12/4/19 Report - Flintlocks Found on Treasure Coast 1715 Fleet Beaches. Metal Detecting Lesson Learned Hard Way.

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

Yesterday I ended up talking about the wheellock and the fact that none have been found around Florida.  At the time they were used, they were thought to be unreliable and were not used much in the New World by the Spanish.

Next came the flintlock, the miquelet being an early version of the flintlock.  

Lock of Miquelet Pistol.

You can easily see the flint being held in the lock by what in this case looks like maybe a piece of leather where you would often see a piece of lead.

You can often tell a Spanish flintlock from those made in other countries.  Spanish made miquelets were more boxy, while those made by some of the other countries were more curved and graceful in appearance.

Don't forget that Spanish galleons were provisioned by equipment from many countries, so if something isn't Spanish that doesn't mean that it didn't come from a Spanish treasure ship.

If you want to know more about the parts of a miquelet lock, click here to see a good video.

So what has been found in and around Florida waters?  First here is what Noel Wells' book Small Arms of the Spanish Treasure Fleets says about that.

As I said yesterday, matchlocks have been found on the 1622, 1715, and even the 1733 wreck sites, and never, according to Wells, has a wheellock been found in or around Florida waters.

* 24 French cavalry pistols (flintlocks) were found on one 1715 shipwreck site.  Some were totally encrusted.

*A miquelet musket stock (broken in the area where the lock would have been) was found on a 1715 fleet site.

* A 1660s era miquelet pistol from a 1715 site which is in the McLarty museum collection.

* In 1990 a trubuco musket was recovered from a 1715 site.

* In 1993 treasure divers found 2 encrusted muskets on a 1715 Fleet site.

* Around the year 2000 a beachcomber at a 1715 Fleet beach found a complete encrusted English flintlock lock that had never been fitted to a weapon.

Those are the ones I found listed in the wells book.  I might have missed one or two.  Of course there must be others.

For example, in my blog I reported on musket parts and a barrel mold that was found by Will R.  You can find information on that find in my 12/4/12 post and my 6/25/19 post.  Will was able to create a cast of the barrel.

I also remember one being found in the Sewall's point area, although I did not find right off where I reported on that one in my blog.

There are others for sure.  I found what I believe is most likely a piece of a silver side plate.

Piece of Silver Side Plate?

Here is the link to the post where I previously posted that.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2012/07/72312-report-1715-fleet-ornate-silver.html

I once found a photo showing a side plate almost exactly matching the shape and design on the one that I found.  I don't know where that is now but there is a somewhat similar one shown in my old Dixie Gun Works catalog.

I clearly remember the first musket find that I made and have told that story before.  I found the rusted hammer and jaws of a musket on a steep hillside.  I can remember digging it up like it was yesterday, even though at the time I didn't know for sure what it was.  It was my first hunt in a historic area like that, and I didn't pay too much attention to the rusted twisted piece of metal that I just uncovered, and left it where it was.  In just a few short minutes, I found the flint.  I also didn't keep that.  I totally regret that to this day, but I just didn't have the knowledge and didn't know what I was doing. Sometimes you are just not ready for a find.  You can make good finds and not even know it if you don't have the necessary knowledge.  It would have been better if I found those items today rather than many years ago.  If I appreciated the items for what they were when I dug them up, I would have hunted the area better and I would have followed up by doing the research to better identify them. You can also ruin a find by not knowing how to conserve and store it.  Years later, I can now say that the musket lock and flint I found on that hillside was most likely English.

I've become painfully aware of how slowly I gain knowledge from experience and how that knowledge only makes my long history of ignorance that much more regretful.  Being a person that tends to learn independently rather than being quick to take advantage of the knowledge of others, much of my learning comes from making mistakes over the years.   One thing I've learned the hard way is that I could have saved myself a lot of wasted time and grief by being more organized and detailed in my documentation and record keeping.  I've said that before, but it is something I find myself very often regretting that I did not do.  I have objects that I can't easily find when I want to, and I've read things that I can not longer find when I want to.  I guess you can't avoid that, but being highly organized can help.

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The tides are pretty flat now, as is the surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/6/14 Report - 1000 Ounces of Gold Recovered on a Reconnaissance Dive on the SS Central America & More Poll Discussion

 

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




SS Central America
 

Here is a little from a May 5 Globe Newswire story that one reader forwarded to me.

It says,  Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc., a pioneer in the field of deep-ocean exploration, recovered nearly 1,000 ounces of gold during the first reconnaissance dive to the SS Central America shipwreck site on April 15,2014.

Recovered gold included five gold ingots and two $20 Double Eagle coins (one 1857 minted in San Francisco and one 1850 minted in Philadelphia). The gold ingots were stamped with assayer's marks and weights that range from 96.5 to 313.5 troy ounces.

That was recovered during a two hour reconnaissance dive without any excavation!  It was all in plain sight.

This dive confirms for me that the site has not been disturbed since 1991, when I was last there," said Bob Evans chief scientist/historian for RLP.

Here is the link for more of the story.

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/gold-recovered-during-first-reconnaissance-dive-indicates-ss-central-america-has-not-been-disturbe-20140505-00368#ixzz30wy5MvLM

So that was that was 23 years ago and remained safely underwater without looting or any other major disturbance.

Odyssey stock has not been doing very well this year but maybe this news caused a little increase, or maybe it was totally unrelated to the news story.

So that was that was 23 years ago that it sat safely underwater without looting or any other major disturbance.

 

 

OMEX stock prices over last five days.

 

Wikipedia says, SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, was a 280-foot (85 m) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the eastern coast of the United States during the 1850s. It was originally named the SS George Law, after Mr. George Law of New York. The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with more than 550 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857.

I started to talk about the results of the most recent blog poll yesterday, and it appears that about half of the people that responded to the poll detect more than one type of site.  A lot more detect on an ocean beach than detect in the ocean.

A relatively small number of people who responded detect along or in inland waters.  Less than 10% of the respondents said the detected along inland waters, and less than 10% said they detected in inland waters.

I always enjoyed detecting inland waters.  There are some old abandoned beaches on inland waters that are good for detecting.  And there are some where the main beach used to be at a different place from where the main beach is now.

I can think of a few right off where I detected in the past and it looked like everybody always swam and sun-bathed at one part of the beach, but in older times the main location was actually elsewhere.  By looking at it you would never guess where the main beach used to be.  It can pay to go around and detect some of those overgrown areas that don't look like anyone had ever been there.  Don't miss those overgrown and over-looked areas.

I remember when I visited a park out in the Everglades back a number of years ago and turned my detector on and the first signal I got was a wheat penny.  It didn't look like there would be anything there.  There were no other people when I was there and it looked like there never had been many people there, however that was wrong.

You might be surprised sometimes by where things used to be and where old items still remain waiting to be found.

I've detected along rivers in Alabama where there were hotels that no longer exist and a number of lakes in Minnesota, to give just two examples.  I like those kinds of places.   There are plenty of beaches besides ocean beaches.

Almost as many of the respondents said they detected a dry land site as the number that detected an ocean beach (42% and 46% respectively).  Of course there are a good number of readers of this blog who do not live near an ocean.  Others detect land sites by choice.

I've shown in recent weeks a number of very good finds that came from land sites.  It is always a good alternative but for best results some research is necessary.

About one third did not detect at all this month.  I don't find that surprising either.  People have stuff going on and it has been quite a while since beach conditions have been good.  There are still modern items to be found on the beach even if conditions aren't good.\


On the Treasure Coast the surf is pretty flat.  And on top of that the tides are pretty flat now.

Don't expect much help from Mother Nature on the beach anytime real soon.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net