring had been there since the 40’s or so and had long since lost it’s gold shine\u2014but just the pale yellow was unmistakable\u2014when you know to look for it.<\/em> Anther thing to look for is \u201cornateness.\u201d\u00a0 At this site, a lot of objects of interest are distinguishable by just how intricately patterned they are.\u00a0 These will be the \u201cdesigner\u201d objects of the day and more likely to be jewelry, embellishment, or other objects that are interesting or have value today.\u00a0 While many of these aren’t of any value, it’s fascinating to see the degree of care and craftsmanship that went into everyday household objects in those days.\u00a0 I also look for paper money\u2014in parking lots, snow piles, after events.\u00a0 This is a real skill too in that not all of a shining $20 bill will always be there for you to see.\u00a0 More typically you will spot a mud-covered\u2014corner or shape.\u00a0 The key is to learn to break what you are looking for into components<\/em>\u2014the edge pattern of a bill\u2014the numbering, the color, the shape, the size (even folded in half).\u00a0 When you can spot a bill by any one of these features\u2014you have some solid eye skills.\u00a0 I do this in the water too.\u00a0 Where there are big crowds I often lie down and scan across the top of the weed mass.\u00a0 Quite often there will be paper money rolling around with the weeds and other debris.<\/p>\n Also, on the beach, when you are walking into the sun quite often anything shiny will flash up\u2014something to be aware of.\u00a0 I’ve found a lof of gold this way\u2014often at day’s end when the sun is low in front of me.<\/p>\n The key is to have certain \u201cmarkers\u201d in mind\u2014green, gold, unusual, anything out of the ordinary should attract your attention and warrant further examination.<\/p>\n This kind of hunting carries with it certain ethical considerations though.\u00a0 To begin with it’s illegal to trespass and even if you get permission to search private property the owner may still have claim to anything you find.\u00a0 There are however, salvage agreements that can be entered into for any high potential sites you encounter.\u00a0 At the same time, don’t let anyone else steal all of the benefit of your efforts and treasure hunting savvy.<\/p>\n Also, anything you find by eye on the beach is more likely to have been recently lost.\u00a0 Be prepared to look for the owner and to return items when possible.\u00a0 It’s really the thrill of the find that counts anyhow.<\/p>\n Finally, keep safety in mind\u2014especially if you have any young hunters in training with you.\u00a0 Old areas can be full of hazards\u2014spikes sticking up, falls, sharp objects…be careful.\u00a0 This is especially true of snow piles.\u00a0 These can be very dangerous as well\u2014especially in spring when they are melting.\u00a0 These piles can have soft spots or deep mud around the edges.\u00a0 Always walk with a sick or spade and carry a cell phone.\u00a0 No find is worth courting disaster.<\/p>\n That said, surface hunting and Artifacting is a great hobby in and of itself.\u00a0 I mention it here though because of what it has to teach.\u00a0 When you bring heightened awareness and a focus upon key areas of a site to your detecting you are bound to have more success.\u00a0 Surface hunting teaches you to find these locations and look for ways of searching that others had not considered\u2014to consider the possibilities.<\/p>\n This is wholly in keeping with our central theme of \u201cknowing that something might be there and finding a way to recover those targets.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A Few Surface Hunting Finds. The coiled lizard paperweight is a fave.<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n From: “Water Hunting:Secrets of the Pros Volume 2” (2017)\u00a0 by Clive James Clynick<\/strong><\/p>\n Water Hunting: Secrets of the Pros, Volume II<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.clivesgoldpage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Picture3-400x206.jpg\")
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