9/16/16 Report - Three Tropical Storms Plus Now. Padre Island and Emanuel Point Shipwreck Study. Fossils.

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

Julia has become a tropical storm again.  It is lingering off of South Carlina and it looks like it is bringing some northeast winds to parts of North Carolina, South Carolina an North Florida.

That is the kind of thing I'd like to see happen off the Treasure Coast - a storm that sits off shore and churns for a while.

We now have three tropical storms, two depressions, but no partridge in a pear tree.

Karl is expected to become a hurricane, but is expected at this point to move to the north before long.  I've made the observation before that when they get strong that far away they tend to move north into the Atlantic.

Another depression is about to come off of Africa.  

It is pretty busy out there.

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You might enjoy this fossil slideshow.  Just some very neat fossils.

http://animalmozo.com/2016/09/03/24-insane-fossil-discoveries

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I found a paper on the Padre Island and Emanuel Point shipwrecks.  Simplified, the hypothesis is that the pattern of ceramics on a wreck site can help you determine something about the type of ship was involved.  There were however some other details that you might find interesting, for example the following illustrations on early salvage techniques.

I suspect that there will be differences between deep and shallow water wrecks and some other factors.

Dragging for a Wreck.
Source: Arnold, 1979.

Salvage Divers Following Chain Down To Wreck.
Source: Arnold, 1979

The source of those illustrations is the following.

Arnold III, J. Barto, 1979.  Documentary Sources for the Wreck of the New Spain Fleet of 1554, David McDonald, translator. Texas Antiquities Committee Publication, No. 8, Austin.

You might find the study of the wreck sites, ceramics, etc. interesting.

Here is the link.

http://etd.fcla.edu/WF/WFE0000406/Sorset_Scott_Ryan_201306_MA.pdf

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The World Health Organization found that the United States ranks third (behind India and China) in most depression, anxiety and drug and alcohol abuse.

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Promoting interest in Florida archaeology.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/20/15 Report - Nine 8-escudo Royal Beauties From Mexico. More On New Treasure Coast Discoveries. Brent Brisben on Fox News.

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

Newly Found Royals
Photos submitted by Captain Jonah Martinez.

Here are nine newly discovered royal beauties for your viewing pleasure.  Mostly dated 1711, but also a a couple 1712s.  All are mint marked OXMJ, as I hope you can see.


Here is a Fox News Video interview with Brent Brisben, co-founder of 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels, talking about the new finds, which besides Royals, also included 300 2-escudos as well as other denominations.  I showed some of those yesterday.

Brent Brisben Being Interviewed On Fox News
Source: link immediately below.

http://my.xfinity.com/video/treasure-hunter-finds-over-1m-in-gold-coins-off-fla-coast/508582979985/Comcast/Today_in_Video?cid=hero_sf_TIV

As exciting as all that is, you might wonder what all of that has to do with the beach hunter.  People will get excited and get out on the beach wanting to find gold coins, but not a lot has changed for the beach hunter since the big find.  Beach conditions remain unchanged.

Beach hunters have been marching up and down that beach just yards away from where those coins were found for months now with little result.  Think about that.  Think about how close all that gold was. So close and yet so far.  The Capitana guys weren't a hundred yards off-shore. These finds were made in just a few feet of water in front of the beach.

Metal detecting, like horse-shoes is a game of inches.  As much as we love our super detectors, coins have to be right under the coil, and not only that, they can not be down very far under the coil.  You can miss a coin by an inch one way or another, either being to one side or down too deep.

Did you ever imagine that there was so much treasure so close to where you were walking?  Those things have been out there for three hundred years.  Some people have said, its all gone.  There's nothing left.  How wrong they were!

The main point for the beach detectorists is that you never know what is just below your feet or just a little over to one side or another.

Don't forget.  This isn't the norm for the salvage crews either.  This is a BIG hit.  It was years in coming.  It has been a long time since anything like this.  It took perseverance.  It took work.  There have been many hot frustrating days and dry holes.  Then the big hit.

It makes it all the more special that it doesn't happen all the time.  It is so hard to come by and so rare that the celebration is that much greater.

We don't have their feelings.  We didn't have their experience.  But we can relate to it in one way or another.  And we can all share in the celebration.

We all know what it is like to work and work and work with little to show for our efforts, not knowing when we might finally hit the big one, and then one day, there it is.

Let us all celebrate work and the human spirit, Let us all celebrate adventure and life itself, as we go through the ups and downs of life.  Let us all learn the lesson of perseverance too.

I've said before in this blog that there is a lot of treasure under the sand right in front of the beach. Some day we'll have a storm like the famed Thanksgiving Day storm that I wrote about a few months ago, and beach conditions will change.  The beach will be littered with coins.  Maybe you'll be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

Not all of the coins will be gold or old.  But when discovered they will all be a part of the adventure and become a part of someone's life.

You might remember when I posted an ad for Captain Jonah in this blog before the salvage season began when he was looking for one more diver.  He found that diver through this blog.  And that diver, who had contributed to this blog from time to time before that, got to be a part of this big find. I'm really happy for that diver.  And I'm glad that this blog played some very small part - as infinitesimally small and remote as it was. And I'm happy that the captain and crew of the Capitana just became a big part of treasure history.

We are all fortunate to be able to see these newly discovered historic coins.  Thanks for sharing guys!

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Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.  Romans 12:15.

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Don't forget to look at yesterday's post if you didn't see it.  More coins shown there.

The Atlantic is heating up.  Besides tropical storm Danny, there are two other disturbances.

Keep watching Danny.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/29/15 Report - Shipwreck Salvage in the Colonial Period. Bells, Barrels and Bullion.

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

Treasure hunting didn't start with the invention of the metal detector.  There was a treasure hunting boom that started in the 17th Century.  The man who started that boom was William Phips, a New Englander born in Maine.  The event was the salvage of the Concepcion and 26 tons of silver in 1687.

Of course salvage began much earlier than that.  It is an activity that is nearly as old as man. It is natural to retrieve anything of value lost, whether on land or in the water.  The excitement of treasure hunting must go back to the beginning of time.  No less than Shakespeare wrote about gold, anchors, and jewels spread upon the ocean floor.  I don't doubt that it is the expression of a basic survival instinct.

Before magnetometers and air tanks men found a way to do it.  Pearl divers who could free dive to great depths played a large roll, but men soon found ways to supply air to the deep.

One of the biggest difficulties in the colonial period was simply finding a wreck.  Unless time hadn't elapsed and you knew where a wreck was or you could see the masts protruding, one of the primary methods of locating a wreck was by fishing.

Above is shown two ships dragging a buoyed line to snare the wreckage.  Then free divers went down to investigate.

For deeper wrecks and longer time on the bottom, other methods were used.  Here is a diagram of an early diving bell.

And for air supplied from the surface, below is shown an early Brownie of sorts.

To retrieve something from the bottom, you don't always have to be there.  There were other techniques such as these tongs.

In 1565 an attempt was made to lift the wreck of the Mary Rose with pontoons and wires.  At slack tide wires secured to twp ships acting as pontoons were slipped under the wreck at slack tide with the hope of lifting the wreck with the change of tide so that the wreck could be towed to more shallow water.  That effort failed.

Below is a picture of that.

My intent today is to point out that shipwreck salvage has been going in for a long time.  Hundreds of years ago there were investors and salvage contracts.  Salvage is natural.  You might say that it is close to a basic instinct.  It is an extension of the will to survive.  It inspires thought and problem solving.  It excites creativity.  It leads to invention and solutions, much like the space program.

Another thing I wanted to accomplish by presenting this is to show that there are always alternative methods.  Not all of those will succeed, but some will.  When you see some of the methods men used hundreds of years ago, you might think of other ways of doing things today.  If metal detectors were banned, treasure hunting wouldn't stop.  Other approaches would emerge.

ABT  Always be thinking.

I hope you found this interesting and perhaps a little inspiring.

This material, along with the pictures and diagrams, came from the article, Balls, Barells and Bullion: Diving and Salvage in the Atlantic World 1500 to 1800 by John Ratciffe. published in the Nautical Research Journal, no. 26, vol. 1, Spring 2011.

Here is the link.

http://www.academia.edu/1522075/Bells_Barrels_and_Bullion_Diving_and_Salvage_in_the_Atlantic_World_1500_to_1800

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/1/15 Report - Found & Returned Wedding Band. New Unusual Collectible That You Might Not Know About.

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

Whatzit Metal Object Exercise.

Michael Sonsogno's heart sank as he helplessly watched his wedding ring roll down the Lauderdale-By-The-Sea pier and fall through a crack and into the water.  It came of while he was washing his hands on the pier back in January.

He paid $600 to two divers with metal detectors to hunt for the ring, but they didn't find it.

On April 25 118 volunteer divers participated in a pier clean-up hosted by a group called Stoked on Salt.

Tons of junk were removed.  One of the volunteer divers found the gold ring tangled in fishing line and junk.  The ring was returned.

Here is the link for the entire story.

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5594701--just-a-miracle-mississauga-man-gets-wedding-ring-back-after-dropping-it-in-ocean/

The paid divers undoubtedly had a tough time finding the ring because of the tons of junk under the pier.  Could you imagine all of the sinkers and fish hooks under the pier?

Removing junk is often the best thing do to - in more ways than one.  

I always say, turn obstacles into opportunities.  What discourages or prevents others can help you if you approach the problem a different way.

Think about it.

[I made a correction to the description of the ring after Mitch K. pointed out an error.  Thanks Mitch.]
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The gold coin pictured in yesterday's post has been tested and was found to be fake.

Interesting find that I'm sure Robert will remember for a long time.

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At the top of the post is a picture of a metal tag.  Do you know what it is?  Maybe a token?  

It's a furniture tag.  

Beginning around mid-century, the advent of the factory system meant most furniture was made in a commercial facility under the auspices of a company name and very few individual craftsmen labeled their product. Even the companies of the time were a little lax in marking the work. By the end of the century, people like Gustav Stickley and the major manufacturers in Grand Rapids, Cincinnati and Chicago had developed elaborate logos and trademarks and few quality items escaped some sort of identification. This has been a boon to modern collectors, giving them the start of a trail of clues to establish age and origin of older furniture.

But like so many things of the 20th century, what started as a simple method of marking furniture quickly became confusing by the second decade. Finding a label on a piece of furniture now means that the collector has to know what kind of label it is to decipher its meaning.

Labels found on 20th-century furniture generally fall into three categories—Manufacturers, Retailers and Associations.

Here is the link for the entire article.

http://www.worthpoint.com/article/furniture-labels-telling-makers

But so what?

The April 29 issue of Kovels Komments says the following.

Unexpected “collectibles” are sometimes sold for good prices, so be careful what you discard. A group of original tags from old furniture sold one at a time in eBay auctions. A Berkey & Gay tag brought $22. A Globe-Werneke Sectional Bookcase label was only 99¢. The 50 tags and labels sold for a total of $573...

It pays to know what things might be worth.

As I think over the many mystery items I've looked at, I'm not so sure that I haven't seen one or two furniture tags without knowing what they were.

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On the Treasure Coast the surf will increase a little this weekend.  At this point they are now predicting up to an eight foot surf about a week from now.  Wouldn't that be nice?

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net