5/17/19 Report - Coin Varieties and VAMs. A Submerged Archaic Period Site. 1715 Fleet Escudo Values.

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

Source: See VAM link below.

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If you are looking for one thing, you might find something else.  That was the case with a diver who was looking for fossils off Venice Florida in 2016.  21 feet under water, he found an Archaic Period burial pond site.  Here is an excert about that from the Herald Tribune (link below).

SARASOTA — Native Americans in the Archaic Period in Florida used the burial ground now known as the Manasota Key Offshore archeological site as far back as 8,000 years ago, Ryan Duggins told members of the Time Sifters Archaeological Society Wednesday evening in the Geldbart Auditorium at Selby Public Library.

Prior to this, previous activity at the site was thought to date back roughly 7,000 years.

Before the rising of the Gulf of Mexico, it was a shallow freshwater burial pond similar to Little Salt Springs in North Port...

Another bit from the same article...

“This demonstrates that we can have preservation of worked wood, of cordage of burials that have survived thousands of years of storms — It’s completely unprecedented.”...

See: https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20190516/ancient-burial-site-off-manasota-key-is-1000-years-older-than-estimated

Things can remain very much protected under sand or other materials for a long time and then suddenly be uncovered by the right set of circumstances.

It was an amateur fossil hunter that found and reported this site.  How often do we hear about  detectorists or people hunting for other kinds of treasure that make exciting archaeological discoveries?  It seems like it happens a lot, yet many in the archaeological community are always talking about looting rather than the assistance they get from the public.

https://dos.myflorida.com/historical/archaeology/projects/manasota-key-offshore/

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We normally only scratch the surface.  That applies to a lot of things, but it certainly applies to coin collecting.  People often begin by wanting one of each date.  Then they want an example from each mint too.  Then they start getting particular about the condition of their coins and want the finest coins they can get.

As detectorists, we usually don't get too deep into coin collecting.  We're  don't buy coins, and you can't systematically dig whole sets - certainly not in great condition, even though we might occasionally find some very nice caches that can make a good collection.

As detectorists, we do find a good number of coins and can benefit from knowing enough to recognize what coins might have extra value.  I suspect that we often fail to recognize coins (and other finds) that are more valuable than we wold have thought.

In addition to all of the date/mint combinations there are also a lot of coins that are valuable because of mint errors.  I didn't know hardly anything about mint errors until just the past couple of years.  I recently reported on a penny that was worth over $20,000 because of a mint error.

There are different types of doubling and some are not worth anything.  For example, doubling due to the die bouncing when it strikes the coin is called machine doubling.  It normally does not add any value to the coin.

Doubled die coins on the other hand can be worth a lot.  That type of doubling occurs when a doubled image is on the die that strikes the coin.

I wish I knew more about that type of thing years ago.  I could have found some valuable coins, and I maybe I would have enjoyed my finds even more.

I didn't find a lot of silver dollars over the years, but because of more recent finds, I'm just starting to learn about silver dollar VAMs.  Here is a definition of VAM.

Silver dollars are created by striking metal blanks with hardened dies containing the mirror image of the desired pattern. Through careful study, slight differences can be used to identify specific dies that created the coins. Sometimes these differences occur during the creation of the dies, while other times they are caused by the maintenance or use of the dies.

Source: http://ec2-13-58-222-16.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/VAM

VAMs are not obvious to the untrained eye.  You have to know what to look for, and for me, it requires magnification to see the small differences.

At the top of this post is a photo of a Peace silver dollar VAM.  The VAM is identified by the gouge and dot that the arrows are pointing to.

Just roughly I'd say there are more than a hundred different Peace Dollar VAMs.

Coin varieties and errors are something that you might want to look into.  A lot of people search and collect Lincoln cent varieties and errors.  You can get a hundred pennies to search through for only a dollar, and then turn in the ones that aren't anything special for an entirely new batch.  Or, you can just study your finds, digging the pennies instead of skipping them.  They can be valuable too.

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One of the first things a lot of detectorists want to know when they find something is how much it is worth.  We all know that something is only worth what somebody will pay for it, but how can you get an idea of what somebody will pay?  One thing I do is check the auction sites and other on-line sites where things are sold.  If you don't have a realized price auction list, you can still sometimes get a good idea from the auction estimates, especially when an quality experienced auctioneer is the source.

In the last Sedwick auction, for example, there were six 1715-Fleet Mexico cob 8-escudos listed together.  While some were better than others, or should I say, expected to bring a higher price than others, they didn't vary a lot.  If you looked at those estimates, you might conclude, as I did, that 1715-Fleet Mexico 8-escudos in good condition might be expected to bring a bit over six thousand dollars, on average.

I know that some of my readers aren't much interested in the auctions, but the auction catalogs are really a good source of information and can help answer a lot of common questions, of which value is only one.

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We have some decent tides now, but it looks like the surf will run around two feet for a week or so.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/6/18 Report - Studying Modern Coins to Better Understand Cobs. The Gold Rush of Georgia.

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

U. S. Penny Showing Distortion From Die Deterioration.

Yesterday I posted a picture of a half reale.  I chose that particular half reale because it is one of the better examples I have.  The cob is relatively complete and the surface in good condition.  I think you can see where the die was recut and where the die bounced, along with some other nice features that occurred with the die strike.  If a cob is too badly corroded you can't see all of that.  You can learn about some of those things by studying modern coins.  While modern coins are machine made, a planchet is still struck by a die and so there are some similarities.

Above you see distorted letters on a U. S. penny.  Although it can be difficult at times to tell the difference between damage that is done to a coin after it leaves the mint and distortions that occur when the coin is made, these distorted letters were made by using a die that was worn out.

Here is a dime showing distortion due to die deterioration.

U. S Die Showing Die Deterioration.

Notice the spread letters and also the lines flowing out towards the edge of the coin.  You might think this is corrosion or damage, but the lines show the worn condition of the die when the coin was made.

On the cob shown yesterday, I showed an area where I thought I could see where the die bounced and created a doubled image.  Here is an example of the same type of thing on a 1922 silver dollar.

Machine Doubling on 1922 Silver Dollar.

If you look closely at the numbers in the date, you'll see a doubled image.  That is not a doubled die error.  It is the result of what I would call die bounce.  It is not the kind of thing that results in valuable coins.  This kind of doubling is common.

As I was saying yesterday, when you look at a cob or coin, you will see the features carved on the die in negative.

2016 U. S. Nickel Showing Die Chips.

Although modern die are much better, they work about the same way.  They wear out, crack and break.  Small breaks in a die leaves chips on a coin.  I'm sure the same thing happened with the old iron Spanish colonial die.

The above picture shows three die chips on a 2016 nickel.  Die chips are common and do not generally increase the value of a coin.

A chip is a small break.  A break larger than 4 square millimeters is more significant.  That would more often be referred to as a die break rather than a die chip.

My point today is that if you study modern coins, some of the things you learn will help you better study and appreciate the cobs that you find.  It can also make modern coin finds more interesting and perhaps help you find a valuable coin.

I just began to studying modern coins more closely a few months ago and am finding it much more complicated than I expected but also very interesting.  I'm still very much a novice on modern coin errors and varieties.

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Here is an excerpt from a pdf document entitled Origens of the North Georgia Gold Rush by H. David Williams.

That is the most widely repeated story of the discovery of gold in Georgia.  As with most treasure tales, there are questions remaining.  Treasure finds are often not made public, and when they are you still have to wonder how much is true.  Treasure hunters don't always want the world to know the location of their discovery, and they either don't tell, or if they do tell, don't tell it all the way it was.  And there is always the chance that some of the story gets lost or distorted in the retelling.

This article covers other possible earlier discoveries and more of the story.  Here is another brief excerpt.

Sorry the edge curls down, but that is the way it copied.  It is a interesting article that you will probably want to read.

Here is the link.

https://archives.columbusstate.edu/gah/1988/161-168.pdf

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Nothing new in the Atlantic and nothing new with beach conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net