9/19/13 Report - Returned Ring and Some Beach Detecting Conditions Improvement

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachereport.blogspot.com.

Ring Found and Returned
Picture from NBC video

First I'll give the national story with a local connection.   A few weeks ago, I introduced this story that I received from meghunter.  You might recall he was diving in the Cooper River looking for fossils with his friend Brian Tovin when Brian found this 1974 class ring in the murky river.

They tracked down the person who lost the ring right after graduation from college 39 years ago.  Brian was flown by CNN to return the ring to the man that was now suffering from cancer.

Below is a link to the video.

The underwater video in the clip was made by meghunter,    Thanks man!

The video also has some great pictures of meg teeth and other fossils.   You'll want to see this.

Here is the link.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article/306707/40/Long-Lost-Ring-returned-to-dying-owner

One more reason we can't let metal detecting get banned.   This one wasn't found by a detector, but most are.



There are many dangers to working a beach near high tide when you are between rough water and a big cut.  Here are a few tips if you get caught in a situation like that.

First and most important, don't get knocked off of your feet.  It can happen.  An unexpected wave will come in, and if you hear or see it coming, the natural instinct is to move up the slope.  That can be a bad thing if the water is big enough to bounce off of the cliff with a lot of force.   The back wash coming from the opposite direction than the incoming waves, can catch you off guard and soak you from head to toe or worse if you are caught in a poor position.

If you realize that a big wave is coming instead of doing what seems natural and moving up the slope and close to the cliff, move a few steps down the slope and away from the cliff.  Timing is important.  That will get you out of range of the backwash or at least reduce the amount of water that hits you.  The water bouncing off of the cliff can be more dangerous than the incoming water.

Two.  Make sure your equipment is strapped to you.  You can lose a detector, scoop, or other equipment very easily when the water bounces back off of the cliff.

Three.  Make sure all vulnerable electronics are water proof or sufficiently protected.

Four.  Be very alert at all times.   Logs, boards and other dangerous debris can be washing around in the rough water and when you are below a cliff the best exit might be blocked.



Below is a video of the beach this morning near high tide.  The surf was up as predicted.  There will be a full moon tonight.  Of course that adds to the high tide.  The high tide breached the berm again today.

There was a two to three foot cut at the beach shown.  Another beach that I saw was not nearly as cut.

As you can see from the video, the waves were hitting the cliff directly on.  I would have liked to have seen the waves slicing in from the north.   That is normally much more productive.

There were modern coins coming out of the sand bank, but not recent drops.

Cut Seen on One Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

On another beach with less of a cut, down about five to ten yards from the berm was an area of shells covered by sand that was producing a good number of miscellaneous items.

I'm not quite ready to increase my beach detecting conditions rating.  Although the beaches have improved some, I don't think it is enough to give a "2" on my beach rating scale yet.  Maybe in another day or so if things go right

A lot of spots, even some in front of these cuts, were mushy..

There are other beaches that are showing good erosion, but many aren't showing much.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/5/13 Report - TWO!! Great Stories - More On 1715 Gold & New Story

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


Today I'll take a closer look at one of the cobs that was recently found at the Nieves site and give a bit of the history of its origin.

Here is a good view of an eight-escudo and a two-escudo that appeared in the news videos covering the recent Nieves finds.  What you see on this side of the big cob is an L, 8, and an M on the top row.  You can see a P, V, and A on the second row, and 7, 1, 1 on the third row.

The obverse (other side) of this cob shows a cross potent with quartered castles and lions with the legend C. II. D. G. HISPANIARVM.   The first characters indicating Charles, or Carolvs II.

The L on the top row is the mint mark.  It indicates that the cob was minted in Lima.

The eight is the denomination - eight escudos.

And the M is the assayer mark. The assayer would be Felix Cristobal Cano Melgarejo, who was the assayer at the Lima mint from 1709 - 1710 and then again from 1711 - 1728.

At Lima there was a directive that 75% of the silver cobs minted would be eight reales, with the remaining 25 percent being the other denominations.

By 1686, during the reign of King Charles II, Lima was authorized to begin making gold 8, 4, 2, and 1 escudos.  Escudos were to be 22 carat gold (near 92 percent fine) and weigh 27.5 grams.

Earthquakes in 1687 and 1690 severely reduced production of the mint to about 1/4.  Resumption of escudo production began in 1696.

In the early eighteenth century Lima was afflicted with plagues that lasted from around 1705 to 1721.  Production of the mint dropped to an all time low of only 102,000 pesos by 1713, but gold production remained at acceptable levels

The second row down on the cob above shows PVS, which stands for PLVS ULTRA, indicating "more beyond," referring to the New World.

And the third, or bottom line, are the last three digits of the year, in this case 1711.

I'll continue with more of this type of thing tomorrow.


But if that wasn't enough, I also wanted to get started on another great story today.  CNN will probably be picking up on this one, but I wanted to give you a head start.

Al C., AKA meghunter, sent me this story about what happened when he was diving with his buddy Brian.  Here is what he said.

I was diving the Cooper River a couple weeks ago looking for fossils and my buddy found a class ring. No detector - just eye balled it. Anyway there is a great story behind it now. 

Below is more of the story taken from a Post and Courier article (linked below).

While looking for prehistoric shark teeth, Dr. Brian Tovin saw the glint of something shiny in gravel at the bottom of the Cooper River.

At first, Tovin thought he was seeing a fishing lure. What he picked up, though, was a big surprise.  Tovin, of Atlanta, found a class ring that he would soon learn was lost 38 years ago. He spotted it on Aug. 23 in water so inky that a diving light provided only about 3 feet of visibility.

Ring Found by Brian.
Photo from Post and Courier Linked Below

“You feel like you are in another world,” he said.

He saw that the ring was engraved with the initials RLP, which it turned out was short for Robert L. Phillips of Moncks Corner. The 1974 College of Charleston graduate lost the ring during a boat trip with his wife Nancy.

“It’s especially unbelievable at this time in his life,” she said.

Phillips has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Here is the link for more of the story.

 http://www.postandcourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20130902%2FPC16%2F130909903%2F1177%2Fdiver-finds-class-ring-lost-in-cooper-river-38-years-ago&fb_action_ids=10201146160709889&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B150937098447540%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.recommends%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

The best is yet to come.  CNN hopes to drive Brian to the home of Robert Phillips so they can cover the return of the ring.  We'll be watching for that!

I wanted to give you a head start on this developing story.

Thanks Al for sending me the story and the link!!

News, like treasure, seems to come in spurts.  We now have topical storm that has been named Gabrielle  (shown in red below).

National Hurricane Center Map.

I don't expect the low pressure zone down by the Yucatan to affect the Treasure Coast much, but I'll be watching Gabrielle.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net