5/12/17 Report - Custom-Made and Hand-Struck Fine Cob Replicas. Great Information On Gordon Cooper and the Cooper's Treasure TV Show.

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

Yesterday I mentioned that you can get cobs made according to your specifications.  The die and cobs are made using the same methods used in colonial days.  The result is a very nice hand-struck replica.

The name of the business making these replicas is the St. Augustine Mint.  I'm not sure where it is located though.

Here is the link where you can learn about either buying replica cobs or having your own made.

http://saintaugustinemint.bigcartel.com/products

There is also a YouTube video that shows how these replicas are made from an ingot or planchet.

Here is that link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifFQY9FxXc8

I wondered about this, but towards the end of the YouTube video it is said that a small "COPY" mark is added.

I've seen fake coins (not from this business) on which the COPY mark was so small or well disguised that it was very difficult find.  COPY marks can also be reduced or removed.  I've seen that before too.

These replicas are beautiful, and if one ended up on the beach or in your scoop, you might not recognize it as a fake at first glance, especially if it was out there long enough to corrode a little. Otherwise it would look too good, perhaps still showing lustre.

I recommend that you check out the YouTube video.

I can't fault anyone who wants to make a replica for any of a variety of good honest reasons.  As a metal detectorist it is possible to dig up the real thing, but you might also pick up a very good replica or very poor copies or even what you might call fantasy pieces or play money.

It is sometimes fairly easy to identify a cast copy, but a well made and aged hand-struck replica might be more difficult.  It would not present some of the tell-tale signs common to a cast copy, such as a seam.

Replicas, such as those sold by the Mel Fisher museum, have been found on the beach.

If you found one of these fine mint replicas on a beach, the first indication you might notice is that it looks to good too be real.  It could be too shiny, and the ones I've seen in the pictures are more complete than what you will likely find on a beach.  They mentioned that the die for one replica required referring to several different real examples because any single real cob, unless it is a "royal" will be missing some of the design.  Real cobs typically do no show the complete design because of low spots in the surface, or because of the irregular shape of the cob or poor striking.  And corrosion can reduce a real beach cob by 30 percent or more.

The weight of these replicas is not what a genuine newly minted cob should be either.  They tell you that in the video.

By the way, as I've said before, although beach found cobs are often not the correct weight, weighing a found cob can still help you determine if it might be real or fake.  It should fall within certain limits if it is real and made of either gold or silver.

I think I am fairly good at identifying a newly dug cob in the field at first glance.  The last one I found showed absolutely no detail.  It was totally encrusted, yet it just looked like a cob to me.

If not totally encrusted, silver beach cobs will typically have a very characteristic grey or black color. They will clearly show the effect of weathering and salt water.

It might be worth looking at the web site and video, especially if you do not know how cobs were originally made.

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It never ceases to amaze me.  I hear from real experts all the time, and they provide really great information.

As you know, I've been mentioned the Cooper's Treasure TV show a few times lately and conducted a poll to see how people felt about that TV show and a few other shows.

I just heard from James Oberg, a retired rocket scientist and author, who was a colleague of Gene Kranz, who I mentioned yesterday.

James wrote two articles about Gordon Cooper and the TV show.  Both articles were published in The Space Review.  Below are the links.

“The magic MacGuffin of Mercury 9”

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3228/1

I think you'll enjoy reading both of those.  They are packed with good information.

The first article debunks the "secret sensor" and the "five thousand photos" claims.

The second bears the title, Loss of Faith -- Gordon Cooper's post-NASA stories.  

I really enjoyed both.

James Oberg also pointed out that "Cooper's flight-annotated ‘flight plan’ was sold at auction last year,

there is no mention of any latitude/longitude observations of any surface anomalies in the catalog description."

The following was posted by James on various comment threads.  So far he has recieved no substantial reply.

I need some help figuring out how Cooper did the map. This is the best I can do reconstructing the scenario but I must have missed or misunderstood something important. As I see it, Cooper’s only opportunity for a near-overhead daytime view of the Turks & Caicos area was on the 4th orbit, when he was talking to the Cape Canaveral Capcom [Wally Schirra] between 04:40:04 [HH:MM:SS] as he passed over Houston, to 04:45:52, for 5m 48 s [traveling about 1740 miles] or slightly more…. The ‘as-the-crow-flies’ distance of Houston to ‘Turks and Caicos’ is 1530 miles, so by the time the comm link was lost he was hundreds of miles past the islands. As the voice transcripts show, he was busy talking about spacecraft systems and experiments [such as a flashing beacon sub-satellite just jettisoned for visual tracking tests] the entire pass. He turns the in-cabin television camera on. They discuss emergency landing opportunities, how much he had eaten, and medical samples. Towards the end of the pass Cooper describes the view of Florida, indicating his small window is pointed north rather than straight down as would be needed to be eyeballing the islands passing beneath him. The suggestion he ALSO has secretly turned the window down and is surreptitiously scribbling hidden notes about what he observes near the islands doesn't seem to fit in. A day later he follows the same track but is deep into preparations to fire retrorockets to return to Earth, so no sightseeing either. When did he spot the anomalies and log them?

Thanks much James.  I appreciate the information.  I also think I'll become a reader of The Space Review.

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I've noticed that the Cooper's Treasure posts in this blog are still popular and get a lot of readers.

We're still having a small surf on the Treasure Coast.

It won't be long until the salvage season heats up.  I hope things go better in the water than they have on the beach so far this year.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/14/15 Report - Ancient Irish Gold Discoveries. El Nino Keeping Hurricanes Away. Fake Cobs. Detecting In The Sewers.

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

Gold Lunula and Disks

...By hammering gold into thin sheets and then forming it into objects such as sun disks, beads, oval plaques, and lunulas, or crescent-shaped neck ornaments decorated with geometric motifs, they created what were to become the most iconic gold artifacts of the early Irish Bronze Age (2200–1800 B.C.). Some 100 lunulas have been discovered by archaeologists, with more than 80 from Ireland alone, and much more early Bronze Age gold has been unearthed in Ireland than in nearby countries...

...Standish’s team conducted lead-isotope and major-element analyses, which measure concentrations of tin, silver, and copper, on more than 50 early Bronze Age gold artifacts to match their elemental signatures to gold sources in Ireland. Surprisingly, the composition of the manufactured gold products did not match any known Irish gold sources, even though there are a number of locally accessible deposits.

The above picture and quotes are from the following web site if you want to read the entire article.

http://archaeology.org/issues/188-1509/trenches/3578-trenches-bronze-age-ireland-gold

Of course you can use the same type of analysis to try to determine the source of the gold in manufactured gold coins too.

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Maybe you've been hearing about El Nino lately.  This year the El Nino effect is unusually strong.

...Forecasts from agencies around the world continue to indicate that this El Niño could be among the strongest ever recorded in the months to come, which will have widespread implications, possibly including keeping the Atlantic hurricane season suppressed. In fact, NOAA just released a forecast that called for a 90 percent probability of a below normal season. It was the highest confidence forecast for a below-normal season that the agency has ever issued, since forecasts began in 1998...

It is also supposed to make for a hard winter up north this year.

Here is a good article abot that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/08/12/where-are-the-hurricanes-el-nino-keeps-a-tight-lid-on-the-atlantic-season/

It certainly has been a long time without any storms or rough waves on the Treasure Coast.  We might have another winter with very little wave activity.  I don't want any hurricanes but I sure would like to see some nice storms.

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Tony (Penzfan) found these on a beach back in early April.  He says they appear to be replicas.

Although it can be difficult to judge from pictures, I'd also say they are replicas.  First, note the ridges around the outside of the coin.  That is the most obvious thing to me in these pictures.  Also they are very round for Mexico mint cobs, and that is the design.   

Fakes can be disappointing.  I've seen some that are very convincing.  And some that were very obvious.  

Look at any suspicious cobs carefully to see if you can find a small or inconspicuous "Copy" or "Replica" stamped on them.  Sometimes the mark is there, but it can be hard to find.

You can often tell by look if they aren't silver or gold.  Sometimes they will have a layer that peels,  sometimes they will be made of lead or other pot metal.

A gold/silver test kit is always a good idea.  If you don't have one, you can get a jeweler or pawn shop to test items for you.

I can usually tell silver from many other metals by simply rubbing it on a touchstone or something similar.  Some metals will squeak.  Silver rubs more smooth and soft.

There are a lot of fakes out there.  They can be a big disappointment at first, but you can learn to identify them by look fairly well.

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Three men were arrested for treasure hunting in the sewers under New York.  They spent four hours with metal detectors in the sewer system.  There are no details on what they were hunting.

I'd be interested in learning more about what they were up to.

Here is the link I received from Chris S.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/08/13/sewer-treasure-hunt-flatbush/

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We've been having a lot of thunder showers lately.  Nothing that would affect beach detecting conditions though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/18/11 Report - Full Moon High Tides & Fake Cob Resources

Typical Treasure Coast Beach This Morning

The newest TV rage seems to be all of those shows about antiques, pickers, auctions and the like. If you watch those shows, you know how much some people have stored away in all types of odd places. I just ran across a story where removal men found a cache of coins in an old oven. Other things that were found in the estate of the deceased history teacher included ingots, sovereigns, fossils, Neolithic and Bronze Age arrow heads, arms and armour and medieval manuscripts. and a World War II bomb, grenade and a German gas canister that caused the bomb squad to be brought in. It seems he had a bit of everything.

Here is the link to the original story.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-11619770

Sometimes I mention or show Spanish Colonial coins that are being sold on eBay. I've also mentioned how many fakes there are and how careful you have to be. I don't really recommend buying treasure coins on eBay unless you really know what you are doing. If you do decide to buy coins on eBay you might want to check out some of the following resources that can help you avoid mistakes.

Coin Forgery eBay.
CoinForgeryDiscussionList
Moneta-L.
Fake Ancient Coin Reports and Discussion
Forvm Ancient Coins.
Fake Ancient Coin Reports
ForgeryNetwork.

Here is the link to the article where I found these resources. It provides more detail on all of those resources.

http://www.cointalk.com/t67944/


After showing some spikes recently, I received some additional questions about how to treat such things. One of the best resources for information on cleaning and conserving nautical artifacts is the following.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/crl/conservationmanual/

You will find information on how to treat all kinds of materials in this manual.

Unfortunately conservation of such materials is not always simple, but you have to do it right if you don't want your finds to deteriorate over time.

The same thing is a problem in museums where things were stored before so much was known about the need for proper conservation.


Conditions and Forecast.

Beach conditions remain poor for finding shipwreck cobs and treasure coins on the beach. I saw a lot of seaweed on the beaches. That is a bad sign that tells you that light materials, including sand, are building up on the beach.

There weren't any shells or shell piles, although I did find one piece of a stray pot shard.

Even though the water levels got pretty high at the last high tide, it wasn't high enough to hit the back dunes.

Full Moon Last Night - Tide Mover.

(Its hard to get a good full moon photo.)


The one good thing about calm seas that build beaches, is that the water is often calm enough for shallow water detecting.

Remember when the sand is building at one place, it is leaving another. Where you want to be is where the sand just left.


The full moon scrambles my brain too. It makes me creative but messes with my writing.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net