10/24/13 Report - 1715 Fleet Gold Rosary, Shipwreck Onion Bottle, and Auction

Written by the treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Rosary Up For Auction in the Most Recent Sedwick Coins Auction.

Here is one item that is expected to bring a good price at the upcoming Sedwick Coins auction.  The online bidding has already started and the bidding is up to $40,000.  That isn't at all surprising to me.

Of course you all read about the gold coins and chains found off the Treasure Coast this summer.  This is an older Fisher 1715 Fleet find.

Here is the auction description.

Complete gold rosary consisting of chain, crucifix and three medallions. 64.20 grams, the necklace 30" long with 4-1/2" pendant. It is hard to fathom a more impressive piece from the 1715 Fleet, as this rosary is 100% intact and beautiful, all in high-karat gold, with the chain consisting of wire hooks, diamond-shaped mesh and small cages, connected to an ornate triangular link from which hangs one oval medallion and a cross-shaped chain of cage-links with octagonal medallions hanging off the sides and small but ornate crucifix suspended at the bottom, one of a several significant gold jewels found on the "Cabin wreck" site by the crew of the Virgalona in the summer of 1993 (with more found on the same site a year later) and featured in articles thereafter. The medallions—each one and each side different—show various saints, some with the Christ child, while the cross itself has ornate engraving on the reverse (see photo for detail). While the asymmetrically single medallion above the central triangle would seem to indicate a missing partner, it should be noted that all the intact rosaries from this two-year find have the same arrangement. From the 1715 Fleet, featured in the 1994 issue of Silver & Gold magazine (Western & Eastern Treasures) as well as Vol. Num. 3 of HRDnews (photocopy included), with Fisher photo-certificate #23286X. Recovered from: Spanish 1715 Fleet, east coast of Florida.

You can attend the floor bidding Oct. 30 in Orlando at the Double Tree Resort near Downtown Disney.

Here is a video from Sedwick Coins showing some of the fascinating lots up for auction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQOKrk6TDCY&hd=1

It is really nice that this rosary survived intact.  Often with beach finds, a part of a rosary might be found, maybe the crucifix or some other part.

I've shown the same thing with modern gold chains.  Often they are broken, especially beach finds.

In the water they are more likely to be whole, but still the incidence of broken clasps is high.

Onion Bottle in Sedwick Coins Auction.

Yesterday I talked about some glass found at 18th Century St. Lucie County sites.  Not everything in the auction will be silver and gold.  Already having a bid of $320 dollars is this 18th Century shipwreck bottle.  The winning bid will probably be considerable higher than that.

Here is the auction description.

Dutch glass "onion" bottle, intact, rare as from this wreck. 673 grams, 7" tall and 5-1/2" in diameter. This complete and totally undamaged bottle is in perfect condition, better than most non-salvage examples in fact, probably due to its contents having leaked out in the ocean, for others we have seen with corks and wine intact displayed significant flaking and discoloration from the acid in the wine. This piece, in contrast, has only minute traces of "pearling" and no chips or stars in the light olive-green glass, just some stains inside where some residue remained as well as very fine encrustation inside minute etching on the exterior. Recovered from: Reijgersdaal, sunk in 1747 off South Africa.

As I've said before, even if you don't plan on selling or buying anything, auction catalogs are a good resource for learning about coins and artifacts.

Despite the existence of the Florida Collection, few of us have seen that.  I showed that with a poll that I conducted in this blog not too long ago.

You might see pieces of black glass on the beaches.  I've shown some pictures of that.  It looks black at times when found even if it is dark green when you hold it up to the light.

The surface usually gets roughened up by being washed in the surf with the sand and shells.  The result being that you can hardly see through it unless you hold it up to the light.

If you don't know much about old bottles, look for bubbles in the glass that can indicate that is was hand blown rather than made in a mold.  The existence of large bubbles does not guarantee that a bottle or piece of glass is old.  There are still some bottles being blown, but that is not typical.

In the past I've shown some photos of old bottles that were blown and that show some nice big bubbles.


A teen girl found a 3.85 karat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

Here is the link to that video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/diamond-park-arkansas_n_4136028.html?1382379360&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl15%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D394652


Below is a Treasure Coast beach as seen near low tide yesterday.  It is not as convex as most.  

Also notice the dip between the sand bar and the beach.

Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide

The beach has been building.  Notice the convex shape.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net