[QUOTE=Gymnopithys]
Has anybody, or do you know of anyone having found anything valuable while beachcombing (excluding the washed-up goods after the recent cargo wreck off the coast of Devon) ?
[/QUOTE]
This guy found a diamond.
[QUOTE=Gymnopithys]
What’s seaglass ? Can’t find it in dictionary.
[/QUOTE]
Pieces of broken glass that have been tossed around until they are smooth, like stones. Colored glass can be quite pretty.
[QUOTE=cher3]
Pieces of broken glass that have been tossed around until they are smooth, like stones. Colored glass can be quite pretty.
[/QUOTE]
Not just smooth, but sharp corners eroded so that they are rounded. And often seaglass looks a bit frosted and slightly opaque due to a large number of tiny scratches.
I once found sunken treasure. I was pretty new to snorkelling, and found pirate booty. A dime, three quarters, and a looney, IIRC.
[B[Mangetout** writes:
I hate you.
As a kid, I bought a book at the Newark Museum entitled Let’s Find Fossils On the Beach. It even listed the kinds of fossils you could find, by beach, right there along the stretches of New Jersey beach I frequented.
I looked for freakin’ YEARS, and never found a single beach fossil.
I do know what I’m looking for. I’ve found plenty of inland fossils, in various places. But the best I could do at the seashore were some interesting contemporary shells and some odd but non-fossil rocks.
I have a solid teak coffee table made by my father from a sizable driftwood trunk he found in Florida, probably 40 years ago.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
This guy found a diamond.
[/QUOTE]
By the way, are there gold-bearing sands near the mouth of some rivers ? Have they been exploited ?
(It’s a GQ question, but I don’t want to open another thread)
[QUOTE=sinjin]
Not beach combing, but snorkling on Maui, Mrsin found a wedding ring. We advertised in the Maui News and got a couple of calls but no one could identify it. We still have it. Identify it and it’s yours. 
[/QUOTE]
Is it, um, gold?
Let’s Find Fossils on the Beach:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lets-Find-Fossils-on-the-Beach_W0QQitemZ130093018409QQcmdZViewItem
Yeah. Let’s.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lets-Find-Fossils-on-the-Beach_W0QQitemZ130093018409QQcmdZViewItem
[/QUOTE]
Jeez, is that a belemnite or is it just happy to sea me?
*“Mommy Mommy, look what I found!”
“Jimmy, put that down and come wash your hands!”*
[QUOTE=Gymnopithys]
On the Baltic and the North Sea coasts they still find amber with fossilized organisms.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t know if you conflated amber with ambergris, but they’re not connected in any way. Ambergris is whale barf.
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Is it, um, gold?
[/QUOTE]
Why yes it is!! Tell me what’s engraved on it and I’ll send it out at my expense. 
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I looked for freakin’ YEARS, and never found a single beach fossil.
[/quote]
Maybe you’re looking for the wrong stuff. I can’t speak for Mass., but here on the Lake Michigan beach, I can scoop up a random handful of gravel and get fossils of tiny marine animals and coral, probably created when the Great Lakes were a warm inland sea. Lots of life and lots of sedimentation going on millions of years ago.
Not intact Humoungasaurus leg bones, however. Is that what you were expecting?
[QUOTE=sinjin]
Why yes it is!! Tell me what’s engraved on it and I’ll send it out at my expense.
[/QUOTE]
If it’s “Fuck you, Elise”, I want it back, right now.
As I note in my post, I’ve found plenty of inland fossils (no Humongasaurus bones, alas, but plenty of brachiopods, bryozoans, and the like). Besides, the book pretty clearly tells you what to look for. I’ve found nary a bvalve fossil or coral branch.
Fossil shark teeth in St. Pete Beach in Florida, a Tag Heuer watch in Santa Maria Beach in Cuba, and a spear gun off the Dry Tortugas. I kept them all, but the only ones I still have with me are the shark teeth, they fill a coffee cup about half way.
My son found an 18k gold 20" chain. He turned it in to the local police, then got it back 90 days later, when no one claimed it. I still have it.
Is a dead pelican a treasure? I’ll always treasure the dry heaves the smell gave me.
[QUOTE=sinjin]
Why yes it is!! Tell me what’s engraved on it and I’ll send it out at my expense.
[/QUOTE]
Was there an “L”?
I have buckets of treasure that I’ve found on beaches;
feathers, skeletal remains, hoards of seashells, rocks and fossils, and, as I’ve mentioned it before, an extensive collection of naturally occurring small coral pieces that form letters.
Upper case, lower case. I had a great time collecting them, all from one beach. The first phrase I could spell was; “Lazy, lazy fool!” I collected the alphabet then quickly realized I’d need extra letters to make words and phrases. The people around me at that beach thought I was a little odd when I began. But soon they were all infected with the same virus and were bringing me letters they would find! I was torn over whether to bring them home or not but I’m very glad I did, they bring be enormous pleasure. I write out names and birthday greetings to guests visiting my home and I have at least on 6 yr old visitor who spells things out.
I count this as great treasure found at the beach.
[QUOTE=elbows]
Upper case, lower case. I had a great time collecting them, all from one beach. The first phrase I could spell was; “Lazy, lazy fool!”
[/QUOTE]
There’s a phrase you coulda spelled earlier, if you were just half as lazy ;).
When I was a kid, my sister found a twenty dollar bill blowing around on the beach. I was immensely jealous, and being a little brat, I buried it. We eventually found it, but I think it was years before she let me hold any of her stuff again.
A friend of mine in college liked to carve instruments; she once found a log of tropical hardwood washed up on the Pacific shore.
Daniel