7/1/18 Report - Farmer Finds Gold Digging Drain. Some Say Cape Canaveral Shipwreck Likely Trinite. Shipwreck Site Sampling Plan.

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

Norman Witherow uncovered the gold objects on Saturday when he was digging a drain in a field near Convoy.

The artefacts remained in his kitchen and car boot until Tuesday when his friend, who is a jeweller, told him that it needed to be reported.

Initial observations by staff from the National Museum of Ireland date the gold from the bronze age or earlier.

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44644347


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Chuck Meide of LAMP recently wrote in the St. Augustine Report about the GME discovery of the shipwreck near Cape Canaveral that I recently posted about on 6/25/18.  Meide thought it was almost certainly the Trinite, one of Ribault’s 1565 shipwreck.  Anyhow, it appears the case is closed and the shipwreck will be the property of France.

In the report Meide states,  We led a search for Ribault’s wrecks in 2014 in the waters of Canaveral National Seashore, near the French survivor camp sites on land. This was probably in the vicinity of the other three shipwrecks, as opposed to Trinité further south. NOAA helped fund our research, as did the State of Florida...  In addition to all of these searches, the State of Florida also led a marine survey searching for the remains of the Trinité, around Cape Canaveral, starting in 2014. They were probably pretty close to the site discovered by GME.

To sum that up, a lot of tax payer dollars went to organizations that failed to find the Trinite, but a private company without tax dollar support, Global Marine Explorations, actually found it.  Never mind, GME will get totally cut out of the deal so state employees, and their contractor friends can get the credit and more trips to Paris.

Here is the link for more of that article.

http://staugustinereport.net/index_htm_files/Trinite.pdf

Like I've said multiple times, I'll be very surprised if Florida ever issues a new treasure salvage lease.

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Source:: See link below.

You might find the following interesting.  It is, A STRATIFIED SITE SAMPLING RESEARCH PLAN FOR THE 2005-2006 INVESTIGATIONS AND RECOVERY AT NORTH CAROLINA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK SITE 31CR314 Mark Wilde-Ramsing, May, 2006.


 Introduction: North Carolina shipwreck site 31CR314 has been under investigation since its discovery in 1996 and continues to reveal a rich assemblage of early 18th century maritime cultural materials. The analysis of datable artifacts that have been collected from the site provides a mean date of manufacture of 1706 with predominately French and English affiliation (Wilde-Ramsing 2006). Ship's features reveal a vessel of 200 to 300 tons (Moore 2001; 2006). Armament represented on the site is equivalent to that of a Royal Navy Sixth Rate warship, while the presence of langrel shot in one of the small caliber guns suggests a predator or heavily armed merchantman rather than a Royal Navy warship (Henry 2006)...

This is about shipwreck sites and artifact distribution.

Here is the link.

https://files.nc.gov/dncr-qar/documents/files/32-Spring-2006-Recovery-Plan.pdf

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This feels unfinished.  I might rework or add to it tomorrow, but decided to go ahead and post it now.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/29/18 Report - Mexico Half Reale Cob. Chocolate Salary. Fort Michilimackinac.

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

Another Mexico Half Reale From John Brooks.

I went out to the beach yesterday (Thursday) afternoon to see what was going on.  Fort Pierce is done with the South Jetty renourishment project.  The the beach is over a hundred yards wider now.  I was thinking about how just a few weeks ago, the water line was so much farther back and how beaches grow and recede, even without the help of man.  People were sunbathing where they would have been swimming before, and where people were swimming before, there was tnow ons of sand.  My bet is that the beach was farther out in centuries past, because that would have been before the inlet  and jetties that causes most of the erosion in that area.  It is good to remember that the shoreline could be very different than it was a hundred or two hundred years ago.

I then went down to John Brooks beach.  I would have taken photos, but the battery on my camera was dead.

There were two salvage boats working the Nieves site.  One was north of the beach access and not too far out, and the other was all the way up by the condominiums to the north.

The beach front was very mushy with recently accumulated sand.  Still, I saw one guy detecting the weed line.

Other Side of Half Reale Shown Above.

I can usually figure out what part of a monogram I"m looking at, but not in this case.  I just can't determine the orientation or which monogram it is.  It looks very odd.  Maybe some cleaning would help.

This is another one that I failed to label with when it was found.  I do know where it was found, but only because I know the cobs that aren't from this beach.

I probably won't show anymore of these for a while.  I was just showing why it is so important to label finds well.  It is much nicer when you know where and when things were found.  For all I know, the unlabeled cobs that I showed the last few days could have been found on the same day.  On the other hand, they could have been found in completely different decades.

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The ancient Maya never used coins as money. Instead, like many early civilizations, they were thought to mostly barter, trading items such as tobacco, maize, and clothing. Spanish colonial accounts from the 16th century indicate that the Europeans even used cacao beans—the basis for chocolate—to pay workers, but it was unclear whether the substance was a prominent currency before their arrival...

Here is the link.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/maya-civilization-used-chocolate-money

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Among the most-recent finds are sherds of a white, tin-glazed earthenware jar, sherds from two different blue and white Chinese export porcelain vessels, and a fragment of beaded English creamware.

However, Dr. Lynn Evans, curator of archaeology, said one of the most unusual artifacts in the group is a brass thimble with a small hole punched in the top of it...

Here is the link to that article about an excavation of Fort Michilimackinac.

https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/06/rare_brass_thimble_colonial_ce.html

I've found a good number of thimbles on various Florida beaches over the years.

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A just posted an embossed Doctor Pepper bottle in FGBottlebarn.blogspot.com.

There is a lot I could talk about, but I don't have time right now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/28/18 Report - Context On Treasure Coast Cob Finds. Mexico Minted Half Reale. Arcadia Mills Archaeology Dig.

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

Mexico Minted Half Reale.

Let me put some things in context today.  Recently I've been showing some cob finds.  There were days when several were found.  That doesn't mean that it was typical to walk out on the beach and find that many.  I was living in the Fort Lauderdale area when I started hunting the Treasure Coast.  That means that I had to drive up to hunt without knowing what beach conditions were like on the Treasure Coast.  There was no Treasure Beaches Report.  In fact people didn't have the internet - or cell phones.  There are some advantages you have today with the new technologies, detectors and information sources.

There was no good way to know what beach conditions were like without going to the beach and taking a look.  For me that meant driving a couple of hours.  I would drive two hours often to find nothing but a crummy looking beach.  I made a lot of those trips before I ever found a single cob.  I was getting discouraged and didn't think that I would ever find one.

People tend to think that because there were days when several coins were found that it was always good in those days or that it was much easier.  You often hear people say that it has all been found or there isn't much left and it is much harder today.  I completely disagree with all of that.  It is very much the same now as it was thirty or forty years ago.  It wasn't easy back then, and it isn't easy today.  That is why I have so much to write about.

The one big thing that I think has changed is the frequency of beach renrouishment projects and the amount of sand being dumped on our beaches.  I do believe that has had an effect.  The dunes are protected and don't erode when they otherwise would if it weren't for the renourishment sand.  And the renourishment sand in the water protects the beaches to some extent.

Still, there are good days and bad days.  Some years are better than others.  And some decades are better than others.  Nature has the biggest effect.  There are times when you get a lot of rough weather and erosion.  There are also times when you get a lot of accretion.  Just like the normal winter and summer shifts.

Winter typically makes for better beach hunting than summer - other than tropical storms and hurricanes.  Sand tends to accumulate on the beaches in the summer and the rougher winter weather tends to strip it off.  I've long said that the best treasure beach hunting, with the exception of after good summer storms, is September to April.  And November to February is the peak for treasure beach hunting.  My records of finds confirms that.

There are both long term and short term trends.  There are days, months, and years when things either improve or deteriorate.  If you get a long-term trend of erosion in one area and then get a few good days on top of that long term trend, you have a real good shot.  The same few good days on top of a long-term trend of accretion or towards the end of a summer of southeast winds and accretion, won't likely produce much of anything.  A few additional feet of erosion on a beach that has already been losing sand will produce more finds than the same erosion after a few weeks, months or years of accretion. (For this discussion I'm not taking into account shallow water conditions.)

When you pile sand up in one place on the beach where nature was taking it away, it will erode faster than ever.  It creates a vicious circle.  Not all erosion is the same

I've never detected after the hurricanes that produced some of the best detecting and biggest finds.  I've missed those times when the hunting was at its absolute best.  For example in 2004, I had a lot of other responsibilities that were more important.

In the past few years beach hunting has been slow.  It is a combination of things.  There has been a lot of beach renourishment and the weather hasn't been helping either.  That is one trend, but it won't last forever.  You have to take a long term perspective.  Some times its hot and other times its not.

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Philip Monogram on Same Half Reale Shown Above.

This is the same half reales shown at the top of the post.  It is one of those that was not completely labeled so I don't know when it was found.

This one is on the thin side and has a lot of surface area.  It is pretty much as found and could use a little cleaning.  You can see some shells and crust.

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 ... “And, in excavating it, we found a big iron concretion, about fist size, with turtle shell fragments sitting on top of it,” said Walker, noting that they had the iron X-rayed in the UWF lab. “It looks like it’s a perfectly circular item, about 2 and a quarter inches wide in diameter.”

Walker believes the metal object could be associated with ritual or religious activity by the slaves. They expect to have a better idea in a few weeks, after conservation and cleaning in the electrolysis tank...

Here is the link for the entire article about the dig at the Arcadia Mill site.


http://wuwf.org/post/uwf-researchers-build-story-arcadia-mill-homestead-find-slave-cabin-chimney

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/27/18 Report - Poorly Labeled Silver Half Reale. Blown Green Flask Bottle. Dissertation on Two Old Shipwrecks.

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

Mexico Minted Beach Cob Without Other Identifying Information.

In the past couple of weeks I posted several beach-found half-reales that were found during a couple hunts almost thirty years ago.  I had a lot of good information on those cobs, including but not limited to, when and where they were found.  Unfortunately not all finds are so well labeled.  This half reale was labeled with no information than the name of the beach it came from.  I have no idea what year, or even decade, it was found.  I can tell that this cob was minted in Mexico because of the style of the cross, and I can tell it is a half reale from the size, but that is about it.  If the cross was not visible and so well placed, even the denomination could be in question.  Some cobs found on the beach are worn down to a fraction of their original weight and sometimes you'll just find small pieces of silver that you can't tell if they are a part of a coin or not.

The first piece of silver I found on a wreck beach was about the size of a one reale but had no detail at all.  Back then I thought it might be a razor (thin flat cob).  Now I think it was probable off of something else.

The cob shown above looks like the part of the cob right where the monogram would be found flaked off and most of the potential diagnostic information was lost.

You might think that you'll remember where and when you found something, but that might not be the case thirty or forty years later.  It is best to write it all down.  

Dime Showing Significant Salt Water Corrosion

Compared to some, this dime is in good condition.  Unlike the cobs, I cleaned this dime.  I've seen Roosevelt dimes that were so corroded they look very much like cobs.  It doesn't take a real long time for a silver coin to turn into an indistinguishable black mass with absolutely no details remaining.  I might show some like that some other time.

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Old Blown Green Flask Type Bottle.

Notice the big bubble up near the right shoulder.  That is typical of blown bottles.

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Here is a doctoral dissertation that you might like to read.

It is a study of a late 17th century shipwreck and a late 18th century wreck.  As you browse through I'm sure you will find some things of interest.

Here is one brief excerpt.

Finally, the accidental discovery of the Benya Lagoon site highlights just how little is understood about the Lagoon’s role in the town of Elmina’s function. Although its use for the careening and refitting of vessels is noted in historical accounts, their validity was unproven. It had been assumed that until the twentieth century most of the lagoon was overgrown with mangroves and brush. Consequently, maritime activity was confined to the river’s mouth adjacent to the castle. The presence of a relatively large eighteenth century vessel upriver now suggests otherwise. Although the intent behind the abandonment of this vessel remains a mystery, its placement in an area of restricted access must have been intentional and sanctioned...

You might want to think about what that could mean to you and how it relates to where you hunt.

Here is the link for the entire dissertation.

https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=ant_etd

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/26/18 Report - Early Graves. Rough Edges. Mel Fisher Days. Van Stan's Bottle. Pontil.

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

Edges of Two Kennedy Half Dollar Coins.

It seemed that the photos of the Kennedy Half Dollar that I posted yesterday were not good enough to show what I was talking about.  Maybe this will do it.  Here are two coins: the one I was talking about yesterday as being unusual (top coin) and a more normal Kennedy half dollar for comparison (bottom coin).  You will have to look closely to notice the differences.

Notice how the edge of the bottom coin is smooth. The ridges in the copper center are filled and the surface is flat.  However on the top coin the ridges on the copper core are rounded and not filled in between.  And look closely at the thin layer of clad on top.  It is paper thin and sticks out considerably more over the valleys in between the copper ridges.  You can feel the sharpness of that thin clad layer.  The top coin also has a very slightly smaller diameter.

To sum it up, the bottom coin has a typical smooth edge, while the top coin has a very rough and sharp edge.  It appears that some material is missing.

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ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – More burials of what could be St. Augustine’s first colonists have been discovered. They are within inches of where burials were found during an archeological dig in 2017.

This time, they were found while construction workers were working on Charlotte Street in downtown St. Augustine. The city archeologist was monitoring their work and ordered construction be halted as soon as a bone was found...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/st-augustine/more-colonial-burials-found-under-st-augustine-street/77-566791195

You might recall that we discussed the almost total absence of graves found on 1715 beaches, so that remains a bit of a mystery.

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This year Mel Fisher Days will be July 12 - 14 in Key West.

http://melfisherdays.melfisher.com/

Activities will include tours of the conservation lab and boat tour out to a wreck site.

There will be a fee or those activities.

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Van Stan's Stratena antique bottle.

Circa 1890.


This is a small embossed bottle for Stratena, which was an adhesive (See advertising card below.).

You can see many bubbles in the glass (right).

Van Stan's Stratena Advertising Card.

I placed this bottle along with more company information in my TGBottleBarn.blogspot.com.

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Just one more bottle related item today.  I've found very few rough or unsmoothed pontils, but this looks like one.  It is a recent find.

Pontil.

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The predictions are for a continuing one foot surf on the Treasure Coast for at least several days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/25/18 Report - Standing of Shipwreck Off Cape Canaveral. Favorite Bottle Find. Coins Without Rims.

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

Bicentennial Kennedy Half Dollar.

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1889 Henry Muhler, N. Y. Blob Top Bottle

This is still my favorite bottle find.  There is only one that comes in at a close second.

I just like blob tops, and of those that I've found this one has the most information embossed on it.  It is in very good shape too.

I put additional pictures of this bottle in TGbottlebarn.blogspot.com.

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At the top of this post is a Kennedy half dollar.  It looks pretty normal from the front, but here is a picture of the edge.

Edge of Kennedy Half Dollar

Much of the edge is missing.

If you've found many coins, you've probably found clad coins including dimes, quarters or halves that have the missing edge.  You can see the copper core and the clad layers very well.  I don't know how this happens and would like to hear what you think about that.

The edge feels sharp.  You'll often feel it before you see it, especially on dimes.

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An item exactly like the glass mystery item that has recently been discussed much in this blog was being sold on eBay and described as a Common Sense Inkwell.  That might be what it is.  I just don't understand what the tube that has a compartment has to do with how the item functions as an ink well and why it would be open on the bottom or how it would be corked or whatever.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1876-Clear-Glass-Base-Funnel-Common-Sense-Inkwell-/392026183578?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D44040%26meid%3D64ab1c2090b244559699b7b87a064744%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D6%26rkt%3D7%26sd%3D391984781786%26itm%3D392026183578&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=Oin98X7132lAezuXJMj1Rke4ShI%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

Thanks to Mark S.

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The State of Florida filed in a United States court in Orlando to gain a summary action against Global Marine Exploration who was awarded a limited permit to search and identify an "unidentified" shipwreck  just off of the Cape Canaveral Air Force base.  The State claimed that GME had violated the conditions of the permit, even though they admit that the permit, as amended, allowed for the use of blowers and suction dredges.   The bulk of the State's argument seems to me to be that the items recovered were "embedded" because they could have only been uncovered by using tools of excavation, such as the equipment they allowed. To me their argument is very weak and depends entirely upon their definition of "embedded."

As I said about a year ago, I do not think Florida will give any new salvage leases.  They'll issue exploratory leases and then take what is learned and take over the shipwreck.  They'd rather give it to a foreign country than allow it to be salvaged.

I recommend reading the filing.  You will learn something about how shipwrecks in Florida waters will be treated.  You'll also find the coordinates of the exploratory area.

Here is the link.

https://www.scribd.com/document/372448621/Florida-Motion-for-Sum-Parju-d?campaign=SkimbitLtd&ad_group=1629X854141X8262a1cdb173e9e3b05edda8a3c2452a&keyword=660149026&sourc 

Thanks to Brian B. for that link.

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Let me know how you think coins lose the rims.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/23/18 Report - Carlos II Cobs From a Treasure Coast Beache and the Monogram. Good Artifact Database.

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

Holed Mexico-Minted Carlos II Beach Cob

The past few days I showed nine different Mexico minted half reales from one 1715 beach.  Most had the Philip V monogram.  The monograms changed from time to time.  You might have noticed some differences  in the photos.

The easiest way to tell the mint is from the cross.  Enough of the Florenza cross is usually visible on Mexico minted half reales to tell you where it was minted.  Sometimes you can see the mint mark too.

One of the cobs I showed from the December 1989 hunt came from the reign of Carlos II.  Below is a stylized monogram like the ones used on Carlos half reales.

Stylized Carlos II Monogram.

And below is a Carlos II half reale that I showed a few days ago.  You can see most of the A and the some of the C coming from the left and cutting through the left leg of the A.

The monogram on this reale is a bit different from the stylized monogram shown in the illustration above.  For one thing, the A is slanted to the right.

One thing you can often see on Carlos II cobs even when not much else is visible is what I call the fish hook.  The end of the C often shows a downward stroke that reminds me of a fish hook.

Carlos II Half Reale Found in 1989.

Below is another Carlos II half reale.  This one is from the same beach but was found decades later.  This is the other side of the same half reale shown at the top of the post.  Notice the little hole.

Carlos II 1715 Fleet Beach Cob
Same one shown at the top of the post.

This monogram is very much like the one on the other Carlos II cob. If that is a assayer mark right below the hole, as I think it is, although it looks like a C, it should be a G, which would be the mark of Geronimo Bercerra, and that would put the date between 1666 and 1677.

As I recall this one was found on the flat sand right behind the berm in a patch of small and broken shells.

Most half reales found on the beach will not be in very good shape, but most of the time you will be able to determine the mint and date range.

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Iguanas invading South Florida and causing electrical outages.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/fl-reg-south-florida-iguana-invasive-damage-20180618-story.html

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Here is a good web site where you can view artifacts donated to the British Museum.  Good browsing.

http://www.colchestertreasurehunting.co.uk/H/hoardandtreasure.htm 

Thanks to Brian B. for that link.

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If you want help with identifying finds, please send good photos taken from various angles and provide basic information such size and what it appears to be made of and anything else that you can make out that might be relevant.  It isn't easy identifying items from photos so provide any and all information that you can.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/22/18 Report - Mexico Minted Half Reales. Atocha on TV. Digging Woodstock.

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

Philip V Mexico Half Reale Beach Find.

Yesterday I was talking about a December 1, 1990 beach hunt at John Brooks, and I showed two cobs from that hunt.  Here are another found during the same hunt.

Mexico Half Reale Beach Find.

The one above looks like it might be a different type of Phillip monogram. 

And below is another.

Mexico Minted Half Reale Beach Find.

This one shows the left side of the P and the mint mark M.

Mexico Minted Half Reale Beach Find.

This one shows a good part of the cross and a castle in the upper left quadrant.

In the past few days I showed finds from two December hunts, one in 1989 and one in 1990, and the results were very similar.  Five half reales were found in one hunt, and four in the other.  Besides all being half reales, all were minted in Mexico.  I think all except one or two comes from the reign of Philip V.

The 1989 hunt I remember in great detail.  The 1990 hunt, I don't remember at all.  It was fortunate  that I labeled the finds and when and where they were found for the second hunt, otherwise I would have had no idea.

None of these cobs were cleaned and they look pretty much as they did when they were found nearly 30 years ago.  You probably noticed that some still had bits of shell attached.  I wish I had labeled the artifacts too.

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Maybe you saw National Geographic drain the ocean over the Atocha on the 18th.  If you missed it, here is the schedule for other airings.
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I noticed a coin I got in change the other day and it still had bits of shell attached to it, like many of the cobs I show.  It was obviously on the beach at one point.  I've often wondered how many millions of coins are returned to circulation by detectorist.  I have no idea, but you see obvious examples of cleaned coins in circulation all the time.  We save a lot of money for the U. S. by returning coins that would otherwise have to be replaced.

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Can you believe Woodstock is now an archaeological site?

Archaeologists scouring the grassy hillside famously trampled during the 1969 Woodstock music festival carefully sifted through the dirt from a time of peace, love, protest and good vibes.

Perhaps they would find an old peace symbol? Or a strand of hippie beads? Or Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick?

The five-day excavation did reveal some non-mind blowing artifacts: parts of old aluminum can pull tabs, bits of broken bottle glass. But the main mission of Binghamton University's Public Archaeology Facility was to help map out more exactly where The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker wowed the crowds 49 years ago...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-archaeologists-scour-woodstock-concert-field.html

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Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/21/18 Report - December 1, 1990 Hunt And Some of the Cobs Found That Day.

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

Philip V Half Reale.

Some things - both good and bad - leaven an indelible impression.  You remember them your entire life, it seems.  Some of them are trivial or silly, but still they stick.

One thing I always remembered is the first treasure coin I discovered at each beach.  There is something about that first one that sticks.  I always remember every first treasure coin found at a particular beach, but many of the others found after that I don't remember at all.

The December 1989 hunt that I described a few days ago sticks out in my memory very well.  I remember many of the details very vividly.   I remember seeing the other fellow come and leave, I remember my wife sitting in the car and the sweater and gloves that I was wearing, and the trip up to my parents after the hunt.  And I remember showing the finds to my parents when I arrived at their house.

Those cobs weren't my first at that beach, but there were some unique things about the hunt, such as the weather - and it was the first time that I found so many cobs in such a short time.

There was another December hunt just about one year later that produced nearly as many cobs, but which I don't remember nearly as well.  Fortunately I had the cobs labeled with the information, including the date and year - December 1, 1990.  It was another drive-by hunt.  I only know that because I was still living in the Fort Lauderdale area at that time, so I had to drive up to Fort Pierce for the hunt.

Here are some of the cobs that were found.  They came from the same beach and are similar to those found during the December hunt from a year earlier - Mexico minted half reales from the reigns of Philip V and Carlos II.

The cob at the top of this post is one of those.  You can see the P and part of the S on this one and just the bottom of the crown.  It seems to be the type of crown that has a football shaped opening  at the bottom.  Also there is the Florenza cross on the other side, indicating a Mexico minted cob.

Below is another from the same hunt.

Philip V Half Reale.

This one doesn't show the S.  A couple castles and a flattened lion shows on the other side.  This is the one I always called the acorn cob because of it's shape.

Notice the big dot under the P on this one  I pointed the dot of this monogram out on a couple other cobs that I posted a few days ago.

The mint and assayer marks should be to the left of the P, but unfortunately they don't show well. Maybe you can make out a part of the "J" assayer mark.

Again, notice the rust on both of these.

As I recall the beach was not nearly as big back then.  I think a lot of the current sand came from renourishment projects.

Here is the metal detector I was using in those days - probably my all-time favorite.

Modified Nautilus Metal Detector in Nikolite Case.

Nautilus detectors were used by relic hunters a lot.  This one served very well as a beach and shallow water detector.  It nulled on iron, so you knew when iron was present, but it wasn't much of a problem.

I'll show a couple more cobs from that hunt some other time.

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Gaylen C. said the following about the glass mystery find.

Don't know for sure, but the mysterious glass object with the concave surface and hole in it resembles a trap. Specifically I remember my dad using a minnow trap which was a normal looking 1 gallon glass jug except that it had a concave bottom with a hole exactly like the one you show. Saltine crackers were placed in the jug, it was capped and placed in the water. Minnows swam in to the feast but did not get out. Bait!

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Label your finds with all of the relevant information.  Try to think ahead about what you will want to know a few decades in the future.  Photos are good too, especially if you don't keep your finds.

Nothing in the forecast other than a one foot surf for days to come.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/20/18 Report - Three Amazing Finds Found in Different Ways and Different Places.

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

James Madison Silver Indian Peace Medal Found in Farm Field.
Source: See PBS link below.

I saw this on the Antiques Roadshow recently.  The silver Indian Peace metal was found in a farm field during plowing.  It was appraised at $20,000 to $30,000.

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/season/20/omaha-ne/appraisals/1809-silver-james-madison-indian-peace-medal--201503A14/

A big find showed up in the garbage.  Garbage collectors found a relic of St. Clement in the trash.

Relic of Pope Clement Found in Trash.
Photo by Ruth Gledhill
Source: See TheTablet link below.

You never know what you might find or where it might pop up.

The relic of Pope Clement I which was found in a red and gold, wax-sealed case in waste collected from central London is being restored to Westminster Cathedral today.

The relic, a piece of bone, is the personal belonging of someone who wishes to remain anonymous. It was one of a number of items stolen from a car in Central London.

It was found by waste collectors from the Enviro Waste company when doing their rounds in central London earlier this year. Workers did not realise what they had until they appraised the waste a few days later...

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/9268/relic-of-pope-st-clement-restored-to-westminster-cathedral

Here is another great find.

Source: See DailyMail link below.

Divers exploring wreckage of the Pulaski which sank in 1838 find a gold watch stopped at 11.05pm - exactly 5 minutes after the ship's boilers exploded, sending it to a watery grave.

Exploration of the wreckage of the Steam Boat Pulaski has uncovered a pricey gold watch with hands appearing to validate the recorded timeline of its sinking.

The boilers on the ship were believed to have exploded at 11pm Eastern on June 14, 1838, and the hands on this ornate watch now read 11.05pm.

The Pulaski was ferrying wealthy Southerners from Savannah to Baltimore on the day that half of its 200 wealthy passengers died off the North Carolina coast.

It was first confirmed in May that the wreckage being explored by Blue Water Ventures International for the last seven months belonged to the Pulaski...

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5854239/Divers-exploring-Pulaski-wreckage-watch-stopped-exactly-5-minutes-ships-boilers-exploded.html

Thanks to Peter H. for that link.


That isn't what I planned to post today, but these three stories of great finds came along, so I decided to post them all at once.

I have plenty of other things to post but can't do all in one post.

I suspect it won't be long before we'll hear about some of this year's salvage finds along the Treasure Coast.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/19/18 Report - Philip V Half Reale Monogram. Mystery Item. Artifact Web Site. Undersea Cables.

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

Illustration of  a Royal Half Reale Showing the Full Philip V Monogram

In the past three posts I showed half reales carrying the Philip V monogram and a couple with very incomplete Carlos II monograms.

You usually don't see an entire monogram on a half reale and especially not a weathered half reale found on the beach, but if you know what they look like, you can spot pieces of the monogram on many cobs.

The three Philip V reales that I showed in the last three posts each showed a different piece of the monogram.  The mint mark and partial date on the first gave a good idea of what the monogram would look like.

Below are parts of two separate cobs.  The top one (the one I just referred to) shows the left side of the Philip V monogram on a Mexico minted half reale, while the second shows much of the bottom of the monogram.  Using the common parts, the two images can be combined or overlapped to show much of the monogram.  They can be oriented by using the dot and the angle joining the P (in red).

The third Philip V reale (below) that I showed yesterday shows much of what the second reales shows plus the top of the S.

All three of these were minted in Mexico, and all three are Philip V half reales with very similar monograms, and all three were found on the same beach on the same day.

None of these ones show the crown. 

I was very happy to see that I labeled each of these so I knew when and where they were found.  Not all of my finds were so well labeled.

Some other time I'll look at the Carlos II monogram and some of the finds from other days.

As the results of one of my blog polls showed, if you find one, the chances are good that you'll find more than one during a hunt.

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I just received the following email concerning the recent mystery object. Mark said, I believe  the glass item with the cone, is a fancy inkwell. The pen would rest in the hole,  cone side up and any excess ink would run back into the container. There was probably a cork in the non cone side hole. These could actually be flipped over, cork side up without spilling ink "cone down". Try it with water.

I collected and dug bottles here in North Palm Beach county back in the late 60's and 70's

Thanks Mark.  I have seen old ink wells that look much like the mystery item from the outside.  I'm still puzzled by it though.  You might be right.

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Brian B. sent the following email and link.

I was reading up on some old musket balls I found in the palmettos -trying to get an idea on the dating and saw a bottle section on this site, Thought I'd send it your way....THanks Brian 

http://sgtriker.com/bullets.htm 

It has a lot of good information on a wide variety of types of artifacts.  Worth checking out.

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Here is an interesting article on undersea cables.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/392577-spotlight-falls-on-russian-threat-to-undersea-cables

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/18/18 Report - A Couple More Silver Cobs From a Cold December Hunt. Thoughts on Mystery Item.

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

Phillip V Half Reale with Off-Center Monogram.

Here is one more of the Mexico minted cobs found on a very cold day - December 23, 1989.  I'm pretty sure of that date now.  The cobs posted in this post and the previous two posts came from that same hunt.

This one has a fairly large surface and an off-center strike.  Once again you see part of the Phillip V monogram.

The beach was not heavily cut, but there was a significant cut to the front beach.  All the cobs these cobs were found between the dunes cross-over and what used to be known as the Christmas Tree to the north of the access.  The Christmas Tree was part of an old dead tree that everyone decorated with any kind of flotsam.

Other Side of the Same Cob.

Again you can see the the type of cross that indicates the Mexico mint.

Here is another one.  This is a very small cob.

Small Mexico-minted Half Reale.

This one had lost a lot of material.  It is way underweight.

Other Side of Same Cob.

I have this photo upside down.  It looks like a faint Carlos II monogram.

This is the smallest and poorest cob of the day.

That was a day I remember well.  Back then I still a very high cold tolerance.  No more.  I had on a sweater that I used up north when I went ice-skating and had the beach to myself as the wind was blowing on that freezing day.  My wife stayed in the car.  One other detectorist showed up, and even though he had a coat and everything, when he walked out onto the beach and felt the cold he just shook his head and turned around and left.  It was a very short hunt on a very cold day.   No telling how much would have been found if I had stayed an hour or two.

December of 1989 featured several surges of Arctic air into the central and eastern United States beginning around mid month and lasting until Christmas. This Arctic outbreak was a historic event, with many locations establishing monthly or all-time record lows. Sub-freezing temperatures extended across much of the southeast U.S. with considerable damage to citrus crops in Florida and south Texas (newspaper reports indicated "nearly total destruction" of the citrus industry across the north half of Florida). Dallas had $25 million damage caused by broken water pipes that froze in the cold, along with subsequent production losses due to failures at manufacturing plants. Many other locations across the southeast U.S. had damage from frozen pipes as well. The cold weather resulted in snow and sleet falling as far south as central Florida just before Christmas, and parts of northern Florida had its first White Christmas on record.

Here is that link.

https://www.weather.gov/ilx/dec1989-cold

Note the correlation between weather and finds.  This hunt followed several days of north wind.

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I received a number of good ideas about the glass mystery item I posted a few days ago.

I'm not sure yet, but my best guess at this time is that it is a antique fly or bug catcher.

Antique fly/bug trap.

Above is an example of a typical fly trap.  Note the funneled entryway from the bottom.  This one was made to hang, others are elevated on feet.

Below is the one I found.

The bottom section is very much like the typical examples I've found.  The difference is the top half, which is solid except for an empty tube and compartment.  My assumption is that the top half is the  basis for the 1876 patent.  It could be to hold a bait substance and/or attract and catch other insects such as ants.  I still don't know.

It has no feet, so I wonder if the upper hollow space might have been for some type of hanger.  There seems to be no other way to hang it.

I originally thought that it was a some type of insulator.  I got other good responses, and I'm not sure yet.

Thanks to all.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net