bigscoop
Gold Member
- Jun 4, 2010
- 13,376
- 8,704
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- Older blue Excal with full mods, Equinox 800.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
The Adventure Finally Begins!
I think there comes a point in time that many of us develop a desire for a new chase, something different then our typical beach hunts for modern jewelry. So, this little thread is about one such journey from simple notion to stark reality. On Friday the dream hunts begins, and as you can probably tell, I'm rather excited about the possibilities, though ever aware of the staggering odds against the quest. So let me explain how this all came about.
“Old”, and I mean really old, sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth century stuff. I've been fortunate enough to stand on the beach with such an item in my hand, completely mesmerized by the item's detail and completely lured by the item's mystery. I gotta tell, once this bug grabs a hold on you it will never leave, not really. And so it all began for me on that day and it has been with me ever since. In the years to follow I often spent my free time researching the item, eventually tracking it all the way back to it's original source, then piecing together the trail that eventually brought it half-way around the world and onto the east coast. What a fabulous journey that has been and what an opening experience that journey provided. But alas, it was a totally random find, an isolated piece that had somehow been lost or discarded without any know significant event. Pretty much the end to that fascinating story, but certainly not the end to the flame it had ignited. The modern jewelry hunting is great but it simply can't compare to the discovering of something really old with a rich and fascinating history attached to it, at least not for me anyway. And ever since that lone discovery I've desired to find more of the same. Now comes the current adventure about to be undertaken.
Several years ago while I was still living in Indiana I started a pet project of sorts, one of those winter pastimes to help keep the treasure hunting fire burning until the following spring thaw, and since my sister lived on the east coast of Florida, well, it just seemed a likely place for such a pursuit. Cutting past all of the research jargon, let's just say that I eventually ran into a possibility that held promise, and actually a couple of them, and so it was here that I began to place all of my focus. In reality, at the time it was nothing more then an unlikely pet-project dream hunt. I mean I was living and working in Indiana and I only made it to my sister's place a couple of times a year, for perhaps a week at a time. Now keep in mind that this was before that isolated beach find spoken about earlier. Needless to say, after a couple of winters researching and assembling the pet-project it was eventually forgotten about like so many other life dreams. But then a few years ago family health issues required that I actually move here and after finding that isolated item spoken of earlier this same old pet-project was quickly reborn again.
The first few years of hunting the beaches down here really set me back a bit because there was so much to learn, the new environment presenting much the same to me as entirely different planet. And the beach was absolutely HUGE, almost overwhelming as it continues to sprawl in endless abundance in every direction. All too eager and all too naïve I dove right in, now looking back I can honestly guess that in those first few months I probably dug more false signals then actual targets! Clearly I had a lot to learn, and thus began that long and sometimes painful education process. In the beginning I had no idea just how blind to the reality I actually was but truth be told I was as green to these beaches and this new environment as some of the quarters I eventually started to find. But eventually persistence started to pay off and I've come a long way since then, and with that the old research was eventually pulled back out and this latest undertaking is finally about to begin. “The search for old.” Time to see if the research, patience, endurance, and hunting skills are up to the task.
I think there comes a point in time that many of us develop a desire for a new chase, something different then our typical beach hunts for modern jewelry. So, this little thread is about one such journey from simple notion to stark reality. On Friday the dream hunts begins, and as you can probably tell, I'm rather excited about the possibilities, though ever aware of the staggering odds against the quest. So let me explain how this all came about.
“Old”, and I mean really old, sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth century stuff. I've been fortunate enough to stand on the beach with such an item in my hand, completely mesmerized by the item's detail and completely lured by the item's mystery. I gotta tell, once this bug grabs a hold on you it will never leave, not really. And so it all began for me on that day and it has been with me ever since. In the years to follow I often spent my free time researching the item, eventually tracking it all the way back to it's original source, then piecing together the trail that eventually brought it half-way around the world and onto the east coast. What a fabulous journey that has been and what an opening experience that journey provided. But alas, it was a totally random find, an isolated piece that had somehow been lost or discarded without any know significant event. Pretty much the end to that fascinating story, but certainly not the end to the flame it had ignited. The modern jewelry hunting is great but it simply can't compare to the discovering of something really old with a rich and fascinating history attached to it, at least not for me anyway. And ever since that lone discovery I've desired to find more of the same. Now comes the current adventure about to be undertaken.
Several years ago while I was still living in Indiana I started a pet project of sorts, one of those winter pastimes to help keep the treasure hunting fire burning until the following spring thaw, and since my sister lived on the east coast of Florida, well, it just seemed a likely place for such a pursuit. Cutting past all of the research jargon, let's just say that I eventually ran into a possibility that held promise, and actually a couple of them, and so it was here that I began to place all of my focus. In reality, at the time it was nothing more then an unlikely pet-project dream hunt. I mean I was living and working in Indiana and I only made it to my sister's place a couple of times a year, for perhaps a week at a time. Now keep in mind that this was before that isolated beach find spoken about earlier. Needless to say, after a couple of winters researching and assembling the pet-project it was eventually forgotten about like so many other life dreams. But then a few years ago family health issues required that I actually move here and after finding that isolated item spoken of earlier this same old pet-project was quickly reborn again.
The first few years of hunting the beaches down here really set me back a bit because there was so much to learn, the new environment presenting much the same to me as entirely different planet. And the beach was absolutely HUGE, almost overwhelming as it continues to sprawl in endless abundance in every direction. All too eager and all too naïve I dove right in, now looking back I can honestly guess that in those first few months I probably dug more false signals then actual targets! Clearly I had a lot to learn, and thus began that long and sometimes painful education process. In the beginning I had no idea just how blind to the reality I actually was but truth be told I was as green to these beaches and this new environment as some of the quarters I eventually started to find. But eventually persistence started to pay off and I've come a long way since then, and with that the old research was eventually pulled back out and this latest undertaking is finally about to begin. “The search for old.” Time to see if the research, patience, endurance, and hunting skills are up to the task.
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