1/4/20 Report - Outlaw Remains Identified. Messages From Ancestors. Ephemera. Hand and Ink. Bigger Surf.

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

Source: See CNN link below.

(CNN)Bones discovered in an Idaho cave in 1979 and 1991 have been identified as the remains of Joseph Henry Loveless, a man who escaped from prison more than a century ago after being arrested for killing his wife. 

The identification, confirmed by the Clark County Sheriff's Office Tuesday, was initially made by non-profit volunteer organization DNA Doe Project, which said in a Facebook post that the "remains were preserved in the Buffalo Cave for as long as 63 years."...

Here is the link for more of the story.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/01/us/man-identified-100-years-later-trnd/index.html

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I mentioned how I am going to send a selection of old foreign coins to a child that seemed to be fascinated with a foreign coin that he found.  Susan B. commented on that and how she was affected by a gift of stamps that she received as a child.

Here is what she said.


When I was young, my father introduced us to stamp collecting. In my stamp book were black and white pages of pictures of stamps for all the countries in the world, and I remember the thrill when I placed my live stamp over the print one. There was a song I’d heard whose first verse said, “Far away places with strange sounding names...are calling, calling me.”

I’ve never lost that interest in what’s out there. That’s the gift you can give by sharing your collections.

Susan B.

Thanks Susan.

When I was once in the hospital as a child, I received a bag of unsorted stamps and a album to put them in.  I still have that stamp album as well as a few more.

Stamp collecting is very much like coin collecting.  Many of the same things apply, such as the importance or rarity and condition.  I found a couple inexpensive and partly filled stamp albums in thrift stores over the years.  I like old postcards too.

I guess I was a collector or treasure hunter long before I became a detectorist.  I liked looking through barns, sheds and attics and basements to find forgotten or lost treasures, and I found a lot of things that I treasure today, including a good selection of post cards, most of which document ancestors and family members that I never knew or only knew as a very young child.

Here is a small selection of New Year postcards that I picked up many years ago.  All were sent to one of my ancestors over one hundred years ago from his relatives.

New Year Post Cards Posted 1910 - 1913.

Today many of us can easily document our family tree by doing a little internet research.  We can get our DNA interpreted, but old post cards, letters and photographs give a more personal touch and add something you can't get any other way.  Like the coins we dig up, they allow us to touch a piece of the past.

Postcard Postmarked Dec. 29, 1912.

It appears somebody removed the stamp from this one.  I wonder if I did that.  Could be.

There is a movement in education to stop teaching cursive handwriting.  I know people will be using electronic signatures and typing on electronic devices rather than writing, but there are benefits to learning cursive.  Among those benefits are the aesthetic element, personal expression, developing eye/hand coordination, and being able to read old documents written in cursive.

Ink well to fountain pen and then to paper, you see the flow of hand and ink, then delivered from one rural home to another for one cent.

I feel fortunate that things like this postcard were saved rather than discarded.  I rescued some of them myself many years ago.  It provides detail to the family tree that DNA can not.

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John M. found this clump a couple days ago on a shipwreck beach and wondered what it might be.

Encrusted Clump Found by John M.

I told John I think it is probably an EO, encrusted iron object, and the iron might be pretty much dissolved.

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Sourcea: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Looks like we might be getting some higher surf before long.  The tides are flat today.

I'm still hoping someone will be able to learn something about the symbols on Steve's ring.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

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 16^th-18^th 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