Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Silver Ring Find.Goth? Mexican Silver? Sterling? Coin Silver? Vintage? I'll get into that more some other day real soon.
Personally I like seasoned silver better than brand new as long as it isn't corroded too much. In my opinion, some history and a little oxidation adds character to nice heavy vintage pieces. A little oxidation makes the details really pop. I wouldn't clean anything like this too much.
This is good silver. It looks like Mexican silver to me.
Peru asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the transfer of the half-billion dollar Odyssey Marine treasure from the U.S. to Spain. In my opinion Peru would seem to have a better claim to the treasure than Spain.
While both Spain and Peru want to claim the treasure, neither of those claimants, have presented any hard evidence to prove the source and origin of the treasure. As far as I know, Odyssey Marine is the only party to have first-hand contact and knowledge of the wreck and would seem to me to have the only valid claim on the treasure.
Here is a link to the story detailing Peru's claim.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/02/23/peru-says-spain-stole-their-gold-1069322224/#ixzz1nGrTJ5j9
Thanks to James H. for submitting the link.
There is a lesson that beach hunters can learn from this story too. When there is treasure, there are people who will try to claim it.
There are people who will try to claim the ring that you just dug even though it is not theirs if the opportunity presents itself. I've talked about this before so I won't go into a lot of detail now, but there have been several occasions when people tried to claim a piece of jewelry that I found when they did not have any knowledge of the item before I found it. Be careful about that. You want to be able to return found items to the real owner.
Kovels Komments reports, A family in London was taking some old jewelry to a scrap gold dealer when a young family member thought a coin mounted as a pendant on a chain looked great, so he saved it. A little research showed it was a rare 15th-century coin from Milan, Italy, just estimated at $63,000.
Here is a link to that story.
http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/News/COINS-%26-BANKNOTES/Milanese-gold-Renaissance-coin-valued-at-$63,000-nearly-sold-for-scrap/10035.page
As I always say, keep your finds until you have a chance to do the research and know for certain what they are.
And here is another story of found gold.
Workers renovating a Champagne producer's building in France hit the rafters and almost 500 gold coins pelted down on them. If no one claims the fortune, estimated at close to $1 million, it will be divided between the building's owner and the workers who discovered the coins.
Here is a link to that story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102056/Cash-attic--1million-gold-coins-rains-rafters-workers-renovate-vineyard-building-Champagne.html
Well, it looks like another front will be coming through. The wind is now from the south/southwest, but Saturday it will switch around and come from the north. The seas will also increase up to around five feet on Saturday.
The north wind and the higher seas Saturday will give us some chance for improved conditions by Sunday, although it probably will only create some small unproductive cuts. I'm hopeful enough to remain alert, but am not really expecting much.
Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
