Wednesday, August 26, 2015

8/26/15 Report - Erika Headed Towards Florida, Lima 8-escudo, Treasure Crates, Smuggling and Contraband, New Wreck Discovered

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


Predicted Path of Erika.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov
Erika looks to be headed towards Palm Beach and is expected to arrive very early Monday as a level 1 hurricane.  There are still a few days for all of that to change, so keep watching.

The surfing web sites are not predicting a big increase in surf. They are only showing a maximum of four feet on Sunday evening, decreasing after that.

It is still too early to be certain.  That could change as well.

I'd really like to see some sand get removed.  I'd so like to see a ripped beach.  It has been so long.

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1702 Lima 8-Escudo
Photo submitted by Captain Jonah Martinez.

Here is an interesting escudo.  Notice how the top of the pillars is off angle.

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The other day I was talking about how treasure was packaged on the treasure fleets.  I found the following in the Foster article on Talegas and Contraband.


Here is that link again.

 http://www.academia.edu/9270986/Talegas_and_Hoards_The_Archaeological_Signature_of_Contraband_on_a_1725_Spanish_Merchant_Vessel

The chests weren't always cedar, and they weren't always of exactly the same dimensions, but it seems they were usually pretty similar.   Since gold is nearly twice as dense as silver, I'd assume that crates carrying gold weighed closer to 450 pounds.

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There is a lot of really good information on the internet these days. Here are a couple of books that I found.

One is Smuggling: Contraband and Corruption in World History by Alan Karras.

Click here to link to that book.    Click on View Sample when you get there to read the sample.

Looks like a very interesting book.

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 Here is another book you might like to take a look at.  It is  Treasures of the Spanish Main: Shipwrecked Galleons in the New World by John Chistopher Fine.

You can read a sample of that one online too.  The sample had some nice information on the 1715 Fleet.

Click here to link to that.

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(August 24, 2015) - During the repair of the US 50 Bridge over the Nanticoke River, the Maryland Department of Transportation’s State Highway Administration (SHA) discovered an 18th century shipwreck in the water. SHA was removing debris from under the bridge when workers realized some of the wood may be ship timbers...

Here is that link.

http://www.roads.maryland.gov/Pages/release.aspx?newsId=2332

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Keep watching Erika.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net