10/21/17 Report - Could Irma Find Be Oro Corriente? Salvaged Silver Bars: Markings and Manifest.

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

Gold Found on Treasure Coast Beach by Ken A. After Irma.

You might remember the Irma 1715 Fleet beach gold find made by Ken A..  I showed it just a few days ago.  Here it is again.

I noticed a piece of oro corriente in the Sedwick auction and thought it looked very similar to Ken's find.  

Lot 20 in Current Sedwick Auction.

Here is the description of the auctioned piece.

Gold "oro corriente" cut piece with choice full "f" stamp for Ferdinand V of Spain, 80.10 grams, from an unidentified early 1500s wreck in the Caribbean. 1-5/8" x 1/2" x 1/2". Rectangular edge-cut of a thick gold disk of undetermined fineness (probably around 20K), with three sides (all but the outer edge) crystalline in texture (broken, not sliced), granular bottom but smooth top marked with partial circular tax stamp and full "f" in box, believed to be one of the earliest markings known on "oro corriente" pieces (used in place of coins in areas where coins were not yet made or available), with small spots of black but otherwise fairly clean. From an unidentified early 1500s wreck in the Caribbean.

It looks like Ken's piece could be a piece cut off a larger piece.  It would not be easy to see if there are any marks inside the rolled piece, but Ken should take a good look for any sign of a mark.  I'm sure he did.

Ken's piece could have been intentionally bent for easy concealment or other uses or bent by the forces of nature over the years.  

Anyhow, it looks to me like that could possibly be what Ken's find is.  Or maybe just a cut piece.

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Atocha Silver Bar in the Current Sedwick Treasure Auction.

A few days ago I briefly talked about this Atocha silver bar that is being auctioned in the current Sedwick treasure auction.  The stick-figure TA monogram. or what the auction catalog calls a cartouche, is the kind of thing that really interests me.  It indicates a specific person, the owner/shipper.  In this case the owner/shipper was a man named Tirajo.  I decided to look into the subject of such owner/shipper marks a little more.  It turns out that they have been well studied and there is a lot of documentation on them.

There were 1,038 ingots on the Atocha.  A number of ingots were from Potosi, but the above ingot was from Oruro.

A register of the Atocha cargo was maintained by the silver master, Jacove de Vreder.

Corey Malcom did an article entitled Simon de Torres' Shipment of Five Silver Ingots Aboard the 1622 Galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which was published in The Navigator: The Newsletter of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, Vol. 23, No. 1, January/February 2007.

The five ingots that were the subject of Malcom's study were owned by another private shipper, Simon de Torres.  Here is what Malcom's study has to say about those ingots.

All of those ingots bear Torres’ distinctive “TR” sigla, along with mintmarks, tax stamps, fineness values, registry numbers, and assayer’s bites. Each bar in this shipment also bears marks whose purposes are not recorded or understood. Chief among these, a large “V” is believed to be the mark of the Atocha’s silvermaster Jacove de Vreder, who would have stamped this after registering the ingot. (An alternate theory suggests that it might be a Roman numeral five, symbolic of the quinto, a tax of one-fifth the value of the bar.) Most of the Atocha silver ingots bear this particular mark. Also, a cross, which is found on these particular bars in association with the “V” stamp, suggesting it had some sort of official function. Two other stamped marks are a small, well-defined Omega near the assayer’s bite on bar number 346, and an unusual “X” near the bite of bar number 342. It is assumed these two also served an official function because of their purposeful placement so near the assayer’s sample.

Here is an illustration explaining the various marks on the silver bars.

Source: Malcom Study
See link below.

It is not often you can find so much information about a treasure find.  It is fortunate that the treasure is so well marked and the ship's manifest is available to document these pieces.  In my opinion, that makes the treasure much more valuable.  Not only do we have the existing bars, which have been salvaged, but we can also track them to a particular person, source and destination.

Although we know much about the five salvaged silver bars that Simon de Torres was shipping, we don't know what happened to him.  Maybe he was lost at sea like his five silver bars that were salvaged in 1985.

Here is the link to the Malcom study.

http://www.melfisher.org/pdf/Torres_Five_Silver_Ingots_Atocha.pdf

The study is not long but very informative.  You might want to read it.

The registered silver bars on the Atocha were generally well marked like those of Simon de Torres.  Not all silver bars being sent to Spain from the New World were so well marked.  Below are two more examples from the Sedwick auction.

Lot 217 Current Sedwick Auction.

Lot 218 Current Sedwick Auction.

Sometimes there are multiple marks, indicating multiple shipper/owners.  Sometimes one mark would be over top of another, perhaps indicating transfer of ownership.

The information found on these bars is unusual and provides an excellent starting place for additional research on the individuals and history of the New World.

You'll find, though, that not all silver bars are so well marked.  Some silver ingots and bars are not marked at all, perhaps being smuggled and therefore not listed on the ship's manifest.

Here is another Atocha silver bar.

Source: Christies web site.
See link below.

Here is the link describing that bar.

http://www.christies.com/features/Jill-Waddel-examines-a-silver-ingot-from-a-shipwreck-8022-1.aspx

You'll find a variety of Atocha bars on the internet, many with the kinds of cartouches you see above.

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On the Treasure Coast today we have a four to six foot surf.  The temperature is a little lower.  That is nice.  The swell will be from the east.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/24/16 Report - Strap Gold Bar. 250,000 Year-Old Aluminum Find. Post-Matthew Modern Era Finds. Bigger Surf Coming.

Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com.

Gold "Strap" Bar Currently Listed In The Sedwick Coins Auction # 20.

This could be the star of the most recent Sedwick auction. It has an estimated price of $60,000 to $90,0000, and already has a bid of $50,000.  Here is part of what the description says.

Complete gold "strap" ingot for making oro corriente pieces, marked five times with circular tax stamp of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Charles I of Spain) and C inside box, 1128 grams, estimated 22K, very rare, from an unidentified early 1500s wreck in the Caribbean. 10-1/2" x 1-1/4" x 1/4". It is tempting to call this object simply a “gold bar,” but that does not convey its full importance, as its near-uniform flatness and its markings all indicate that this piece is the first example ever recorded of a complete “strap” (in Spanish: riel) for cutting into the known (but very rare) money pieces (small) known as “oro corriente,” which were used in place of actual gold coins (which were in short supply) in the colonies and thus represent the “first fish out of the lake” from the colonies in terms of local gold coinage...

You can find the auction catalog at Sedwickcoins.com.

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

The surf Monday is predicted to be only one or two feet, but the surf will start to increase Tuesday and according to the predictions, possibly reaching up to six or seven feet by Thursday.  The tides are still remaining pretty high too.

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Not only did Matthew provide access to old shipwreck items, but for many people it opened the window to more older modern era finds such as those shown below.

These Post-Matthew Finds Include A Couple Mercury Dimes and Buffalo Nickle.
Finds and photo by Mark M.

Renken Y. found the following heavy silver ring and military shell, both of which were lost for a good while.

Finds and photos by Renken

The shell casing looks like a WW II era shell.  Many of them were found along the Treasure Coast in the past.  It seems they don't surface as often as they used to.

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Source: See link immediately below.

This piece of metal was estimated to be 250,000 years old even though aluminum is a much more modern metal.  Some take this to mean that it must be a part of a UFO wreck.  Personally, I've long doubted the methods used for determining ages and so am not convinced that it is actually that old.  Might be though.

Here is the link to the story.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/10/21/investigator-claims-ufo-wreckage-is-evidence-aliens-visited-earth-250000-years-ago.html

Thanks to Dean for the link.
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Thanks for all the responses to the blog poll.  The poll results showed that my beach ratings and predictions were accurate.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net