Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
What can you tell about this cob? There is a lot of information clearly seen on this one. See if you can tell the date, mint, assayer?
The stock price for Odyssey Marine was up over 12% in early trading this morning. There must be some news. It will probably come out before long. I'll let you know when I find out what it is.
The price of gold is up to about $1675 this morning too. It has been on an upward trend for about three weeks now after dropping way off of earlier highs.
In Alan Criag's book, Spanish Colonial Coins of the Florida Collection, a variety of cobs are shown that have unusual holes in them. Not the type of hole that would be used to suspend a coin on a strap or chain, but larger irregular holes. They are mostly elliptical or tear shaped holes that have sloped sides, vary in size and shape, and appear on cobs dated 1708 through 1715.
Mr. Craig discusses some of the possible causes of these holes. One explanation is that the depressions or holes were caused by removing dross with a scoop from the molten surface of the silver. That appears reasonable to me.
The reason I bring this up though, is I just noticed one possible example like that being sold on ebay. Here is picture of that cob.
Cob Showing Possible Defective Planchet.This example looks very much like those that Craig presents in his book. Even though the date is not given for this cob, I would guess that it fits in the same date range as those shown by Craig.
The wind is from the south now and the seas are calm and expected to stay that way for several days.
It therefore doesn't look like conditions will be improving any time soon.
There are a lot of snow birds in town and a good many beach goers these days. At least there should be some recent drops to replenish the beaches.
People do carry the strangest things. You never know what you might find.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
