11/21/17 Report - Gold Pendant. Hallmarks. Thanks Guys. Seagrape Trail Monday.

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

Here is a find made by John C. back some time ago.   Like the Pelican in Piety ring found by Dan B., this pendant shows hallmarks - but on the front.  Below is what John said about it.

This piece was found north of Sebastian   Inlet.  Noticed similar markings to Danny's ring. Crown  on the top and the leopard head on the bottom signifies London.  Much lower carat gold. I think 375 is 9 kt.

Shown before and after cleaning.

Photos by John C.

You can find a lot of good information to help you decipher hallmarks.  First you might check out wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallmark#England

And here is a very detailed document on British hallmarks.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.britishhallmarkingcouncil.gov.uk/publications/hallmarks2.pdf

You can learn a lot when you research finds.  That is half the fun of finding old and interesting things.

Dan B., who found the Pelican in Piety ring that I showed on 11/8, had the following to say.

Wanted to thank you for the recent excitement pertaining to the ring.

I was thinking what is crazy is that until the notorious find of the pelican of piety in Fort Pierce in 2010 it would have been an obscure Spanish religious symbol only well known to the few who had in-depth knowledge of the fleet and its items!?!? Uncanny

I am actually considering contacting LW and G for our records of sales in 1962 and 1963. Also have a few strings out to some old hunters who may have seen it on someone. I'm enjoying this. Thanks again. Hope you are well.

Ps. Loved "what is grass for"


Thanks Dan.  As you suggest, the cool thing is how it adds to the awareness of those who are interested.  That might seem like a small thing, but the effect is multiplied many times.  The effect can multiply without being recognized while raising awareness and the general level of knowledge having an impact far into the future.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Captain Bonnie Schubert, who literally uncovered the gold pelican artifact after it had been concealed for hundreds of years in the ocean, and to Laura Strolia, who conducted research and published the  historical background and helped us understand the significance of the artifact and the Pelican in Piety icon.   She raised our awareness and increased our knowledge.  That is obvious to me from the comments and responses of the readers of this blog. We can not tell what long term impact that might have. This is Thanksgiving week so it is an especially good time to thank those who have contributed so much to our understanding and the enjoyment of our hobby.

(For those of you who don't know, What is Grass For is a post I did not too long ago.)

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Seagrape Trail Monday
Photo by Darrel S.

Darrel said, Went back to Sea Grape with CZ21. Detected from 1:30-4:00pm. Low was 2:45pm. Nice low sand and hundreds of hits! Mostly nails, scrap iron, space debris, tiny washers, and older coins. Only detector out on beach or parking lot!

Seagrape Trail Monday
Photo by Darrel S.

Thanks for the report and photos Darrel.

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While I'm giving thanks, I want to say thanks to all of you who read this blog, and especially those of you who contribute and respond.  The responses I get encourage me to keep going.

The surf will be a little higher today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/1/17 Report - Pelican of Piety. Two Finds. Effect of Changing Shoreline and Shifting Sand. High Surf This Week.

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

Source: usedchurchitems.com

Some of the greatest and most meaningful 1715 Fleet finds have been religious items. I found the web site of a company that they are "devoted to preserving Catholic 'Traditional Latin Mass' church items, and invite you to experience the passion and quality of liturgical antiquities from our past."
Here is that link.

http://www.usedchurchitems.com/

One of the items I saw pictured on their web site was the lectern shown at the top of this post.  Look familiar?  It looks very much like the gold pelican of piety found by Bonnie Schubert on the Nieves site.

If you aren't familiar with the pelican of piety you should take a look at my  11/4/12 post in which researcher and author Laura Strolia described the significance of the item.

http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Wabasso/forecasts/latest/six_day

See also the following article describing the original find.

http://archive.tcpalm.com/news/vero-beach-mother-daughter-team-find-solid-gold-bird-statue-from-1715-treasure-fleet-off-fort-pierc--345668992.html

And here is a link that will give you more about the meaning of the pelican in heraldry.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/lcr/fsca/fsca41.htm

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Civil War Bullet and 18K Ring
Find and photo by Duane C.

Duane C. sent the above picture of two finds that he found on the same recent hunt.  That is quite an unusual combination of finds.

Congratulations Duane!

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Brian B. send this link to a good site that gives good surfing and weather information.  Take a look.

http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Wabasso/forecasts/latest/six_day

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I've been talking a lot about the changing shoreline in recent posts.  The movement of sand and other items is something that I've talked about a lot in the past.  It is one of  the most important things for a beach hunter to understand.

As the shoreline changes items will be brought into metal detector range or covered and put out of detector range.  There are some places where you have a more-or-less progressive loss of sand or a progressive accumulation of sand.  Where there is a long-term progressive erosion, you'll have a good shot at finding older items.  These days they do so much beach renourishment that it is not easy to find areas that are continually eroding and uncovering newer materials.

When you get erosion of the back dunes, old items can easily wash out and down onto the beach.  That mostly happens on the narrow beaches with cliffs on the face of the back dunes.

Sometimes coins and things wash up and onto the beach.  I've described how that happens in the past.  However before items can wash up onto the beach, they have to be uncovered.  That might sound obvious enough, but it is important.  As long as items are covered by sand, they aren't going to wash up.  Therefore, when the shoreline is moving east (on the East Coast), more items are being more deeply covered.  That covering of sand will have to be moved before those items can wash up.

One of the things I see on many of the Treasure Coast beaches now is a lot of sand in front of the beach in the shallow water.  Not only does that sand cut the force of the waves before they hit the beach, but it also covers and protects buried items.  If sand is eroded from a beach, it can end up directly in front of the beach and more deeply cover old items there.  You can therefore see a beach that is eroded but find no old coins on the beach because they are deeply buried in the shallow water and also not being washed out of the dunes.  Those are the two main sources of old coins on a beach: those washed up from in front of the beach, and those washed out from the dunes.  A third source includes old coins that were originally deposited when the beach was eroded or previously washed up onto the beach and then subsequently got uncovered before either being dragged out into the water again or getting covered again.

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

This should be an interesting week.  If the predictions are correct, the surf starts to build Sunday then stays high for a few days.  Even if we don't get favorable winds or swells, the surf might be high enough to do some good.

Please add your response to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net