Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Among other things, yesterday I posted some comments from Jammin Jack. The following comments and photo album picture is from Jack.
Below is a page from Gary Daemer's salvaging during the 1990s. Billy Elam was involved and I think put the album together. You will see many rings been found, but no silver! Possibly, more fragile and did not survive the beating of the ocean or silversmiths did not make many because silver harder to work with.
Jack continued saying, The rings in the above picture are all gold. Most were low karat, except for one, which was about 14K, according to the text by the photo.
---
It is accepted that very few, if any, silver rings have been found on 1715 Fleet wrecks. (Deagan shows at least one.) And now we have a beach silver ring "certified" as being from the 1715 Fleet. So the question is why silver rings are so rare on 1715 Fleet wrecks. The archaeological record of Spanish colonial land sites does document a few, but again, not many. It appears they were not the rage at the time.
Some people have suggested that the scarcity of silver finger rings might be made more extreme by fact that they didn't survive well in a rough salt water environment.
Despite the fact that very few silver finger rings have been attributed to 1715 Fleet ships, a lot of old silver finger rings have been found on the wreck beaches. Being isolated finds having no substantial context, it would be really difficult to attribute such a find to a particular source without definitive markings.
We can not forget that items of roughly the same time period could come from 18th century salvage efforts and other activities drawn to the beaches by the wrecks. I wonder, for example, if some finds might be trade goods used to pay/reward indigenous divers and other workers after the wreck.
Another question that is possibly related is why are so many half reales found on the 1715 Fleet beaches while cobs salvaged from the submerged wreck sites include such a high proportion of higher denomination cobs relative to half reales. Below are a few possibilities.
Could it be because the lighter half reales are more likely to get washed onto the beach?
Are the half reales more difficult to find in the water as compared to larger cobs?
Do small denomination reales corrode and disappear more quickly (as some have suggested of silver rings) in submerged salt water environments?
Did contemporary salvage efforts affect the pattern significantly?
I have my opinions, but since they are nothing more than opinions I'll leave those questions to you.
One huge difference appears obvious: half reales were carried on the fleet in great numbers while finger rings were very scarce. Nonetheless, both natural and human actions could affect the distribution and finds of both half reales and silver rings.
---
Private beaches for the wealthy paid for by taxpayers: that is the subject of the following article, which I am sure will stir up some people. The same subject had people up in arms a few years ago.
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/newswire/2020/02/03/privatization-coming-beach-near-you-opinion/4643308002/
You might want to be informed on that subject. It is not a new one, but has not been settled.
---
The tides are getting bigger, as is the surf. We are now up to around 3 - 5 feet, but that isn't the best news. Look out to next weekend. The predictions are interesting.
The longer term predictions have been good recently - much improved over a couple years ago.
 |
| Source: MagicSeeWeed.com. |
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
controversial article
