Written by TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Front and Back of the $100,000 Gold Bar To Be Auctioned in the Upcoming Sedwick Coins Auction.Photo and information on the bar was submitted via email by A. G. of Sedwick Coins.
I showed the front of this bar yesterday and gave you some clues about its identity. One reader sent an email correctly identifying the seal.
I'll give you more about the bar below.
James F. sent in this story telling about how he responded to a request to find a lost ring.
My detecting club sends out emergency e-mails reporting any lost item, usually rings, reported to the club by normal, everyday people who don't know where else to turn for help in finding that lost wedding band or heirloom lost somewhere in the ocean of sand, or just the ocean, period. Once such call came in this last Wednesday, from a frantic husband...his wife, relaxing on a beach chair as the surf splashed past her, seems to have relieved her of her VERY expensive ring. This piece of jewelry was 18kt white-gold encrusted with diamonds encrusting 360 degrees of the ring's circumference...if you ran it along the sand, it would have left something that looked like the tread of a miniature truck tire. Serious piece of bling.
His wife was crying and frantic, as well as anyone would be, who had lost her first wedding ring after being married a little over a year. It had been lost last Saturday, the 3rd, and his e-mail to the club was pretty sad...
(I omitted some of the story here to save space. TreasureGuide)
I sent him an immediate e-mail and told him we may be able to recover it, if he remembered where they had sat. I met him there with my Minelab SE Pro with a 16" coil, and within 45 minutes had recovered his wifes ring. I told him I thought I had something, he came over, I dug up a mound of sand (about 8" deep), pulled out my pinpointer, wiped away clumps of sand with it to reveal his lost ring. He couldn't believe it...a tiny ring had been gone more than a week, both him and his wife thought they would literally NEVER see this important piece of their married life again. He had told me on the side he would not be able to afford another ring for her, and I felt so bad...you cannot imagine seeing someone so resigned to the loss. When he first saw it in the wet sand, he grabbed me and hugged me like a long lost friend...almost busted my detector stem. We walked back up to the beach pavillion, and there was his wife in her bathing suit. He showed the ring to her and SHE started crying, also hugging me (I had the detection gear out of the way this time), which I didn't mind all that much. Long story, short, two very happy people were walking on a cloud, still expressing disbelief that I had found such a tiny thing on such a big beach. These folks were totally alien to the sport of metal detecting, but can now be counted on to be another positive voice in the general public concerning the sport.
This taught me a lesson about the here-and-now of detecting; if anyone is distraught over losing a valuable item, and you have some time to lend a hand, do it! The good will that your assistance will generate for the hobby is worth much much more than the gold value of the ring. Just saying, I'm proud of what we do, cause nobody does it better!
Good thoughts. Thanks James.
John benefited from Irene going to Connecticut. He had some good luck. Here is what he said.
I hunted up here in Ct. after the storm (not a hurricane anymore) hit us. I found my first Silver Dollar in over 40 years of beach hunting, a 1897s. It was washed out of the upper beach that hardly anyone ever does. Also in the same 20 ft. area I found a 57 quarter, 2 buffalo nickels, 44 merc dime, and several wheats. In the water at low tide, I hit a 14K gold buckle ring with small diamond. Lots of modern coins were in the cuts in the beaches. Tide was at high when the storm hit so it came in flooding and churned up the beaches quite a bit.
John
Glad to know someone benefited from Irene. And congratulations on your first silver dollar!
Back to the gold bar.
Minted in Brazil, this gold bar is an example of pseudo-monetary gold that is somewhat comparable to the U.S. pioneer gold issues of the California Gold Rush.
The particular ingot shown above is from the foundry of Serro Frio and is very rare. Even more rare, the original guia (documentation) is available and in remarkable conditoin.
If you want to learn more about this gold bar and the history of similar bars, here is a link to all of the information provided by Sedwick Coins.
http://sz0160.wc.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/Brazilian%20gold%20bar%20_3_.pdf?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=58060&part=2
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
Maria is now a tropical storm and is east o the Bahamas and headed towards the North Atlantic. There are no other storms or hurricanes to watch right now.
The wind is from the north/northwest. The seas are around two feet and will not change much, only increasing slightly to about three of four feet on Sunday.
Obviously, that means no significant change in detecting conditions on the Treasure Coast.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net