5/1/14 Report - Flash Flooding, More Beach Observations, Old Maps and Sedwick Auction Goes Live

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



I recently posted some links to articles about discoveries over in the Gulf Coast area.  I used to hunt that area fairly frequently, especially around Pensacola.

They are now having flash flooding over there (see photo here).  That could uncover some old earth and artifacts.

The Pensacola News Journal reports the following.

 About 23,700 people are without power in Escambia County and 1,300 in Santa Rosa. Gulf Power is still evaluating how long it will take to get power restored.

Here is the link.

http://www.pnj.com/story/weather/2014/04/29/weather-alerts-flooding-hazardous-weather/8448465/

Not only have I been talking about the Gulf Coast area but also about checking any newly exposed or disturbed earth.  I can guarantee old things will be uncovered by flooding like this.

It looks like we will be getting thunder storms on the Treasure Coast Friday and Saturday.


Yesterday I was talking about sitting at the beach and observing.  Clint L. sent me a long email.  I'll post the part that relates to that now.

Here is what Clint said.

I decided to spend a week at the beach WATCHING…People and their actions., waves and their actions, seaweed etc.

What I saw was this: Women would stand in waist deep water in fall/winter waves and get blasted midsection and the reaction of throwing their arms up and outward caused watches, bracelets and rings to pop off and go out in the water. Guys would perform sumersaults off buddies shoulders and large necklaces would come off.

 I stood at the waters edge at Lake Worth Beach  and watched waves for hours…if a wave comes straight in and straight out, I did not see anything except herringbone necklaces (eye sight)  washing up the beach slope and looking like a yellow pencil and then rolling back on the wave retreat. I would snatch these up immediately. They were always straight where the smallest sand particles would lock them in a straight position. I found Necklaces with Gold Maltese Crosses, Eagles, etc by eying the beach and would see about 3 to 6 inches of chain moving with the waves and grab it . People would walk right by this stuff and not be aware of it.

If a wave comes in at an angle, and creates a crescentic motion, coins, medallions and other flat things would actually surf in and drop out at the peak of the wave…yes, in a 15 minute period,  I watched 3 quarters, 2 nickels, and a dime size St. Christopher in 14k drop at my feet.

I found small gold and silver chains by SIGHT wrapped up in the sea wrack at high tide zone.

 

I'll post other parts of Clint's email some other time.  His detecting goes back quite a number of years and includes the famous storm of 1984 among others.



The first session of the SedwickCoins treasure auction will begin this morning (5/1/14) at 10:00 EDT.

Gold cobs will be auctioned first.

Here is the link.

http://auction.sedwickcoins.com/auctionlist.aspx



You can find some really good research materials on Ancestry.com.   Here is a map that I found useful - just as one example.

Notice towards the upper left corner where I circled the Old Miller Block House.  An Indian massacre took place there.

The map is an 1870 land use map, and it is very useful.   All of those old buildings and farms are good potential detecting sites.

As I've said before you can join Ancestry.com for a free trial period.  You'll be amazed by all the good research resources.


On the Treasure Coast the surf will be up to about four feet today and tomorrow maybe another foot or so higher.  Unfortunately the wind and swells are still coming from the South.

Don't forget to respond to the blog poll.


You might enjoy watching the bidding on the auction today.  It goes fast.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/29/14 Report - Gold Religious Medallion, Early Gulf Coast Settlement, and Genealogical Research

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

Gold Religious Medallion Find

This medallion is larger than most and is intricate.  You can see the remains of a black encrustation that has been partly removed. 



When I first posted yesterday's post there were a lot of problems with it.  Fortunately I went back later and fixed some of the problems.

One big thing was that I originally left out of the post was a link to a great article on the earliest European Gulf Coast settlement.  I put it in later, but in case you missed it, here it is.

http://archeologyink.com/LaRuaBluff.pdf

Below is an excerpt from that article.

Fig. 16: During the 1940s several young boys were roaming along the shoreline
of a peninsula jutting into Pensacola Bay . They had learned how to find
artifacts. The railroad crews would come down the line on occasion and dig
out the banks to protect the tracks. When it rained the kids would scour the
exposed banks for artifacts. On one day, they found a coin which dated to the
time of the Tristan de Luna colony. One the kids, Harry Bonifay, found it.
The coin and the area are figured in the next few pages. Sixty something
years later marine archeologists found two shipwrecks of the period just
offshore from the same bayshore.

It says the kids checked newly disturbed soil.  I've recommended checking any disturbed soil many times in this blog.  

The kids also knew to check after rain.  That is another strategy that I've mentioned before.  Those are two good reminders.

Curren, as contrasted with the quotes I gave a couple of days ago from the shipwreck articles reveals a much more constructive style and approach.  He gives even children recognition for their finds and treats the public as a part of the process.  That is exactly the approach that will promote and advance the field of study.

Below is another good tip found in the same article

Fig. 18: ...  The coin was found in a dredge spoil pile near the mouth of Bayou

Texar.

Most often you'll find junk, such as mangled aluminum cans in dredged material, however there are times when more interesting things are found in dredged material.  There have been times when interesting old materials have been found in dredged material in Southeast Florida and the Treasure Coast. 

Thanks to Caleb Curren, author of archaeologink.com and that particular article. 


I would encourage you once again to do some genealogical research.  I've learned a lot of history through research into my own ancestors.   One line goes back to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in the 1640s.  Of course that was after the Mayflower.  One thing I found particularly interesting is that John Greenleaf Whittier actually wrote a ballad about one of my ancestors.  She was said to be the first white woman sold into slavery in America.  Her crime was not exactly, but basically being too friendly to the Quakers.  The sea captains refused to take to Virginia or Barbados to be sold though.  It might have had something to do with the fact that her father was a boat carpenter.  She did spend time in leg stocks.  Anyhow, the ballad is Cassandra, which is actually her mother's name.

Along another ancestral line was a Ranger in the Revolutionary War that fought Indians in the Ohio Valley.  He was captured, escaped, swam the river, etc. etc.  It was a violet time on both sides, and both sides actually collected scalps.  With all the political correctness these days, I was surprised to learn how violent and brutal it actually was. 

It can be really interesting when you put enough time into the research to locate ancestors which were written about in detail like that. 

Those are only two of the things that I found most interesting.  I was lucky to be able to locate so much material.  I'm sure you can find some interesting things about your ancestry too.  The most interesting thing would be to go to some of those areas and do a detector search where your ancestors lived.  It really makes the history come alive.


On the Treasure Coast the wind picked up around noon and white caps formed on the river. 

We are still having high high tides, but the surf is still small.

A 3 - 5 foot surf is predicted for Wednesday.  That is a little increase.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/28/14 Report - Grading Cobs, Two Sources of Beach Cobs, Earliest Settlement on the Gulf Coast

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

Thin Piece of Unidentifiable
Silver Found Years Ago
On a Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beach

You probably noticed that I started a new poll on the blog.  The poll will tell us what people are doing or not doing these days.


To the left is a photo of what might be called a razor.  It is silver and is the first shipwreck silver I found on a Treasure Coast shipwreck beach back probably around thirty years ago. 

I wasn't living on the Treasure Coast and drove a couple hours to give it a shot.  I had made to trips to the Treasure Coast a few times before with no luck.

I could tell you within a very few yards exactly where it was dug even after all these years.  I dug it up and my wife took it out of the scoop and started to through it away.  I told her to hold onto it.

I took it home and not knowing what it was yet, tested it with acid.  It turned out to be silver.  For a while I thought it might be a thin severely worn cob.  Today I do not think it is.  Since I found that first silver piece, I found other silver pieces that are definitely not cobs in the same area as well as cobs, all within a few yards of the same spot.

After seeing many more pieces of silver from the same area, both cobs and not, I feel fairly confident  that it is not a worn cob but a piece of some other silver item.

The reason I'm showing it today is as an example.

Cobs are typically graded on a five point scale.  Grade One cobs are almost like new.  Both sides are in good to excellent condition with no pitting or corrosion.  The details are well defined and the features of the design are as struck.

Remember that with cobs, there might be some areas where details are not present because they weren't struck on the original planchete and there may be flat or poorly defined areas as a result of the original strike rather than from wear or corrosion.

Grade Two cobs clearly show most of the details of the original strike and the design features are easily seen but due to exposure there is obvious wear and deterioration of the surface.  Despite the wear the cob is still in good condition.

Grade Three cobs show very apparent wear but still have easily identified features and fairly good definition.  One side might be much better than the other.  You might describe those as being in fair condition.

The following photo is not the best, but it shows what might be a grade three cob (on the left).  It shows the assayer mark and a good monogram.  The other side is also good.
  
 Grade Four cobs are very worn with faint markings.  The design features are not clear, but you can still tell that they are Spanish Colonial cobs.

Two Cobs.
On the left maybe a grade three,
and on the right I would say a grade five.

Grade Five coins are poor and barely identifiable as Spanish Colonial cobs.  Additional information such as context may be used to support the definition.  For example, if the suspected cob was found in a pile of other more identifiable coins, that might be used to support the definition.

Both of those shown in the second photo are half reales.  The one on the right shows a small section of the monogram (bottom center of cob) on the shown side and one arm of the cross on the other side.  I would call it grade five.

A Fragment is a piece of silver found with other cobs with few if any other identifiable features.  It will probably be very much under weight.

That brings me to the reason I posted the first picture.  It could be considered no better than a fragment even if it was found in a pile of cobs, and that wasn't the case.  It was not found with any other items at the time of the find even though the same area produced both cobs and other silver items over the years. 

Other things that can contribute to the value of a cob besides condition are rarity, visible date, assayer and mint mark. 

See Sedwick's article on how to determine the value of a cob or treasure coin.  I'll post a link to that when I run across it or some other similar article.



I'm convinced that cobs that have been found on a beach are different on average from those found by salvage crews on a wreck site.  I believe that beach cobs tend to be of smaller denominations on average, and also tend to be in poorer condition.  I've made that argument and provided evidence in the past.  Beach cobs are also often under weight by as much as one third or more.

There are two ways that cobs end up on a beach.  Either they are washed up onto the beach or are washed out of the dunes (My dual source theory).  My idea is that the larger denominations and those in better condition, more often come from the dunes rather than the water.

Those that wash up on the beach may have spent considerable time in the zone of high turbulence right in front of the beach where the waves break and the sand churns.  Such cobs can be washed up onto the beach and back into the water several times.  They are tumbled, covered and exposed over and over.   They can spend a lot of time protected by layers of sand, and then be uncovered and covered again multiple times.  I believe that is how they lose so much weight.



Here is a very good article on what was possibly the earliest European settlement on the Gulf Coast. 

http://archeologyink.com/LaRuaBluff.pdf

It has good maps and pictures of sites and artifacts.


On the Treasure Coast we still are having fairly high high tides.  The surf is small though.

The wind is from the South/Southwest.  Don't expect much improvement in beach detecting conditions real soon.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net