Saturday, March 28, 2015

3/28/15 Report - Turquoise Jewelry. Silver Prices. 90 Silver Coins Found In Field. Some Real 18th Century Works of Art.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.

Styles come and go, and so do the types of things you will find.  Back a few decades ago silver and turquoise jewelry was very popular and there was a lot of it to be found.  There was a time when you would find a silver and turquoise piece on almost every hunt.

Here are a couple of examples of old water finds.  Both were found back in the eighties, I think, and both had been in the water a number of years before being found.

Here is what the March 25 Kovels Komment said.

Turquoise, the semi-precious stone, has long been popular on American Indian jewelry. Turquoise jewelry is now popular with designers of expensive jewelry and a Tiffany necklace of turquoise stones worn by Cate Blanchett to the Academy Awards was newsworthy. Turquoise is found when mining copper. Many mining companies have closed their turquoise production since 2012 to concentrate on the more valuable copper. The best stones doubled in price last year. Designers of gold and turquoise jewelry use stones without matrix, the black lines that mark the stone. Vintage Indian silver jewelry used more common turquoise with lines. Arab customers also prefer gold jewelry with the matrix because it is said to absorb evil and protect the owner. All real turquoise jewelry is going up in price. Beware, there are many good ceramic and plastic copies of the natural stone that are made to look like the plain blue or the matrix marked stones. There are also inferior soft stones that are artificially colored.

The ring in the top photo is broken and discolored, as found.  It is silver, though, and weighs .86 troy ounces.

The second ring is silver and turquoise and discolored.   Just two of many examples of old silver finds.

Silver will discolor when stored in contact with some other metals.  Be careful to store your better silver so that it is not touching any lesser metal.  The same thing can happen if a silver piece is on a piece of iron or something while in salt water.
Silver Prices





There have been two big spikes in silver prices in the last fifty years.  One was back in the seventies when the Hunt brothers monopolized the silver market and manipulated prices.  The other was back just a few years ago.





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Want to marvel at some real 18th Century treasures?  These are remarkable works or art.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/videos/2015/03/swiss-mechanical-marvels.html

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A man stumbled upon an earthen jar with about 90 silver coins from the 16th-18th century while plowing a field with a tractor in the town of Zahari Stoyanovo, Popovo Municipality, in Northeastern Bulgaria.

Here is the link.

http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2015/03/26/bulgarian-man-finds-silver-treasure-of-western-european-ottoman-coins-while-plowing-field/

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A month or so ago I told you about how you can have your own DNA tested for about $100.  Here is a genetic study that used DNA testing to identify major migration patterns.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-03-24-complex-genetic-ancestry-americans-uncovered-0

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A nice cold front came through bringing all that rain and some nice cool air.  The surf is only around two or three feet though.  The tides are moderate now.

Next Sunday they are predicting up to an eight foot surf.  I'd give that less than a ten percent chance o actually happening.  I hope it does.  We sure need it.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net