1/15/20 Report - One Thing That Can Make It More Difficult To ID the Date of Dug Items. Dug Coin Revealed As Fake. More Surf.

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

Winged Liberty Head Imprint.

It can be difficult to tell what an item is and how old it is when you dig it up.  We might have a first impression that tells us that the item is old or that it is modern.  But those two terms are very general and we might not know precisly how old the item is, and our impressions can be way off.

Bot "modern" and "old" are very general terms that might mean different things to different people.  You might even use them differently at different times.  When I say an item is modern, I'm usually thinking that it is 20th century or later, but that can vary.

In the absence of any definitive marks, when it comes to estimating an item's age I think most people look first at wear and deterioration.  That is the first and most obvious thing you will see.  An old item will generally look worn or corroded, but that really doesn't tell you much.  Appearances can be very misleading.

Many years ago I thought that items that are hundreds of years old would look crude or primitive, but I learned that many really old items were very skillfully and wonderfully made, at times being every bit as nice as the finest modern items.  If an item looked too good, I could have mistakenly dismissed it as being more modern.  I probably made some mistakes like that.

It does take some time for items to wear down or corrode, but that process can take place very rapidly or very slowly, so the amount of wear or corrosion can be a very poor indicator of age.

The environment can have a lot to do with how quickly an item corrodes.  Coins will corrode faster in salt water environments than fresh water, for example.  I was always impressed by how well silver coins held up in the cold fresh water lakes of the north.  And coins buried in the acidic soil around mangroves, on the contrary, corroded very rapidly.  Nearby items can also accelerate corrosion or protect an item from corrosion.

Buried items can become encrusted.  At the top of this post is an imprint of an winged liberty head.  The imprint is in a clay coating that encased a mercury dime that I once dug up.  After finding the coin, I took it home and placed it in Muriatic acid to clean it.  The Muriatic acid appeared to have absolutely no effect at all on the crust or coin.  I tried a stronger solution and left it longer, but the crust was completely resistant to the acid and completely protected the coin no matter how long I left it in the acid.

The imprint you see at the top of this post is on the inside surface of the crust that was removed from one side of the dime.  The other side of the dime and the edges were completely coated too.

Outside Surface of the Crust Removed From The Same Dime.

When the crust was removed, other than discoloration, the Mercury dime was still in great condition and looked very much like it probably looked when it was lost.  The protective crust protected the dime very well until the crust was manually removed.

Here is another example.  I've used this example before.  It really shows how an item can be protected by a crust.

Here is how one side looked when it was dug (below).  It actually wasn't so much dug as scooped up from the rushing water that was bouncing off an eroding cut.

Heavily Encrusted Side of Half Reale.

That shell/sand crust was very hard and strongly attached to the surface of the coin.  I couldn't budge it mechanically without doing damage to the coin.  Muriatic acid did the job though.

Here is the extremely well preserved surface that was revealed when the crust was removed.

Surface of the Cleaned Coin That Was Protected by the Crust.

The details on the side that was protected by a crust are unusually nice and sharp.  The other side of the half reale had no protective crust when I picked it up.  Here is the other side, which is not much different than it appeared when it was taken out of the scoop.

Same Reale  

Side That Did Not Have a Protective Crust.

You can see that the edges, which were not covered by the crust are worn and the side that was not covered by the crust is not nearly as clear as the details on the side that was covered. If you go by the amount of wear or corrosion alone, one side looks older than the other.

Time alone does not cause an item to look older or newer.  It depends upon where the item was and what happened to it.  An item lost hundreds of years ago can easily look newer than an item that is actually very new.  How well an item is preserved depends upon the material, the environment, and how the item reacts to the environment.  An item can appear to age either very quickly or not hardly at all.  You can not judge the age of an item with any precision from the amount of wear or corrosion, even though that is what we usually tend to do.

Today I gave two examples of items that were protected to some extent by protective encrustation.  In the future, I plan to present other examples illustrating other things that can radically affect the apparent age of a beach find.

Items that are hundreds of years old can look days old and other items can deteriorate very rapidly, making them look much older than they are.

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Yesterday I showed a Facebook photo of a find by a Tom J. who was visiting the Treasure Coast and found what looked like a reale.  Although the photo was not real clear, I thought I could see a raised edge on the object that made it look incorrect.   I didn't have the entire text of the Facebook page yesterday, but DJ sent me the rest of the text, so I'll present that now.

So the bottom line is that Tom J.'s find is a fake treasure coin.  Don't you wonder how they end up on the beach?  I think some are souvenirs that are lost just like many of the other things we find.  I think others might be put out to entertain children who want to play pirate.  And perhaps others are meant to fool someone.

Thanks to DJ.

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Looks like we'll get another bump in the surf - but only for one day.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Too bad the wind will be mostly east/southeast.

I'll be talking more about corrosion on coins, Kang Hsi shards, Aztec gold and a variety of other topics that I've already started.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/13/18 Report - Mexico Half Reale With P Assayer and Nice Monogram. Coin Patinas and Crust.

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

Mexican Half Reale With Mint Mark.

Yesterday I showed a very small half reale. Here is one that is closer to normal size. It was found during the same November 2013 hunt as the small one.

If you look closely at this one, you will see the mint mark and assayer initial. Just to the left of the bottom half of the big P is the M mint mark over the assayer initial of P. This is not the most common assayer initial for the 1715 Fleet. More common would be the OMJ mark, which I showed some examples of in the past few weeks.

This cob does not show a date,but we can narrow it down to somewhere between 1634 to 1665, when this assayer initial was used. It would have been minted during the reign of Philip IV.

According to Sewall Menzell, "Assayer P worked as a lieutenant for Sebastian Carrillo Madonado and possibly others." The name of assayer P is unknown.

Here is the basic design of the monogram during this time.  

Source: Sewall Menzel's
Cobs, Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins.

You can also narrow down the date of a half reale from the monogram.

This particular cob gives a good view of much of the monogram but the crown is missing.

Here is the other side of the same cob.

Other Side of Same Mexican Half Reale.

A good part of this side is covered with a thin encrustation.

I'll show another half reale with nice monogram from the same hunt as well as a one reale in the near future.

That is the second of four cobs found during a November 2013 hunt.

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I've started thinking about patina's and how they can be classified.  So far it seems to me that useful descriptions would include color, thickness, coverage, and coarseness or consistency.

The two sides of a coin can have very different types of patina.  I believe that happens when the coin remains in place for a long time in the same position.

When I get a system of classification developed, then it might be possible to correlate the patina with some variables about a coin's composition and history.  I already believe that I can tell a little about where a coin has been from it's patina.

Some coins are covered by a very hard thin layer such as that seen on the left side of the above cob, others are covered by a crust composed of pieces of shell or sand.  The cob above has a few of those.

I'd like to hear what you might add to the classification scheme.

Here are two coins with different color patinas.

Patinas of Different Colors.

And here is a thick patina composed of coarse sand and shell.

Thickly Encrusted Coin.

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Chris is now gone and what is left of Beryl is out in the Atlantic up by North Carolina.

On the Treasure Coast we'll have a one to two foot surf for a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/29/15 Report - A Treasure Coast Beach Find. Black Sand. Decreasing Surf This Week.

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

Item Shown Yesterday After Being Partially Cleaned.

The crust on this partly cleaned cob was not only thick but also very hard and stubborn.   It was like stone.

You can clearly see the mint mark in the upper left.  The reale is from Potosi.

The denomination is also clearly shown on the coin (top center) - more clearly than the picture shows. It is a 1 reale.

In the middle row is PLV SVL.  Next to that, which you can't see on this coin, would be TRA.

That would indicate Plus Ultra, meaning "more beyond" and referring to the New World.

In the bottom row is a connected VR, the mark of assayer Pedro de Villar, who used that mark from 1684 through 1696.

Next to that you can only see part of the date, which in better lighting, appears to me to be 92, for 1692, although I am not sure of that, especially the second digit.

The other side is not clean enough to read at all yet.  It might reveal the date.

These are suppose to be 3.43 grams.  This one is nearer 2.5 grams.

As I've shown before, beach found silver cobs are typically way under weight.

This cob also shows a planchet crack, which is typical (top) of the reales from this mint and time period.

I don't know how long it will take me to get the crust off of the other side.

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Some people have trouble detecting over black sand.  You'll find good targets in black sand that were missed by other people.

The amount of trouble you have with black sand will depend to some extent upon the type of detector you are using and your settings.  Generally, you will have less problems with black sand if you slow down your sweep speed.  Also sweep with the sand instead of over narrow strips and edges.

I like to see back sand and take it as a good sign.

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We had about a 5 - 8 foot surf today.  It will be about 4 - 6 feet tomorrow, and down to around 2 feet by Thursday.

Just as important, the wind, which was a little northeast today, will be shifting around and later this week be coming out of the south.

I'm sticking with my 2 beach detecting conditions rating for now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net