3/26/16 Report - New Treasure Salvage Season About To Begin. Detectorist Discovers Important Viking Treasure. Archaeology of Easter.

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

Pendant That Is Part of the Galloway Viking Treasure.

Another detectorist makes another important find.  How often have you seen that reported?  Hobbyists make many important discoveries.

Conservators have released images of the contents of a pot of Viking treasure more than 1,000 years after it was buried in a field in Galloway.

Items inside include six silver Anglo-Saxon disc brooches, a gold ingot and Byzantium silk.

The pictures give the public a chance to see the items for the first time as they are not currently on display.

It follows a painstaking project to remove and conserve the items which date from the 9th to 10th century AD.

The hoard was discovered by metal detectorist Derek McLennan in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014...

Here is the link for the rest of the article about the items comprising the Galloway Viking treasure.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-35871538

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The seasons come and go.  The older you get the faster that seems to happen.

2015 ended up with some decent beach hunting.  1715 Fleet items were found, and I've shown some of those.

The hope was that 2016 would continue with more beach finds, but the beach conditions weren't as good as I'd hoped.  We had a lot of south winds and small surf.

Now we're entering the next phase.  Winter is about over and summer is on the way.  That usually means poor beach conditions with the exception of the occasional storm or hurricane, but it also means that the salvage season is about to start.

The crews are getting ready and the Capitana, if things go as planned, will start a new salvage season on April 1.  No fooling!

You know what they accomplished last year.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold coins and a bunch of Royals.  That was as good as it gets.  Not only were hundreds of gold coins found, but that number of gold Royals is truly amazing.

As they get ready to start a new season, I wish the salvage crews the best of luck for 2016.  I don't know how anyone could top the 2015 finds, but it might be done.  They learned a lot last season. They have some good techniques and strategies, so anything is possible.

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This article is particularly appropriate today.  It is about the archaeological evidence relating to what we now call Easter.

I am personally very skeptical about the archaeological evidence, although the historical evidence, if that is what you want, is compelling, to say the least.  For me it is more of a spiritual matter that does not depend upon either archaeology or historical evidence.  It is about personal daily spiritual experience.

Whatever your position, you might be interested, as I was, in this brief article that considers Easter and the archaeological evidence.

http://www.worldofthebible.com/Bible%20Studies/easterevidence.pdf

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I might actually finally get out to the beach today.  Hope so!

Happy Easter,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/30/15 Report - Sedwick Coins Auction Items. Polishing Found Jewelry. Viking Treasure Found On Danish Island.

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

Some Of The Artifacts Auctioned By Sedwick Coins In Orlando..

Tuesday I stopped at the Hilton Doubldtree in Orlando to inspect some of the items that were going to be auctioned by Sedwick Coins.  Frank Sedwick brought out those that I most wanted to see.

Larger artifacts were out on a table, but coins and other small items were carefully stored, as you would expect.  I don't know how he keeps track of so many valuable items.  That job would make me a little nervous, but Frank is obviously very used to it.  One of the ladies working the tables grew up in Fort Pierce and was a graduate of Fort Pierce Central.

I took a look at some of the heart-shaped cobs.  They were in  excellent condition.  They  showed very little wear of any kind.  That isn't totally surprising since it is believed they were apparently made for some special purpose other than circulation as coinage.   Most of the heart-shaped cobs are "holed," but not all.

One that I carefully inspected had two holes - one at the top and one at the bottom.  The holes were very carefully made.  One hole was amazingly close to the edge of the coin.  Just a smidgen off and the hole would have been something other than a hole.  It was apparent that those cobs were made with great care.  I could see how anyone could easily get into collecting such interesting pieces.

Another item I studied was the crucifix with attached coins.  I posted a a picture of that item and made a few comments about it in a previous post.

It was a good opportunity to inspect a variety of unique items, and, as always, Frank and Augie were very accommodating.

Some of you probably watched the online bidding yesterday.  One of the highest priced items was a  gold bar that sold for over $100,000.  It was lot number 234.  Below is the item description.

Long, complete gold bar #2, 2307 grams, marked with fineness XXI (21K) and foundry/assayer SARGOSA / PECARTA, from the Santa Margarita (1622). 11-1/2" x 1" x 3/4". Impressively complete and neatly cast ingot with lots of markings, including four finenesses, seven circular tax stamps and one foundry/assayer, central depression from casting shrinkage, small cylindrical assayer's "bite" at one end, "2" stamped on bottom by salvagers. From the Santa Margarita (1622), with Fisher photo-certificate #2-M-80.

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The other day I showed a Hermes silver ring found by Robert H.  He used a Dremel and jewelers rouge to give it a good cleaning.

Here is a picture of the ring that shows how nice it looked after being polished.

Ring Found By Robert H. After Cleaned Up.

The following link will take you to a web site that provides a table that shows the polishing compound to use on a wide variety of metals including gold, silver, copper and many more.

http://www.pjtool.com/jewelers-rouge-chart.aspx

That ring now looks great Robert.  Thanks for sharing.

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An amateur archaeologist took his metal detector on a business trip and ended up finding a rare cache of Viking coins on a Danish island.

Here is the link for more on that story.

http://cphpost.dk/news/amateur-archaeologist-finds-viking-treasure-on-danish-island.html

I want to thank all of the amateur archaeologists who make and properly report important finds.

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We recently had a Super Moon and some nice high tides.  The surf will be around three feet for the next few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net