4/16/11 Report - Upcoming Auction and Fort Capron Treasure

Overhead View of Turtle Trail to Seagrape Trail From Google Earth.

You can see the two beach access in this picture, one very close to the top and the other very close to the bottom. That has been a very good stretch for shipwreck coins and artifacts over the years.


Here is the latest press release for the upcoming SedwickCoins auction.

Scheduled for April 26-28 (Tuesday-Thursday), in six sessions LIVE on the Internet, our Treasure and World Coin Auction #9 is ready for viewing online (click here). You can also view the lots, register and start bidding at www.iCollector.com/sedwick. Note you will need to register for this auction even if you already have an iCollector profile and bid with us in the past. The first 30 bidders to register and place bids online at www.iCollector.com/sedwick will receive a FREE collector's edition disk of all of our auction catalogs to date (#1-9)!

For those who missed the lot viewing at the Whitman Baltimore Coin & Currency Expo we will be showing all the coin lots again at the Chicago International Coin Fair (CICF), April 14-17. In addition, all lots will be available for private viewing at our office in Winter Park, Florida by appointment only.

Printed catalogs (424 pages, full color) will be available starting Monday, April 4. If you are not a prior bidder or on our mailing list already, please click the button on our website to order the catalog.

Treasure and World Coin Auction #9 is perhaps our most well-balanced world coin auction so far, with interesting offerings from all the regions of the world, as well as significant sections of ancient, medals and tokens, and even paper money. Once again there is something for everyone.

The highlight of this auction is The Dr. Frank Sedwick Collection of Colombian Republic Gold Coins. Dr. Sedwick (father of Daniel Frank Sedwick) wrote the first definitive book on the complex Colombian Republic gold series (The Gold Coinage of Gran Colombia [1991], available upon request for this auction only at the special price of $10) as an outgrowth of two decades of collecting the coins. Along the way he gathered several of the most important coins in the series, some of which are appearing at auction here for the first time ever. In addition to the rarities, Dr. Sedwick's collection features dozens of coins that are the finest known graded by NGC, and each coin in the collection has been encapsulated by NGC with the pedigree stated inside the slab. There has never been an offering of Colombian Republic gold coins like this before, and we have already been told this sale will be THE reference for the future.

But let's not overlook all the other important "treasure" items in this sale, including several "Hearts" and "Royals," a Cuzco 1 escudo cob 1698, a Brazilian 12800 reis (dobra) 1730-M, a Chilean 2 escudos 1758, and a Cuban proof peso 1915. There are also significant selections of US gold coins from the "Fort Capron treasure" of 1857, several large silver bars and emeralds and over 230 coins from the Atocha (1622), over 130 1715-Fleet cobs from the State of Florida collection (Bamberg division), a collection of more than 40 dated Mexican cob 8 reales, and dozens of top-quality Lima cob 2 reales. Rounding out the auction are significant offerings of general world coins (including ancients), artifacts (including fossils), documents and books (both antiquarian and modern).

email: info@sedwickcoins.com
web: www.sedwickcoins.com
telephone: 407.975.3325


The catalog is a good resource for simply browsing treasure items.

You might remember that I did a few posts on the Fort Capron Treasure. If you missed that, you can look it up in this blog by using the search box. Just enter "Fort Capron."

And here is a good article on that find of gold coins which was made just north of the Wedge Wreck area near the old Fort Pierce inlet.

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/treasureauction9/ashley-gordy.htm

That is a really cool local treasure story. I once read that they made the initial find when they were hunting lobsters. I don't know if that is true. Their accounts got a little messy.

As you might have noticed, some of those coins can be found in the auction catalog.



Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

The platform boat moved off of the Power Plant site a few days ago. It was in port for a while and then I think I saw it going south.

The recent rains uncovered some old items along the Treasure Coast, including some Ice Age fossils that I eye-balled yesterday. Wind or rain is often enough to uncover some old things on a beach. Of course they normally have to be close to the surface, but not always. Sometimes rain will cause bits of the cliffs in the back dunes to fall in, and that can release old things, and sometimes some of the cliff falls in when it gets dry. But sometimes rain or wind is all you need to blow the sand off of surface items laying anywhere on the beach.

Otherwise not much has changed. We still have some very sandy beaches, mostly building, and some beaches where renourishment continues.

Shipwreck items on the beach will be harder to find than hens teeth. Use your head, scout around some different places, and try some different things.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/15/11 Report - Estimating Size, Shape and Depth of Targets Using Pinpoint Mode

One Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

Notice the sea weed on the beach and rain showers in the distance. There was rain along much of the Treasure Coast this morning. Sometimes clearing and sometimes really pouring. No thunder or lightening.


I've mentioned before that you can learn to tell the approximate size and shape of detected objects with many detectors using pin-point or all-metals mode. Although I often don't have any use for that because the best procedure in my opinion is to simply dig it up to see what it is, this procedure can come in handy when you are limited in time and want to be more selective in what you dig.

If you are hitting gold items or old coins or something interesting all over the place, like you might when you find a good hole, you might want to use your time on digging only those types of targets. Or if you are working close to the water and can't get to the big deep targets without wasting a lot of time, you might want to take note of where they are and leave them for some future time and move on to the things you can quickly remove before the water gets any higher. In situations like either of those it might be helpful to figure out how deep, how big, and what the shape the target is before deciding to use your time to dig it up.

Knowing the approximate size, shape and depth of an object can also help you dig it up more efficiently.

Picasso - Just Kidding.

It is actually a diagram that I'll use along with my explanation immediately below.

If you get a signal and want to estimate the size, shape and depth of the object, first switch over to all-metals or pin-point mode. Then sweep back and forth using a tight sweep pattern but covering the area where you get the signal plus some additional area on each side. This step is represented by the left to right and right to left lines going from top to bottom. Notice where you get the signal and where you don't. Does the object seem to be long and narrow, square or what? Is it perpendicular to the water's edge, more parallel to the water, or at angle?

After covering the area where the signal is plus some, cover the same area, but this time sweeping at roughly 90 degrees to the first sweep pattern.

In the diagram above, second overlapping sweep pattern. In the diagram, this is shown by the second pattern, criss-crossing the first.

The illustration also shows the area of the signal coming from a hypothetical buried object that is longer than wide and lies at a roughly 45 degree angle (The oval in the illustration.). It also shows a coin size object near the surface (dark circle).

You can mark in the sand roughly where you get a signal from the first sweep pattern if you want. I usually don't, but sometimes do.

If the object is deep, in all-metals or pin-point mode the signal will be less distinct when the object is deeper. And the edges of the area where you get the signal seems more fuzzy.

You can learn to estimate depth from the crispness or softness of the signal. If the object is a smaller coin-like object near the surface (shown by the small filled-in circle on the drawing)the signal will be loud, but also crisp and well-defined. If the same small object were deeper the signal would cover a small area, but be softer and seem less distinct. It's not easy to come up with the right words to describe this but I hope you are getting what I mean.

If you practice in all-metals or pin-point mode with a few different size and shape objects buried at differing depths, I think you will quickly learn to accurately estimate their approximate size, shape and depth without digging them up.

The brain is a decent signal processor.

Some detectors may not provide a mode that will be effective for this purpose but many do.


On a different topic, the survey is complete and the people have spoken. Most of this blog's readers (around 45%) most like the local conditions and news reports. Following that in popularity is information on detecting techniques and strategies. Treasure stories and articles came in next to last, and information on coins and artifacts, last.

Odyssey Marine stock has been doing very well - better than I expected. I think I found out why today. If I got this right, their research vessels are now being used for mining and drilling operations in addition to locating treasure ships. One of these mining ventures paid off well an will be the source of continued royalties.

Here is a story on that.

http://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/news/basicNewsStory.jhtml?symbols=OMEX&pageno=1&storyid=201104010730PRIMZONEFULLFEED217651&provider=PRIMZONE&product=FULLFEED&sb=1&st=1&sc=1&san=1


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

The photo at the top of the blog shows one beach. There was sea weed and more sand. It wasn't looking good at all, and to top it off, there weren't even any shell piles left.

Another Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

However a few miles away I found this beach that had scattered small cuts of up to slightly over one foot. They are superficial cuts in recently accumulated sand, but cuts nontheless.

It is usually a spotty thing. One spot will be building while another eroding.

I suspect these cuts came from the off-shore rain storms. That is all it takes sometimes.

The seas were rougher than I expected. It was more like four feet than two and a half.

Anyhow, all together, nothing has really changed significantly. Conditions for finding old shipwreck coins remains poor, and the chance of finding artifacts has now diminished as well.

Maybe we'll get a storm of some sort that does some good sometime this summer. It looks like things will be slow on the Treasure Coast until then.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/14/11 Report - Assessing Coin and Gold Beaches

Found Gold Coin Pendant and Chain.

Can anyone tell me anything about this coin? If I correctly interpret, the letters running vertically down behind the seated figure is "Alexander."

Gold is almost to $1470 today.


I'm getting better at playing my new found Horse Conch horn. I didn't know how popular it was to play conchs.

When you learn how hard it is to cut shells like this, it is amazing how much time and effort it must have taken for the Native Americans to manufacture things like this, especially when you think about the tools they had. People of all times have managed to figure out how to do the things they really wanted to do.


I've been talking about how different areas of the beach are different when it comes to detecting. Yesterday I showed a rather typical dry beach find - a small pendant that would easily get lost in dry sand. The photo above shows a water find - good heavy long chain and large pendant still on it. That wouldn't be lost too easily in dry sand. And it wasn't eye-balled, it would easily be detected by most detectors.

Often when small gold chains are found, it is because of a medallion or something that is still on the chain. Some small thin gold chains will not be detected by many detectors.

You might want to take your detector and test it on a variety of gold chains. Test different settings and see how well you can detect small chains. You might try to test your detector on a single link and see how you can do with that.

A lot of the heavier gold chains are found in the water. Sometimes chains will get hung up on sea weed or something else and you can detect them visually. I always recommend keeping your eyes open while detecting. Sometimes you'll see only a part of the chain sticking out of the sand.

The finds that I showed the last two days provide some idea of how the different beach zones are different and how the finds in the different zones will tend to differ.

The wet sand area is also different. The highest proportion of gold items compared to coins is found in the water, then I would say the second highest proportion of gold items to coins is found in the wet sand, but only if you know how to hunt the wet sand, and last is the dry sand that produces a high number of coins relative to gold items.

As I've also indicated, certain areas of the dry sand will have more gold relative to coins.

Higher coin concentrations are found on beaches where admission is charged, especially when the admission charge requires change or when there is a concession stand in the area.

On the other hand, condo beaches do not produce many coins, because people that live in the condos seldom need to carry change.

I'm providing some background for when I talk about the criteria I use when I sample a beach. Some beaches will have more coins than others, but if you are targeting gold, the number of coins on the beach don't matter much, except as a possible sign that people have been there and no one has yet cleaned up the area.

Also in pointing out some factors that make some beaches produce more or less coins, you need to realize that coins and gold are two different things. Some beaches that produce a lot of coins do not produce much gold, but some that produce very few coins can sometimes produce a good bit of gold. There isn't a perfect correlation between the two.

There are really a lot of factors to consider.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

Bathtub Beach Renourishment.

I've been mentioning some of the beaches that are being renourished (or ruined, depending upon how you look at it). Here is a picture from the Bathtub Beach web cam showing the progress there.

In the photo you can see the new sand that they are dumping on the south end of Bathtub Beach, and just beyond that you can see where the beach was eroded back. That area certainly has a lot of history. You might know that just to the north is the House of Refuge near where gold nuggets and a variety of other things have been picked up by detectorists in the past.

As you probably know, we haven't been having enough wave action to really change much of anything on the beaches lately. The seas are still relatively calm, but building just a little to about 2.5 feet where it will stay for a few days.

It's more of the same. I've offered some alternatives to try out in the past, so I won't go over that again.

I've been talking a lot about the dry sand and tourist beaches lately.
I'll have more on the different types of beaches and different types of hunting in the future.


For now,
Happy hunting.

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/13/11 Report. - Sand, VolleyBall Courts and Diamonds

A Typical Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

I saw a tv program where they talked to a fisherman that found an old pot underwater. He brought it to the Antiques Roadshow. He had only one question. What was the pot worth. He made it clear he didn't care about anything else.

Well, it turned out the pot was medieval and turned out to be worth a good bit, but after the fellow learned more about the pot, his attitude completely changed. He said he wouldn't sell it for anything.

That is what happens. When a person learns more about the items they find, they often develop a completely different attitude towards the objects. It becomes more personal. They realize that the object is a link to the past and people and times of the past.

This particular fellow went out and found more pots and accumulated a very nice collection. As he discovered additional pots and relics, he developed a totally new relationship with those items. Not only did he discover these items, returning them to humanity, but he also cleaned, restored, protected and shared these items. That is what happened, and all mankind benefits when that happens.


People told me that the squid that I posted a few days ago was not a squid at all but rather a cuttle fish. Cool.


I'm trying to learn to blow that bugle Horse Conch. I can't do it consistently yet but get it right every once in a while.


Some people thought the encrusted object was a bullet. I thought so at first too, but I have my doubts about that now for a variety of reasons.


In talking about the dry sand area lately, I mentioned how the areas bordering the most heavily used areas on the beach often have more gold than where everybody sits or settles. I also mentioned volley ball courts as being good spots. Here is a volley ball court find.

Gold Thirty Three with Twenty Two Diamonds.

Unfortunately the photo didn't come out too good. There was too much sun and reflection from the stones and then I over sharpened the photo.

It is the kind of thing you might find on volley ball courts. Charms from chains are relatively common. Often chains break or open and the charm is lost. While the chain is sometimes also lost, it sometimes sticks up enough to be seen, while the charm is harder to find.

There are a number of things I've recommended for hunting volley ball courts. If the court is sprinkled, hunt it just after the sprinkling. You can often then eye-ball small chains etc.

If you know a small thin chain has been lost and that your detector is not good at detecting chains with small links, a rake or sifter often does the job.

In fact a good sifter can work well where detecting is not permitted. One fellow, named Merkitch (last name if I spelled it correctly) wrote a small book that tells how to construct and use a sifter with wheels on the beach.

There are many good strategies and techniques for specialized situations.

I'll get into some others some other day.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

Trucks Dumping Sand on the Beach Just South of the Fort Pierce inlet.


The front beaches continue to build all over the Treasure Coast with small shells and sand. The high tide got higher on the beach last night than I expected.

Conditions are very poor for finding cobs on the beach. The water is pretty nice for water hunting though, if you are somewhere where you can do that.

There were a good many artifacts on the front beach for a while, but it seems they are disappearing.

I've seen some places where the cliff in the dunes at the back of the beach is falling. Sometimes items fall out of the dunes when that happens. On some of the narrower beaches, it might not take those items long to get washed down to the front beach or into the ocean if there are some good waves and erosion. Of course, we've had neither of those for quite a while.

Seems like we should have a storm or two that rips the beach this summer. Until that time, you might be better off in the water or at some of the good tourist beaches in other parts of Florida.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/12/11 Report - Horse Conch & Internet Tools

Interesting Horse Conch Found on Treasure Coast.

This Horse Conch was found most likely on the Treasure Coast. The person who found it is unsure of where it was found because it has been sitting around with other shells, probably for years. Fact is, it could have been found on his own property. He doesn't remember and is simply unsure.

You might wonder what is interesting about this shell. Well, one day recently the shell was moved for some reason and it was noticed that the shell had a slot in it. You can clearly see that slot in the photo. Upon closer inspection, the slot appeared to be man-made. The shell also appeared to be an older shell, exhibiting the chalky-like surface that old shells often have.

The first reminder that I'll give here, is that you should record your finds. It can come in handy when you go back and discover something new about a find no matter what it is. Also if you have records, it helps to document your find and could help you to determine where different kinds of objects have turned up in the past. In this case, as I said, the finder didn't know that the item had any significance other than being a nice shell, and it might have been laying in his back yard for a long time, maybe even before he lived at that location. The origin is simply unknown at this point.

Secondly, I've mentioned how it can be fun to go back and review your finds from time to time. Here is something that wasn't noticed before. It doesn't matter what kind of object it is, you might notice something years later that you didn't notice at first. Maybe you've learned something that makes things more significant and noticeable.

With this shell, the discovery of the slot was only the beginning. After the shell became an object of attention and research, it was discovered that not only did it have a slot in it, but the top was also cut or knocked off. So what? Well, after blowing through the slot and then through the top of the shell, it was noticed that now the air passed easily through the shell and sometimes made a sound. A little more research on the internet showed other shells that were used as bugles. About the same amount of the top of the shell was missing on those shells.

Now it seemed like maybe this shell was actually modified to be used like a bugle. After a number of tries, the shell actually did issue a nice loud and clear blast.

After asking about the shell in a treasure forum, it was learned that the shell is a Horse Conch shell.

It is not clear if the shell was made to work like a bugle, and if it was, when it was made. The time of any workmanship remains unclear. But now that the type of shell is known, a little more research turned up the following on Wikipedia.

In classic Mayan art, the Horse Conch is shown being utilized in many ways including as paint and ink holders for elite scribes, and also as a bugle or trumpet.

In southern Florida, Native Americans, including the Calusa and Tequesta, used the horse conch to make several types of artifact. The whole shell, or more commonly only the columella, was attached to a wooden handle and used as a hammer or woodworking tool. The body whorl was used as a drinking cup. The columella was also used to make plummets or sinkers.

So now it is known that the shell is a Horse Conch, and that Horse Conchs were used as bugles, and additionally, that they were used by the Calusa and Tequesta Indians.

The evidence is building but not yet conclusive. It was also found that locals used conch shells as horns in the 19th century when they hunted possums with dogs. So even if the item was intentionally modified to be used as a horn, it might have been made either many years ago, decades ago or just a few years ago. That has not yet been determined. The horn, if that is what it is, could have also been created accidentally or naturally by the top simply being broken off.

So here we have an item that led one person to do some research. He learned a lot in the process, but there is more to learn.

This story reminds me of how the story of Ian's coaked sheve unraveled as he did his research. I covered that story in this blog in a number of posts in the past. You might enjoy looking it up by using the search box on the main page of this blog.

It should also remind you how you can notice something you didn't originally notice about an item years later and how helpful it can be if you keep good records.


Beach Seen From Google Earth.

There are so many wonderful tools on the internet these days. The above is a beach I recently visited for the first time. I looked it over before the visit.

You can use Google Earth and other programs to locate new beaches or scan beaches before a visit.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

I'm afraid to say it looks like we are already well into summer beach conditions. The wind is out of the south and the seas are calm. As you know the weather is already very warm as well.

The south winds and calm seas probably means added sand and shells to the beach front. These conditions also usually lead to dips forming immediately in front of the beach, with sand accumulating to form a bar just after that.

Those are not good conditions for finding shipwreck cobs. It probably also means that the artifacts that have been found along the beach fronts and near the shell piles will probably be decreasing. There will not be enough water force on the front beach to bring up new artifacts and not enough to erode or churn up new items.

The water will be calm enough for easy water hunting and the front beach will be in easy access but not very productive.

If this weather pattern continues, the biggest hope is for a storm that sits just off shore and sends in bigger waves from the northeast. But, as I've mentioned before, even southeast winds and local storms can cause a little erosion.


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

4/10/11 Report - The Eyes Have It.

Dug Mystery Object.

I really like these kind of things. It can take years to figure out what they are.

I was just reading about a guy that picked up a lot of stones when he began collecting Indian artifacts and he had these old buckets of stuff that he brought home. He was going back through them and finding all kinds of neat stuff that he originally didn't recognize and over looked. Everybody else in the forum thread chimed in and mentioned the good artifacts that they overlooked when they just began.

I suppose that everybody misses some good stuff or throws good stuff away when they begin detecting. I remember the first piece of shipwreck silver that I found on the Treasure Coast. After several trips to the Treasure Coast without finding anything, I detected this flat thin black piece of metal. My wife was with me and she looked at it and started to throw it away. I told her to keep it. It wasn't until after driving home and testing it, that I found out that it was indeed silver and I had finally found a shipwreck item of some kind on the Treasure Coast.

I often remind people to keep things when you don't know what they are. I've thrown away some pretty good stuff in years past. Now I keep things that make me wonder what they are until I know I can throw them away without later regretting it.

It is still worth going back and looking through old stuff. I still often find things of interest that I overlooked before. In fact, just yesterday I noticed something about an old find that I never noticed before and after I did some additional research, now regard that item as one of the potentially most exciting of all my years. Too bad I don't remember where or when I found it although I can narrow it down quite a bit.

Maybe I'll show you that one after I get confirmation on some things.

Anyhow, here is an object that I picked up this week. It gave me a signal and I put in it my pocket for more detailed inspection after I got home. When I did get it home and took the time to look at it closer (I don't like to spend too much of my limited field time standing around examining things that I've dug.), I noticed a couple things that I didn't see while on the beach.

This object is about two inches long. You can see in the crust of stone signs of iron. But what I noticed when I inspected it at home, is that when I shook it, it rattled. It sounds like a piece of lead in a hollow piece of stone.

And then I noticed that the object on the inside,whatever it is, actually sticks out of crust a little when the object is oriented in the right direction. You can see a little of the point of the inner object protruding in the top photo within the circle.

Inner Object Protruding Through Hole.

In the photo you can also see a circle of what appears to be thin oxidized copper, which has been broken by the point that the point sticks out of.

It appears that inside the stone crust is a thin copper shell which has broken through both the copper and stone. Turn it upside down and the inner object disappears, and then turn it the other way and the object sticks out of the hole a touch.

Well, now I'm intrigued. I wish I could x-ray this object to see exactly what is in the encrustation. I'd like to hear any ideas you might have about this object.

The main point here again, is to keep things until you have a chance to study them and determine what they are, and secondly, closely inspect all found objects.


I believe that most detectorists do not use their eyes enough. Develop your observational skills. You can scan a lot of area much more quickly visually than you can cover with a detector coil

Sometimes it is worth looking where you are detecting, but other times it is worth scanning around while listening for your detector to let you know what is immediately under the coil.

You might be surprised by how many objects you can find just walking around eye-balling. I've found watches, gold chains, rings and all kinds of stuff, even cobs, eye-balling. You might have read the stories about how after storms the locals would find cobs after a storm, and not knowing what they were, skip them back into the ocean. At least that is the story.

Visually scan the beach for any signs that might tell you where you should be detecting.

Since I was talking about hunting the dry sand area at tourist beaches just the other day, I'll talk about that some more.

When I walk onto a beach, I first take an overall view, looking to see where the sand has been moving. Then when I decide if I'll stay at that beach or move on, if I decide to detect the dry sand area on a tourist beach, for example, I'll look for more detailed information about where the people have been and where they might have lost something.

You can tell a lot about how many people have been in an area of the dry sand from the tracks. Of course, after a rain, you can tell that somewhat more easily.

Look for where the towels were. Look at the junk. Look to see if other detectorists have been there and where they detected. Sometimes you can see their track and holes. Look to see where activities were taking place. You can very often tell where people were running around and falling. There are a lot of clues left in the beach sand.

This is all before actually taking the time to do any detecting. I previously mentioned sampling areas by detecting a loose pattern through different areas, but I'll put more discussion of that off for some other time.

I think I also recently mentioned that the areas where people are more likely to lose jewelry in the dry sand is not necessarily the areas where the most people congregate. Volley ball courts, for example, are a good place to look.

Around cabanas and beach chairs is a good place to look too. Often the chairs or cabanas will be difficult to detect around well, but you can do it fairly well if you learn how. For one thing, run your sweep parallel to any metal items instead of toward and away from metal rods and the like. A lot of things are dropped around and under the chairs.

When the beach chairs are moved, another thing you can see, check where the chairs were before they were moved.

You might want to go back and check the socioeconomic factors that I previously mentioned for evaluating a tourist beach.

I think I need to move on for now. I'll get to the discussion on sampling criteria some other time.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

It's beginning to look a lot like summer. East and southeast winds, calm seas, down around 1 to 2 feet, and beaches building.

The soft sloshing of water on the beach front tends to build up shells and leaves a little dip in front of the beach.

As you know the good thing about calm seas is that it makes for easy water hunting. And also it makes it easy to check out the front beach area.

I've mentioned in the past that it is not illegal to snorkel or swim in the leased areas, but it is not legal to detect. It might be nice time to go snorkeling and see what you can see. Or just wade around in the shallow water anywhere and see what you can see.

The water levels in our local waterways is very low, which means it wouldn't be a bad time to take a walk around the banks of lakes and streams. The Peace River water level is very low.

It seems to me that the miscellaneous pieces that were showing up on some of the beach fronts is now diminishing. Like I said, it is getting to be more like summer conditions.

The snowbirds and Spring Breakers have already started to decrease. Make hay while the sun shines.

There is always some place to hunt and something to be found.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

4/8/11 Report - Two Eight-Reale Royals

Two Mexico Mint Royals From the Early 1700s.

When people find cobs or look to buy cobs, they find out how difficult it can be to identify a cob. Cobs often don't have mint marks, assayer initials or dates. As the survey showed the majority of this blog's reader who have found reales have found eight reales. Therefore I decided to present some of the best examples of the types of cobs you are likely to find on the Treasure Coast.

Of course many of the cobs found on the Treasure Coast come from the 1715 Fleet, even though there are wrecks from other time periods here. Therefore I selected some examples just prior to 1715, which are common dates found on the Treasure Coast wrecks.

I was looking through the Menzel book on treasure coins and noticed this one Mexican 8 reale that really stuck out. It is a royal, or presentation piece, but it just looked especially fine to me. I think it must be about the best looking workmanship that I've seen on a cob. I'm talking about the coin shown on the left above.

As you can see, it shows the OM, indicating the Mexican mint and the J, indicating assayer Jose Esutaquio de Leon y Losa, who worked at the Mexican mint from 1700 - 1724, under the reign of Philip V, and who later went on to serve at the mint in Guatemala in 1733. He is known for his workmanship and variety of design styles.

In this coin you can also easily see the date, 1714 at about the ten o'clock position above the shield.

For beach finds, you seldom find a "royal," but rather an oddly shaped and much more poorly executed cob with corrosion on top of it all. Therefore you would be lucky to find all of that information clearly displayed on any single cob.

To me, that coin looks almost too good to be true, even when compared to other royals of the same general time period.

I thought you Treasure Coast treasure hunters might find this coin to be a useful example.

The one on the right is not bad either, but doesn't look as fine to me. I added it for comparison and to show a few things. It was done under the same assayer (J), but in the year 1705. You can see that the design is slightly different.

There are numerous differences between those two coins. All of the different designs and varieties makes studying cobs very challenging. It is pretty overwhelming for me.

There are some rather obvious differences and some you have to look for. One of the more noticeable differences is the crown. A more subtle difference is in the shield. Even though both cobs show the same shield, on the 1705 example, the Bourbon crest in the middle covers part of the castle to the left of it,while in the 1714 cob, the Bourbon crest covers the entire castle. That design began in 1714.

As you can see, if you really know your cobs, and I don't, there are a lot of clues to a coins origination and date, even when you don't see the date or other marks.

The 1714 example also has rosettes above and below the denomination (8) and above and below the OMJ. Jose maintained this design from 1714 on through his work at Mexico.

There are also differences to be found on the reverse as well.

I personally like half reales. There is something about the monograms that I like better than the shields. Maybe it is the fact that you seldom get anything close to a full design on any one half reale, so you have to piece together what you learn from a variety of different examples. It's like a puzzle.


If you stashed away your old gold and silver finds in a safe deposit box, you should be very happen with the way prices have increased.


I mentioned before that Chinese antiques are bringing very high prices these days.

Kovels Komments reports on a jade plaque that sold for over $94,000. Here is what they said about that.

A carved Chinese celadon jade plaque, an oval just 6 inches high, sold for a surprising price at Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, California, in March 2011. Estimated at $1,500, it sold for $94,800 to a collector from Taiwan. If you have a piece of Asian jade, pottery, or ivory that has a family history dating before 1950, it would be wise to take it to an expert, preferably at a museum. It might be very, very old and worth a lot of money. Most likely it is just a recent piece or a good copy. But we have recently reported on at least four pieces that went for unexpectedly high prices.



I found a nice virtual book about the Nuevo El Constante Shipwreck. You might want to take a look.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/virtualbooks/NUEVO/nuevo.htm


Treasure Coast Beach Conditions and Forecast.

The weather is beautiful. The water was a little rougher today than I expected, yet still pretty calm. The tide was pretty low too.

The wind is now from the southeast and the seas will remain calm for a few days. The cut that I showed two days ago has basically disappeared, but the shells and fossils have reappeared on some beaches.

Not a bad day for water or low tide hunting, or again, for spring break beach hunting.

I know you might get tired of this reminder, but don't hunt in the water where there are shipwreck leases. I've talked about that in the past. I've provided information in the past about shipwreck lease areas, but I don't know about any possible changes and I can't define it for you precisely, so I won't try. I don't want to risk making an error and getting you into trouble. You are responsible for obeying the laws.

Cob hunting conditions remain poor. I've been having a lot of fun with junky artifacts though. Which reminds me, I have some to show after I learn more about them.

Oh, one more thing. They will be dumping new sand onto the south end of Bathtub Beach.

And I started a new survey on the blog. Don't forget to vote.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net