1/26/20 Report - Still Looking At Treasure Coast Beach Finds Including Cobs and Things.

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

Uncleaned Four Reale Found Last Wednesday.

A day or two ago I showed a picture of the above four-reale which was found last week.  This is the other side of it.

I wanted to take a photo before I starting cleaning it.  I can't believe I waited so long before starting the cleaning, but I've had plenty to keep me busy.

After one hour in a diluted Muriatic solution, I could see the denomination mark emerging.

Details Emerging After Hour in Diluted Muriatic Solution.

The "4" is just to the right of the edge of the shield.  I think you'll be able to see it.

This one might be Charles II era (1665 - 1700)?  That's my guess now, but I'm not sure yet.  What do you think?

I also got a close-up photo of the half-reale I showed the other day.  Here is a closer look at that one.

One Gram Half Reale Found Last Week.

The little tail is interesting.  Does it remind you of anything?  Remember the Potosi "heart" reales?

Rare Potosi Heart Reales.

Very interesting heart reales were produced at Potosi, and they have a very similar little tail.

If you look at the top of the newly found half reale you might be able to see that it looks like maybe the top part was chipped off.  And if you stand that half reale so that the tail is at the very bottom, the cross is unusually well centered and oriented.  Most likely all of that is coincidence, but I sure would have liked to know what the top originally looked like.

---

Yesterday I showed a variety of small items found on the Treasure Coast in recent months.  That included the little piece found by Captain Jonah.  Mark Myer sent me a photo that he sent me back in September of September of 2017 that shows a very similar small find along with a hinge.  Below is that photo from Mark. 

2017 Finds by Mark M.

Part of what I've been doing in this blog, without really starting out with that intention, is documenting and cataloging Treasure Coast beach finds.

---

One thing I should have mentioned about the group of small items that I showed yesterday, is that there is a mixture of old and new items that were found in the same area on the same day.   While a small half reale was found with other old small items, there was also some obviously newer items.  One appears to be an electrical connector.  That goes along with the series I started not long ago on how difficult it can be too determine the age of finds and how context can be misleading when you are talking about beach finds.  Just because an item is found with older items does not mean it is also old.  It improves the chances some, but it doesn't guarantee anything.

Here is one way, and I'd say one of the most prevalent ways, that older and newer items get mixed together.

In the back dunes there are layers of material with older items buried deeper and under newer items. So when the dune erodes, it erodes from the bottom, and a vertical slab falls to the base of the cliff and the items are then redistributed by whatever waves might still be hitting the base of the cliff.  Depending upon various factors, those items will be redistributed over a small or large area.   If that area is relatively small, there won't be much sorting or classifying happening.

---

I haven't received any beach photos the last couple of days and might have some for you tomorrow.  We have been getting some ENE swells and decent, but not large, surf.

Let me know if you have and ideas on these objects or any corrections.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/27/15 Report - A Mexican Four Reales. Wreck of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion. Survivor Camp Dagger.

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

Same Four Reale

Coin To Be Auctioned By
Public Lands For The People.
Photos by Jerry S.

A few days ago I mentioned that Public Lands for the People, an organization that works to preserve outdoor recreational activities such as prospecting and mining on public lands, was going to auction a treasure coin.

The coin had been donated to the organization.

Here are two photos of that coin, which is nicely mounted in a gold bezel.

It is a 4 reale from the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion.

Its always nice to see a good treasure coin.

I like having them displayed in this manner rather than being stored away unseen somewhere.

It also comes with the certificate of authenticity shown below signed by Burt Webber.































You might know the story of the Concepcion and Burt Webber.  Here is a little of that story as printed in the Ocala Star-Banner in 1979.

Click here if you want to read the entire newspaper article.

Here is a short history on the wreck of the Concepcion as presented on the Sedwickcoins.com web site.

Concepcion sunk in 1641 off the northeast coast of Hispaniola

The Concepcion was one of the most significant Spanish wrecks of all time, serving the Spanish with a loss of over 100 tons of silver and gold treasure. The almirata of a 21-ship fleet, the Concepcion was already in poor repair when the Europe-bound fleet encountered a storm in September, leaving her disabled and navigating under makeshift sails amid disagreement among its pilots about their location. Weeks later, she grounded on a reef in an area now named the Silver Shoals, just to the east of another shoal known as the Abrojos, which the pilots were trying to avoid. After another storm hit the wrecked ship and the admiral and officers left in the ship’s only longboat, the remaining crew resorted to building rafts from the ship’s timbers. Survivors’ accounts pointed to drowning, starvation and even sharks for the loss of around 300 casualties. In the fallout that ensued, none of the survivors could report the wreck’s location with accuracy, so it sat undisturbed until New England’s William Phipps found it in 1687 and brought home tons of silver and some gold, to the delight of his English backers.

The Concepcion was found again in 1978 by Burt Webber, Jr., whose divers recovered some 60,000 silver cobs, mostly Mexican 8 and 4 reales but also some Potosi and rare Colombian cobs (including more from the Cartagena mint than had been found on any other shipwreck). Unlike the Maravillas of just 15 years later, however,  the Concepcion did not give up any gold cobs in our time, and any significant artifacts found were retained by the government of the Dominican Republic, who oversaw the salvage. The bulk of the silver cobs found on the Concepcion were heavily promoted, even in department stores! The site is still being worked from time to time with limited success.

---

Here is an interesting item shown online shown at http://www.nelsonshipwreckpirate.com/NauticalAntiquities.html

It says it was found in a Spanish salvor's camp in southern Brevard County.

----

The next day or two on the Treasure Coast we'll have something like a two to four foot surf.  Just a touch higher later in the week.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

2/6/11 Report - Rill Cove Shipwreck & Moving Sand

4 Real From Rill Cove Wreck for Sale on EBay.

Artificial light can give a strange color to photographed items.


I ran across an interesting site concerning the "Rill Cove Wreck," sometimes referred to as the "Lizard Silver Wreck." It isn't a Treasure Coast wreck, but reading about it is instructive and provides information that anyone hunting the Treasure Coast beaches should know.

The wreck remains a bit of a mystery. What is known is that it was a 17th Century merchantman that wrecked in 1618.

The coins from this wreck are Philip II and III Mexico, Lima and Potosi cobs. The cob shown above was originally purchased from Sedwick Coins.

The web site says that the site of this wreck (the Rill Cove wreck) is one af the hardest in the area to work with enormous movements of sand so much so that the site is now totally unaccessible under no less than 20 feet of gravel and sand, surveys identified the extent of the site but soon the sand started to return and within a few months, it was necessary to dig a hole 50 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep to survey one square metre.

Here is the link if you want to read more of the article.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~travis1/rillcove.htm


I talk about sand and it's movement a lot in this blog. One of the big differences between beach (and water) hunting when compared to hunting on stable dry land is the dynamic nature of the environment. Sand moves in the water almost constantly, and just slightly less on the beach.

Of course the front of the beach moves around the most. The sand on the very front of the beach moves almost as much as that in the water. Sometimes it moves more than the sand in the water, depending upon exactly where and how deep the sand is.

On the beach, the further back on the beach the coins are, the less they will be moved and exposed. It takes very high seas for the water to hit the back dunes in most places. Coins can remain buried in the dunes for decades or centuries before being washed out.

Where the waves hit the front beach with a lot of energy, there is a lot of churning and sifting. You can see that at different times, different types of items will be washed up onto the beach. Sometimes it will be small shells, sometimes rocks, sometimes sand and seaweed, and sometimes coins. You can tell a lot by watching what is being washed up and deposited.

Cobs don't just show up on the beach and then lay there for days, weeks, months or years. Items that wash up can disappear just as quickly as they appeared. Sometimes the open window is a matter of a few hours and sometimes weeks.

I've mentioned before one very good hole that I worked for two days and while I was working it, I saw a front move overhead. The wind changed and the next day when I went back to continue working that hole, where there was a target on every square foot of ground, it had all disappeared. It was that quick - going from more than I could dig to nothing.

That is one thing that caught my attention in the article about the Rill Cove Wreck. Discovery depends heavily upon the movement of sand and being in the right place at the right time. The Jupiter Wreck was discovered one morning when the life guard was out for his morning swim, looked down there was a cannon. He'd been in the same spot before, but this time the cannon had been uncovered.

Before that wreck site was being worked by salvage crews, the beach was giving cobs to a few detectorists that worked that frequently worked that beach. (Let me give a shout out to Dave who worked that beach back in the eighties and who I haven't seen for a number of years. While I'm giving shout-outs, I'll also send one out to Arkansas Bill, who used to travel around in his van and sometimes worked the Ft. Lauderdale beaches in the winter.)

I'm sure there are still wrecks that have not been discovered, simply because no one was at the right place at the right time. And I'm sure there are still good beach spots that are little known or unknown. And I'm sure that some of the dunes are protecting hoards that have not yet been discovered simply because they've been covered by tons of sand for at least the last few decades, if not centuries.

What I often say, and have said in this blog a few times before, is "follow the sand." The sand moves. When it moves, see what if anything it uncovered.


Forecast and Conditions.

Summer beach conditions persist. Unbelievable! I really didn't expect to see such a long period of calm seas this time of year.

The wind is still out of the west and the seas are still calm and will continue to remain calm for some time. It seems we are having a steady stream of fronts and west winds passing through. The low tides are still good and low.

Did anyone get down to work the cut at Juno?

Well, not much of anything to say other than we really need to see a strong northeaster.


Happy Super Bowl Day.
TreasureGuide@comcast.net