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