Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Thimble Sold for $10,080. Source: Kovels Komments |
This gold thimble was made by Paul Revere about 1805. "L.D." is engraved on it. It does not show Revere's maker’s mark, but it is identical to a thimble he made for his daughter which is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
This thimble sold at auction for $10,080 at a Leslie Hindman auction in Chicago on May 21, 2014.
Here is the source link.
I'd say that I've found at least a half dozen thimbles over the years. I always thought that it was a bit unusual to find a thimble on a beach, but the number found seems to suggest otherwise.
I find it difficult to guess how old a found thimble might be. Given the rarity of hand sewing in the modern home I'd have to guess that the thimbles are usually not recent drops.
I'm going to go off-topic briefly. I just found this fun and interesting. How old is Donald Duck?
What is his middle name? And what is Donald's hometown.
This information was in the same issue of Kovel's Komments.
Donald is 80. He first appeared in The Wise Little Hen cartoon on June 9, 1934. Happy birthday Donald!
His middle name is Fauntleroy, which was shown on his Selective Service Draft Card in Donald Gets Drafted, 1942.
He is from Duckburg.
OK, so I'm a bit of a Disneyphile.
Below is a detector find after it received a good cleaning.
As I've been pointing out, items like that are frequently found and removed from parks and beaches where they could be picked up by young kids.
This particular knife was dirty and had a stubborn dark green on the bolsters. I tried a number of liquid cleaners and none of them worked very well. Then I carefully tried steel wool, which did the job. It cleaned up very nicely then. I wouldn't use steel wool on just anything, and certainly not coins that might be valuable, but it seemed to work very well on this knife.
Don't use abrasive things like steel wool on items that can easily be damaged. You probably know that you should never clean rare coins although sea-damaged silver coins are a bit of an exception and are often cleaned.
Here is a mark that I found on the tang of the knife. It says, Smoky Mountain Knife Works.
I looked up similar knives from the Works and found some on eBay that are listed for between $100 and $200, although those also had the original collector's box.
The Smoky Mountain Knife Works also sells inexpensive knives as well as collector knives, and right now I don't know which this one is.
With the engraved cheetah on the blade, I guess there is some possibility that is a collector knife. If you are a knife collector or know about that, please let me know.
Remember to inspect found items carefully for maker's or other marks.
Here is an illustration of the parts of a pocket knife.
Below is the source link. You might find that handy.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=parts+of+a+pocket+knife&qpvt=parts+of+a+pocket+knife&FORM=IGRE
On the Treasure Coast the wind is out of the West. The surf id two feet or less. The surf will be small for a few days, and the tides are pretty flat.
Happy hunting,
TreaureGuide@comcast.net
