2/11/15 Report - 6 PM Conditions Update. Cross of the Order of the Holy Spirit. One Remarkable 1715 Fleet Artifact.

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

Photo source: Wikipedia link below.

The Order of the Holy Spirit was created by Henry III in 1578.  The Order of Saint Michael was an older and less exclusive honor.

Knights of the Order wore a medallion such as the one shown to the left.  It is a gold cross with gold fleur-de-lys and white enamel.  The dove, of course, signifies the Holy Spirit.

Knights of the order were supposed to wear the medallion at all times.  It was worn on a blue silk ribbon or with an elaborate collar.

Nearly 27 years ago, on June 9, 1988, Captain Mo Molinar amd the crew of the Virgalona found the medallion pictured below about a mile north of the main pile of the presumed Nieves wreck site in the area of the famous "carpet of gold"

The Order of the Holy Spirit was a French Order, so what would a knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit be doing on a Spanish treasure ship? 

John de Bry's article The Order of the Holy Spirit: An Important Decoration from a 1715 Plate Fleet Wreck (The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 74. No. 1. pp. 50-63) gives us an idea.


De Bry says, The present decoration is extremely rare in historical significance.  It is one of the few 1715 Plate Fleet artifacts which have been the focus of thorough historical research.  It is inconceivable that it could have been anything other than the rightful property of a knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit, and the 1715 dating strongly suggests that the knight was Don Isodore-Juan-Joseph Domingo de la Cueva y Benavides, he first Spanish recipient of this prestigious award.



Artifact Found By The Crew Of The Virgalona
Source of photo: Florida Historical Quarterly link above. 

It appears that this artifact has been traced to a particular passenger on the 1715 Plate Fleet.  Few artifacts are remarkable enough that they can be identified with such specificity.  It makes you think of Don Isodore, esteemed and knighted, perhaps wearing this decoration with color and cord, when disaster strikes. 

You can look out at that same area of the ocean the next time you are at Douglass Beach and imagine how Don Isodore became separated from this unique artifact that remained on the ocean floor for hundreds of years before being discovered again by the crew of the Virgalona.


Here is a link to the de Bry article..  You might have to register with JSTOR to be able to gain access to the article.  Yesterday I talked about JSTOR and some of the ways you can access it.

And here is the link to the Wikipedia article.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Holy_Spirit#Habit_and_insignia

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The wind is from the North on the Treasure Coast and the surf on the southern end of the Treasure Coast is about 4 - 6 feet, and more up north, more like 6 - 8 feet.

As of 6 PM Douglass Beach had big waves but no erosion.  You can see what that looked like in the picture below.  The waves were hitting straight on, and the front beach was mushy.

600 PM Beach View.

Tomorrow it should be a little higher.  We'll see if that actually happens.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

12/28/14 Report - Lead And Other Toy Soldiers And How They Might Help You Date A Site.

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





Vintage Dug Lead Toys.

Toy soldiers have been around for centuries.  They go back to the time of ancient Egypt.

Most of us know the green plastic soldiers featured in the movie Toy Story, but toy soldiers have been around for a long time. 

Most lead soldiers predate 1966.

You might be surprised to learn that many have double-digit retail prices.

By the end of he 19th century, the Mignot and Heyde companies produced painted lead figures but they were expensive and only collected by the wealthy.

In  1893 the William Britains Co. invented the process of hollow casting that produced hollow lead soldiers which were less expensive.  Toy soldier collecting became more common.

Here are some additional highlights of the history of toy soldiers from the web site link below.



More Dug Metal Toys.

Readily available by the mid-50s, unpainted plastic toy soldiers were omnipresent in the toy boxes of children around the world. Their success launched the introduction of painted plastic figures, which soon surpassed the competing lead models in sculpting and painting sophistication.

During the post-WWII years, the U.S.-based Marx Toy Company and its rivals produced inexpensive boxed toy soldier playsets...

1966 marked a turning point in the history of toy soldiers. International concerns about lead poisoning brought about new laws which banned the manufacture of toys containing lead...

In the late 1960s and ‘70s, anti-war sentiment turned the tastes of the public away from military toys like toy soldiers...

In the mid-1970s, cottage industry companies like Tradition, Blenheim, Nostalgia, John Tunstill’s “Soldiers Soldiers” and Marlborough reintroduced metal soldiers, now made of pewter, antimony and tin...

By the early 1980s the metal soldier market was still miniscule. A newly resurgent Britains began to produce metal figures in a new alloy as early as 1973, but the production didn’t hit its stride for a decade or more. Plastic production was dropping off in the early ‘80s, falling further into oblivion to the point where many collectors could only obtain figures at tag sales, swap meets...

By the late ‘80s, the world of plastic toy soldiers had come back to life. The baby boomer collectors of the 1960s had grown up and were now looking to rebuild the collections they remembered so fondly.

In the plastic arena, the 1990s saw a huge revival in the toy soldier collecting community. Some call this renaissance the “Second Golden Age” of plastics (the first being the glory days of the 1950s).

I've quoted liberally from the following linked web site.  Check it out for more of the story.

http://www.toysoldierco.com/resources/toysoldierhistory.htm

I think this information might help you date a site.  I'm sure you'll come across a lead soldier or two if you do much detecting.



"ENGLAND" On Indians Leg.

The first soldier shown in the top picture is the hollow cast 2.25 inch variety following the type of the William Britains Company.

The second is lead and shows no evidence that it was ever painted

The third in the top picture is a colorfully painted lead Indian.  It appears to be higher quality.  It has considerable paint loss.  Most interesting is the word England on the back of one leg.

  The first soldier in the second picture is solid lead, no paint, and seems to depict a flame thrower.

I think I made that one myself and found it when detecting the yard of my old home.

I received a Christmas present one year that included an electric heater that melted lead and had molds for making your own toy soldiers.  I am pretty sure that is one that I made.

The knight is the only one of these figures that is not lead.  It is made of some other type of metal.  The details seem clearer on that one even though it is smaller.  It was found on a local beach.

By Far The Most Modern Of The Group.

The surf is supposed to get up to 3 to 5 feet this afternoon but wind is from the South.  Don't expect much improvement.

Don't forget to respond to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net