Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
On 8/16/16 I posted the picture below and told about the truly exceptional reales found by Bob M. You just don't find cobs in that kind of condition on a beach very often, and high denomination cobs are very unusual at the beach were they were found.
As great as the find was, I got even more of the story from somebody else that was on the same beach that day when these reales were found. This additional information made the story even better.
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Superior Reales Found by Bob M. After 2003 Storms
Photo submitted by Darrel Strickland
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Scott (aka Trez) is the other person that was there that day. Scott sent me the story as he saw it in an email. The email follows immediately below.
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I love the photo of all the cobs in Bob's hand. Here is the story as I remember. I know Bob would remember it, thats for sure.
I was with him on the beach that day when he found all those cobs. All came out of a very small area right at the base of a freshly cut dune. That particular day we both were working/walking South along this particular stretch of beach.
We were both be-bopping along for sometime and no one else was there yet just us. We didn't even know each other. We may have said hello as we both took off in the same direction along the dune line. We were just walking/detecting and both trying to get out of each others way I guess.
I would have to stop and dig a target then he would pass by me, then he would stop and dig a target and I would pass by him and so forth and so forth all the way down this stretch of beach. I guess he was the luckier out of the two that day as I stopped to dig a target he passed me and his next target was all those PERFECT FRESHLY MINTED pieces of 8 (if not mistaken they were all 8). I passed him not looking or being nosey as he dug them. I just moved along thinking to myself damn that guy just scored something good, but at the time didn't know how good...
It wasn't until the high tide started coming back in until we saw each other again. I had jumped up into the dunes for a break and to keep my Sovereign XS from getting soaked and wave washed.
As I sat, here came Bob, he saw me and I saw him, he stopped and came up into the dune with me, We finally introduced ourselves to each other and sat and talked about the day. I brought up the part where he passed me and stopped and dug for awhile. I had to ask him ok what did you find??? He was super nice, and you could see the surprise and happiness on his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out 8 reales by the handfuls. These were/are not your typical beach/water reales. These were FULLY weighted pieces as if they just pulled from the burlap sack and buried in the dune until they would be found again.
They were and still are the finest examples of beach found 8 reales that I (personally) have ever seen come from any of the wreck-site beaches (they are pristine 8s).
Even as I think about them now as I write this, they were incredible coins.
Thank you Bob for letting me hold them, examine them and drool over them. I have to admit that find still haunts me.
I saw Bob a few times since then but never at the beach, usually unloading his bread truck at a store, but we always said hello to each other.
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Thanks Scott. You weren't the lucky one to hit those reales. but you had a great experience and helped us all by filling in the details and giving more of the story.
The story I'm talking about isn't just about a find. It isn't only about coins. It is about a lot more than that.
I'll start with the coins. They were forgotten - buried under sand for centuries. Nobody knew about them after being lost for such a long time.
Those who manufactured them, transported them, valued and expected them, protected them and lost them, saw them differently. They meant something different to all of those people.
To some, those coins were a heavy burden. To some they were a curse. To others they were a highly coveted. That was the part of the story that happened long ago before the cobs were lost and forgotten.
Then they were found. The light of human consciousness shined upon them once again, and once again they became something important to somebody again. They became a part of another story as experienced by Bob and Trez. In a way, Bob M. brought those coins back to life as they became a part of Bob's and Scott's life. History was uncovered, and at the same time, history was made.
Unlike the countless grains of sand around him that day, those cobs became very meaningful again.
A coin or artifact has no meaning by itself.
Meaning is a matter of relationships - how an object relates to other objects and to people. A part of history was recovered and restored. But just as important, those three hundred year old cobs entered powerfully into the present.
The coins didn't give meaning to Bob. Bob gave meaning to the coins. Bob M. brought those forgotten coins back to life, but that wasn't the only magic that took place that day.
They became a part of Scott's life too. He wondered about and then saw the cobs that he missed finding by just a few feet. They became a part of his story. Because of the story we now know, they have become a part of each of us.
Some of us assimilate it more completely than others. The story will be more meaningful to some. Some of us will note the extra fine condition of the cobs, and we know how unusual it is to find cobs like that at that particular location because we've hunted there before - some of us many times, so we know the location, the dunes, the sights and normal slope of the beach. Some readers will carefully note how they were found "
right at the base of a freshly cut dune." Some of us will immediately relate to leap-frogging with another detectorist on a lonely beach, wondering what we missed and then discussing the day standing or sitting at the top of a dune as the water comes in.
I have no doubt that when Bob sat down with Trez, Bob was as eager to show his find as Trez was to see what he might have missed. Maybe you've been there before.
We've all been there. The difference between finding and not finding is very thin. One step one way or another can make all the difference. It can be a matter of a foot or even an inch.
Trez didn't lose. He took a lot away from that day. And he shared it with us.
There is more than one person in any good story. No man is an island, just like no object is an island. People have no meaning without relationships, and as the archaeologists always say, objects have no meaning without relationships.
Bob felt the magic when he recovered those cobs, and maybe you felt the magic when you read the story Scott shared with us. Maybe the picture of those coins excited something in you. Maybe you could relate to the experiences that Bob and Scott shared. Maybe it brought back memories for you.
Hundreds of readers have now shared in their story to some extent. They read, looked, wondered, remembered, thought, and felt. The magic was passed on through the sharing of their story.
Not the end.
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Predicted Track of Fiona
Source: nhc.noaa.gov |
Fiona is still heading towards Bermuda. There is another distubance behind Fiona that has a 10% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours.
We'll have some nice negative tides today. The surf will remain small for at least a few days.
They are predicting a surf of nine to fourteen feet about nine days from now. That would be something, but as I've said many times, their longer range surf predictions aren't really that good. We'll just have to keep watching for a while to see if that is really going to happen.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
