Treasure Coast Beach This Morning. The big news this morning is the improving beach conditions. I took a quick look at three different beaches this morning in St. Lucie County and all three were eroding to some extent.
I saw about a mile length with two to three foot cuts at one beach. Another had a cut that was not as long and not as high - less than a foot. But still every place I looked I saw some sand being removed.
On the basis of what I saw, I'm upgrading my beach conditions rating to a minimal two.
I'll comment more on that below.
The cob shown below was sold yesterday in the SedwickCoins auction. Here is the description.
"Potosi, Bolivia, cob 1/2 real, 1657, cut down to heart shape. S-P37a; KM-B12; CT-1170. 1.3 grams. This is a tough one, because even though the weight is not bad and the shape is accurate, a close inspection of the cuts around the stem reveals that they are post-minting, so apparently someone (long ago, presumably) took an overweight, nearly heart-shaped coin with choice detail and cut it into what we see here (AVF with contrasting toning, holed twice). Estimate: $70-$100."
Heart Shaped Cob Sold in Last Week's Sedwick Auction.While the estimate was seventy to a hundred dollars, the actual bid was $750. Cobs with unusual shapes often bring a premium.
This shape is often referred to as heart-shaped even though they have a cone at the top of the heart. In Monedas Espanolas desde Juana y Carlos a Isabe II, Clico et al uses the Spanish word corazon, which translates to "heart."
Here is a another heart shaped cob.
1704 Potosi 8 Reale from the Monedas Espanolas book.You can also see the heart shaped 1 reale that I posted before in this blog when I did a post about Ex-votos. The shape of these types of cobs is very stylized and either intentionally or accidentally includes a lop-sided or curved pointed end as well as a hole in what I referred to as the stem.
From the holed stems, I would guess they were also worn like a charm.
You might want to review my August 10 post on Ex-Votos.
While there are a number of different shapes for ex-votos, the heart shape appears to be one of the most common.
I get the feeling that the mint was in on the production of these things even though the Sedwick description of the first example shown in this post says the cob was cut down after minting. It started out as an over weight cob. Could that have been intentionally done with the intent of trimming later? I don't know.
Anyhow, watch out for unusually shaped cobs, they provide an interesting study, and, as I've mentioned, often bring in more than other cobs.
Forecast and Conditions.
As I've mentioned before, southeast winds can cause erosion too, although the erosion caused by southeast winds seldom reaches the extent of our more powerful northeasters. And, in my experience, erosion caused by southeast wind is not usually as productive as that cause by the northeasters.
As I mentioned, I am not giving current beach conditions any more than a minimal two rating. Despite the relatively wide spread erosion, the erosion is towards the front of the beach, and probably more importantly, only removing recent sand that had built up well in front of recent previous cuts.
In the most eroded spot that I saw, the erosion was 10 to 15 yards in front of the bigger cuts that occurred a few weeks ago. That is not the best situation for finding cobs.
The surf web sites are predicting seas of three to four feet for the rest of the week. I would be surprised if that results in much more erosion, although it might continue chipping away at a few of the spots that are currently cut.
Next weekend the seas are predicted to be up around five or six feet. We'll see.
At least it is something worth watching and checking out.
The high tides are till nice and high.
Keep a watch on this to see what develops.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
