Two Pound Gold Bar Found on the Trail of the Atocha on April 16 I mentioned this find in an earlier post and said I expected to get a picture of it. It has no markings and must have been smuggled.
Below is a part of the story of the find as told by diver Tim Meade who found the bar. (The photo and story was received by email from the Fisher organization.)
I finished my sweep around where the bedrock meets the berm. I didn’t have a single hit; I was re-tuning my detector to go across the bedrock, and I glanced over my left shoulder and saw about 4 inches of the bar sticking out of a solution hole. And I swear, it was glowing like neon green. I kept staring at it, and I had no idea what it was. I had seen gold underwater before, but I had no idea what this was. I grabbed my detector and I was going to poke it to see what it was and about two feet away from it the detector rang. I just dropped the detector, and my hand started shaking. And then it changed colors from green to gold! Then I swam over and I grabbed it and it started coming out of the solution hole and it kept coming and coming and coming and coming. When it came all the way out, I turned it once or twice in my hands and grabbed it.
Congratulations guys. Neat looking bar.
A heavy piece like that is going to work it's way down through the sand over time and end up on a hard surface under all of the sand. It is not going to get washed up on the beach or onto a sand bar.
I just added a new survey which should prove interesting. It asks where you have found your shipwreck cobs or treasure coins. Basically I've divided the beach into a five or six areas going from the edge of the water to the back dunes. Although I know that cobs have been found in all of those areas, I believe more have been found in one of those areas. I won't say which yet because I don't want to influence the results of the survey.
Thanks to one of the blog's readers for suggesting this question.
This Saturday there will be a big treasure hunting party where a lot of the guys (and probably gals too) will be gathering. I just wanted to give a big shout out to all who will be attending. Have a ton of fun.
Yesterday I talked about fake cobs after someone sent me a photo of a find and from the photo I thought it could possibly be a fake. I told the finder to take it to one of the museums where they could have someone look at it.
Sad to say it was a fake, but my advice proved good. The folks at the museum were helpful and gave their expert opinion. The folks at the museums on the Treasure Coast are good people - always helpful and friendly and willing to take a look at a find. I've also found the State of Florida people to be helpful too. So don't be afraid to contact the experts when you have a good reasonable question.
Gold and silver continue to increase. Or should I say the dollar continues to go down the drain.
If you've dug any Morgan dollars, you might be glad to know that the price of the lower quality Morgan's is doing very well. Some think too well. But isn't that what you would expect with the rapidly increasing price of silver?
Odyssey Marine stock is also doing very well. It hit above $3.95 yesterday, and in a few weeks has appreciated around 30%. Not bad. It seems the minerals exploration business helped them overcome some of the problems in the treasure business.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
I got a bit of a surprise yesterday. The wind picked up a bit in the afternoon and the seas were coming in from the southeast with more gusto than I had expected. There were whitecaps on the river.
The wind has decreased a bit for now and the river is smooth, but there is supposed to be a cool front coming. That means the wind will be shifting and coming in from the north for a short while. Unfortunately the seas are expected to only reach about four feet. As you know that isn't much and won't change conditions much.
I'd keep on checking the bathing beaches for modern jewelry and the low tide areas for coin holes and older junk with the hope of picking up a possible artifact of some sort.
May all your treasures be real.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
