7/7/12 Report - Found Ring, How to Determine Age of Cut Stones, & Old Maps

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

Photo Submitted by Bill M.

I sometimes receive questions about finds that people make.  People often need help in identifying their finds and want to know how old an item is.  Sometimes I can help with that if it is something I know a little about - maybe it is a type of item that I have personally seen and studied before, but when I don't know much about an item, I can sometimes refer them to a source or someone that does know about that type of item.  And sometimes, as you know, I'll post items here when I think that maybe the readers of this blog can help identify the item.  That works sometimes, but not always.

I'm always learning.  I wish I knew years ago what I know now.  I would have made fewer mistakes.  And I hope you continue to learn through this blog.

I noticed a few minutes ago that the blog is nearing 400,000 hits.  I never dreamed that would happen when I started this blog a few years ago.  Thanks to all the loyal readers and especially those who contribute in one way or another from time to time.

The find shown above fits right in with what I talked about yesterday.  Yesterday I discussed how to test precious metals and gem stones and showed a couple examples of test equipment.

All you can really see in Bill's picture above is the stone, but if you know something about how stones are cut and how that changed over the years, you can get an idea of how old the item might be.

Here is a web site that gives a history of diamond cutting.  Scroll down a little to get to the history.

http://www.georgianjewelry.com/reference/antique_diamonds

Going by this web site and the photo above, it looks to me like the cut on this stone might be an antique rose cut, which the web site says was most common in the 18th and 19th Century.  

Of course, I could be completely wrong.  Let me know what you think.

In any case, this provides a good example of how you might be able to get some idea of the age of an item by looking at the cut of any stones.




A copy of one of  the first maps to show America has been found.  It is a 16th Century map by Martin Waldseemueller.

Here is a link to that BBC article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18700489


There are, however, some who think that the Chinese discovered and mapped America before Christopher Columbus.

Here is a link that tells more about that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4609074.stm


Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Forecast and Conditions.

Conditions remain poor.  The wind remains from the south, and we still have one to two foot seas.

It looks like that pattern will continue for at least a few days.

You might want to visually check through some of the lose material in the shallow water.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net