Showing posts with label Coopers Treasure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coopers Treasure. Show all posts

Monday, March 12, 2018

3/12/18 Report - Fakes, Forgeries, Experts: Message in Bottle and Christopher Columbus' Anchor.


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

On 3/9 I posted a story about an old bottle with a message inside.  Some people now think that it was a hoax conducted by a marketeer.  Jalopnik. com casts suspicion on the story.  They say, But not everyone is on board with the finding, since WAtoday reports that Kym Illman is a known businessperson and “ambush marketeer"” in the Perth area. Radio hosts said some people think the Illmans’ discovery could be an elaborate marketing scheme for Wedge Island, and Perth Now reports that Kym Illman admitted people would have probably expected the old message to be in much worse shape than it was in after more than a century and time at sea...

Here is the link.

https://jalopnik.com/did-f1-driver-daniel-ricciardo-s-parents-fake-finding-t-1823616430

Speaking of questionable media.  I never felt comfortable with the truthfulness of the Cooper's Treasure TV show.  They are now claiming that they found Christopher Columbus' anchor.  Here is what they are saying.

Experts have used a “space treasure map” to make a remarkable discovery in the Caribbean -- a centuries-old anchor believed to be from one of Christopher Columbus’ ships.

Analysis of the anchor, which was found off the Turks and Caicos islands, reveals that it dates to between 1492 and 1550. The overall size of the anchor and its estimated weight of between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds indicates that it was a “bower” anchor from a 300-ton vessel, the typical size of a Columbus-era ship...


Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/05/02/experts-discover-christopher-columbus-anchor-at-caribbean-shipwreck-site.html

To me, it seems too easy to make such claims and very difficult to prove them.

 The term "expert" is being used very loosely on reality TV and in the attention seeking media these days.  It seems to be what you call someone when they need one but don't have one.  If you can't convince me with the evidence or your reasoning, calling someone an expert isn't going to convince me of anything.  Present the evidence and let it speak for itself.

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A famed archaeologist well-known for discovering the sprawling 9,000-year-old settlement in Turkey called Çatalhöyük seems to have faked several of his ancient findings and may have run a "forger's workshop" of sorts, one researcher says.

James Mellaart, who died in 2012, created some of the "ancient" murals at Çatalhöyük that he supposedly discovered; he also forged documents recording inscriptions that were found at Beyköy, a village in Turkey, said geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger, president of the Luwian Studies Foundation. Zangger examined Mellaart's apartment in London between Feb. 24-27, finding "prototypes," as Zangger calls them, of murals and inscriptions that Mellaart had claimed were real...

And here is that link.

https://www.livescience.com/61989-famed-archaeologist-created-fakes.html?utm_source=notification

Just because he was a well-known expert, doesn't mean he was always honest or right.

Archaeologists often criticize treasure hunting because treasure hunters sell artifacts and "profit" from their activities.  Many treasure hunters actually do it for other reasons, and most archaeologists make a career out  of archaeology.  They make money from their professional activities and advance their careers by making discoveries and then they sell their books, which are filled with information obtained while working for the tax-paying public.  If they want to remove the danger and evil of profit from archaeology, they should become amateur archaeologists.

This article also brings up the topic of how difficult it can be to identify and date items with certainty.  I'll have some more about that in upcoming posts.

I get a lot of photos of finds that people want to have identified.  There are inexpensive and simple techniques that can be used to answer many questions.

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I should note, as Sebastian Steve told me, that there were many other prizes of equal value to Steve's awarded at Saturday's TCAS hunt.

Good job TCAS!

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It is a nice cloudy morning.  I really prefer clouds to burning sunshine.

The wind is from the west and the surf is only about two feet.  The tides are still pretty flat too.  It might be a decent day to get in the water.  I always say that when conditions aren't right for one type of hunting, they will be right for another.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Thursday, May 11, 2017

5/11/17 Report - TV Show Poll Results and More. Space Treasure and Collectibles. Custom Made Cobs.


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

The poll has concluded and the results are in.  I think the poll could have been constructed better, but it worked.  One person said I should have had a "none of the above" answer.  That is a good idea.  Maybe I should have done that.  There were other possibilities as well.

The sample size was good.  Over fifty people responded.

Here are the poll results on the perceived "realness" or "trustworthiness" of each of the four TV shows.

Bearing Sea Gold
  20 (38%)
Cooper's Treasure
  3 (5%)
Curse of Oak Island
  9 (17%)
Gold Rush
  20 (38%)


The amazing thing to me is how precisely the results matched my own feelings.   The poll respondents put the shows in exactly the same order that I would, and the relative number of votes for each show reflected how I felt about the shows.

Bering Sea Gold and Gold Rush were selected as being the most real or trustworthy by the same number of people, and both of those shows received more than twice the number of votes received by either of the other shows.

I also had a hard time deciding which of those two I trusted most.  It was a toss up.  I like Bering Sea gold better, but that has nothing to do my feeling about it being more real.

Coming in third was the Curse of Oak Island show.  That is where I would put it too. I think it is an interesting, even with all of its short-comings.  I can watch it, even with all of the dramatization and baiting.

And dead last in trustworthiness according to the poll results was the Cooper's Treasure show, which, as I think I said before, almost makes me feel like I need to take a shower after watching a few minutes.

It seems that there are a lot of people that feel the same.  That was my feeling from the first few minutes, and I wondered if everybody else felt that way.  Evidently many did.

For me the meeting between Darrell Miklos and Gene Kranz said it all.  Darrell had obviously misled Gene about the purpose or topic of the meeting in order to arrange a meeting, and then tried to get Gene to say something about the topic of treasure. Gene didn't appreciate being misled and put an abrubt end to the meeting and walked off.

Below is a link to an article on the Cooper's Treasure program by Variety, an entertainment publication, and even they address what I would call ethics issues.  That article starts with the following.

The poorly kept secret of unscripted TV is that it is, in general, rather scripted. Ari Mark and Phil Lott, co-founders of production company AMPLE, are looking to affix that “un-” back where it belongs.
“Our generation, you’re at a point where you want to believe in things,” Mark tells Variety. “Everything in your life is fake, and especially in our genre.”

Here is that link.
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/coopers-treasure-discovery-ample-darrell-miklos-1202011043/

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I've made several references to space lately, ranging from meteorites to rocket parts.  Occasionally people discover what appear to be melted metal from Shuttle launches on the Treasure Coast.  I've written about that, provided tips on how to test that metal to distinguish it from melted aluminum and reported on some people who talked to NASA to verify that their finds were related to space shots.

On May 7 it was reported that  The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B mini-space plane has landed after a record 718 days in Earth orbit, touching down for the first time on the Florida runway historically used by NASA's space shuttles.

I've said before that someday people will be salvaging space vehicles and debris similar to how shipwrecks are salvaged now.  In fact there is a space vehicle that orbits while collecting space junk to turn into fuel that it can use.  Interesting idea.

I recently heard it said (I think it was on TED) that if you want a new idea, read an old book.  I agree with that, but there are other ways to get new ideas too.  Creativity is stimulated by reading broadly.

Here is the link if you want to read the article about the vehicle that vacuums up space junk to use as fuel.

Continuing on the subject of space, there is a good web site that offers a wide variety of "space collectibles."  Here is the link.

http://www.collectspace.com/

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Did you know that there is a company that will manufacture cobs that are hand struck from die that are  custom made?  They hand strike them on planchets.  You can send them the silver after I investigate it more.

I'll have more on that in the future.

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We're supposed to have a couple weeks of one or two foot surf on the Treasure Coast.  No change in beach conditions expected.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net