8/28/17 Report - Famous 1715 Fleet Find From the Past. More on Silver and Gold Rings. Silver Corrosion and Wear. Storm Situation.

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

Famous Find From the 1715 Fleet
Photo submittted by Darrel S.

Darrel S.sent the above and following photos, about which he said, I remember when Capt. Jon Wilson found the gold box with these items inside near the Cabin Wreck. Steve Hancock received one of the rings, Jon got the necklace, state got the box, AND TAFFI GOT THE CROSS (displayed in their Sebastian Museum.)

It isn't a recent find. Darrel also said, The gold box with cross, necklace, cross, and rings was found 6/1/03.  [I originally posted 01, but the correct year is actually 03.]

 The photos are Darrel's personal photos, which he said were originally taken in the Fisher lab in Sebastian.

In the past couple of posts, I've been talking about intertwined or interlinked rings.  That discussion started with a couple of silver rings found by John C. along with a couple of cobs.  

The rings shown in the above and following picture have a very common design that I might describe as a twisted rope design.  Three gold twisted rope bands make one ring that has a gold setting with emeralds.  

Here is a closer picture of that.

Gold Ring Found by Captain Jon Wilson.
Photo submitted by Darrel S.

The twisted rope design is a very common design still used today.  You'll see that type of ring in silver and gold and other metals.

Thanks much to Darrel S. for the great pictures.


John C., after sending me the photos of the intertwined rings that were found with a couple of cobs, also sent me the following picture of a very thin silver ring and said, Some may be thinking, a silver wire ?  No it's what's left of a very badly worn silver ring .I guess it depends on the original size, but how many years does it take for a ring to become so badly worn ?

Thin Silver Ring.
Find and photo by John C.

Of course gold is not subject to the same type of corrosion as silver.  Some silver cobs found on the beaches are worn very flat and thin - by my estimation, sometimes to less than half the original weight.  The above ring is certainly worn down a lot, but I suspect was originally fairly thin to begin with. You can often find a joint on rings like that where they were cut and soldered together.

I think this kind of silver wear and corrosion can take place surprisingly quickly.  I think that kind of corrosion can take place in a matter of a few decades.  If I remember, and I run across the examples I'm thinking of, I might post them in the next few days.

Not long ago (8/3/17 post) I showed a paper thin silver Roosevelt dime that was found on a beach.  It is shown below.  I have others that are literally paper thin, and when I say literally, I mean it.

Paper Thin Silver Dime.

My first possible reale find was what I would call a razor.

Obviously, some silver coins and rings are not as worn.  Some show very little silver loss.  The amount of corrosion and material loss depends to a large extent on exactly where it has been, how much the item as been tumbled in the sand and rough surf and how much air and salt water it has been exposed to.

I still don't know why divers almost never find silver rings on the 1715 Fleet.  I have shown one example attributed to a 1715 Fleet source by our state archaeologist, who also has documented silver rings to Spanish colonial archaeological sites.  I suspect that more than one factor is involved.

Some jewelry found on the Nieves site suggests the presence of a jeweler on board.  Incomplete pieces, as well as materials and jeweler's tools, have been found on that site.

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I hope I didn't make too many mistakes in this post.  I kept finding them, but I hope I got most of the typos corrected.

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Maybe in the near future I'll post more examples of the kind of thing I was talking about today.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

The low pressure area that has been hanging over Florida looks like it will become a tropical storm and skirt South and North Carolina.  We'll have a small surf for most of the week.

Havey looks to be headed towards Arkansas rather than going back out into the Gulf.  He won't affect us much.

There is still time to respond to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net