7/14/.19 Report - 17th Century Shipwreck With Gold Coins, Diamond Ring and CHEESE. Old Plated and Gilt Buttons. Barry.

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

Source: See TheLocal.se link below.

Of the gold coins, diamond ring and cheese salvaged from a 17th century shipwreck, it seems the cheese received the most attention, perhaps because it was somewhat unusual or said more about daily life on board the ship.

Divers excavating the royal ship Kronan in the waters off the Baltic Sea island of Öland came upon the smelly material inside a black tin jar found on the seabed this month.

"It's a pretty good guess that it's some kind of dairy product, and we think it is cheese," researcher Lars Einarsson at the Kalmar County Museum told The Local on Wednesday.

"It looks a bit like some kind of granular Roquefort cheese. It's been in the mud, so it's reasonably well preserved, but at the same time it has been at the bottom of the sea for 340 years – we're not talking Tutankhamun's burial chamber," he said.

Einarsson said the thick, gooey find smells strongly of cheese and yeast.

"I think it smells quite nice, because I like exotic food. But I would not want to taste it."

He and his team presented the suspected cheese on Tuesday along with some of the other items salvaged during the two-week diving project in July – including 14 gold coins and a diamond ring...

Here is the link.

https://www.thelocal.se/20160727/old-stinky-cheese-found-on-swedish-17th-century-ship

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Yesterday I posted the following button for ID.

Mitch King identified it as a modern blazer button.  That is what I get for dumping a bunch of buttons together and not doing the research or labeling them.  Actually I couldn't have planned it better, because it goes along perfectly with what I wanted to discuss today.

Yesterday I talked about putting the puzzle together.  I was talking about the evidence that remains on a site that when put together gives a nice picture of what happened at a ;particular time and place in history.  My example was a land site where there were was still a lot of evidence of that time in history.

The beach is different.  Instead of finding many pieces of the puzzle in context, on a beach it is more like you took puzzle random pieces from a lot of different puzzles, threw them altogether, and churned them continually for years.  You might occasionally get a few things that go together, but things from different times, and even different places, can be mixed in.  In the dunes, things are as randomly mixed, and in the deeper water things aren't as completely mixed.  And if you get down to deeper layers of sand, things haven't been disturbed as much, but if you are talking about that area near the water line where there is almost continual movement, old things can show up once in a while, but things from more recent times can show up as well.  You can't tell much about the age of the item from its context, because the context has not been preserved in that great mixing bowl.  You can find things that differ in age from millions old to things that were lost just yesterday in the same place.  Furthermore, the items can move north or south on the beach, not just up and down or in and out.  They can also come from farther out in the water or down from the dunes.

When you are getting multiple items, sometimes you can actually trace them to try to determine where they are coming from.  I've found, for example, lead shot on the beach and also on slabs falling down the dune face.  That convinced me that at least some of them were coming from the dunes.  Other times you might be able to trace them down into the water, but it is often not easy to figure out where they came from, especially when they come from that very dynamic zone where sand and other things move almost continually.

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Here are some old dug buttons without much identifying information other than the back marks, yet there are some clues.

Near 3/4 Inch Domed Button That Reads PLATED.

Below is a flat button that reads STANDARD COLOUR RICH.  I can't make out the other marks.

Reads: STANDARD COLOUR RICH

I assume that one is British because of the spelling of color.


And below is a coat button.  I assume that because of the large, over one inch, size.

Flat Coat Button.

I was going to post the front and backs of each of these and some other buttons, but when I started to do it I realized I had some of the photos labeled wrong.  Maybe I'll straighten out that some other time.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

As you can see, Barry has move north.  The other system that was in the Atlantic has disappeared.

Watch for more of those though.  Once it starts there are usually several systems coming off of Africa.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/10/16 Report - Dug Treasure Coast Objects Cleaned and Uncleaned: Coin, Pendant and Ring.

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

Piece of Dug Silver With No Identifying Features.

This is one item I decided to see if I could tell what it is. It looks like it could be a cob.

My first step was to use Muriatic acid to see if I could get it any cleaner.  That didn't help much.

My next step was to use a baking soda paste to see if I could bring out any features.

Below is what I found.

Same Piece Now Showing Features.

From the features that I could see on this side of the item, I can now identify it as a silver Roosevelt dime.

Above is another silver item I'll be cleaning.  I'll try to get this one close to original condition.

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Old World cobs are rare on 1715 Fleet wrecks.  A few Seville escudos were found during the 2015 salvage season.

There are almost fifty Seville minted escudos in the current Sedwick coins auction.  The 1-escudos have low estimates of around $500.  The larger denomination of Seville minted escudos generally have proportionally higher starting bids.  Of course condition and rarity is always an issue.

Old World minted cobs generally have a lower value than New World cobs.  And cobs that can be documented to a shipwreck bring a premium.

I'm sure the Seville escudos found during the last salvage season will have a higher value than similar cobs not documented to a shipwreck.

I mentioned yesterday gold artifacts shipped back to Spain were melted and made into cobs.  Those found last year could have been made of melted South American gold artifacts and made their way back to the New World before sinking on the way back to Spain.

I've read that it is possible to analyze metals in order to determine their source.  It would be interesting to know where the gold in those Seville escudos originated.

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And here is a old ring, that appeared to be silver or silver plated before it was cleaned.

Old Dug Encrusted Treasure Coast Ring

Below is the same ring after cleaning with Muriatic acid.

Sane Ring Cleaned.

After the ring was cleaned, no marks were found inside.  Most of the gilt or plating was gone.  It is clearly cuprous.

You have to be especially careful when cleaning gilt objects if you don't want the plating to come off.

Also, you might be able to see a crack or two.  There are at least three.  The ring is in danger or breaking.

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The surf is still small, but we have some good high and low tides.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/20/15 Report - Reveiw Of The Garrett ATX Extreme Part II. Gold Markings and Possible Confusion.

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

ATX In Folded Position.

This is a continuation of the review of the Garrett ATX that I began yesterday.

As I said, the ATX does have discrimination.  It is simple linear discrimination with 25 incremental positions.   Low conductivity targets are the first to be discriminated.

There are 13 sensitivity settings.

For maximum detection of small and deep targets, use maximum sensitivity and zero discrimination when you can.  If there is electrical interference in the area, you can do a frequency scan to select the best operating frequency.

I mentioned yesterday that pinpointing is not easy with the ATX unless you use the pinpoint mode.   That is true of the motion mode, which is what a lot of people will use.  In non-motion mode you can sweep slowly and will not need to use the pinpoint button.

There is another pinpointing trick that I might describe some other time.

I find the visual signal strength indicator most helpful for pinpointing. I can see the peak signal strength much better than I can hear it from the auditory signal.

The ATX is a heavy detector.  That will be a problem for many people, but I find it surprisingly easy to swing considering its weight.  It comes with a harness, so that might be a solution for some.

The controls and settings are easily accessed, for the most part with one finger while you detect.

You will dig deep targets with the ATX, both good and junk.  It can get a bit tiring.

It is good on gold.  It responds to small gold very well as compared to clad coins.  It can detect small gold and chains that would be missed by many detectors, however you must use it well to get maximum performance.

I use a test target to determine how well I have the detector tuned.  I talked about that before.

For some situations, such as dry sand, the default settings might be all you need.  Just turn it on and go.  If you don't want to miss a thing, turn up the sensitivity to the max.

However if you are in the wet sand or salt water, or highly mineralized soil, you might want to make some adjustments.   If using motion mode you might want to ground balance as you move from one area to another.  That is not necessary in dry Treasure Coast beach sand.  Again, I like using a test target to make sure I am getting near peak performance.

Once you learn to use non-motion mode in salt water, that will give you the best performance.  It takes practice though, and the threshold setting is very important.  Also expect to retune frequently when using non-motion is salt water.   You may encounter audio drift.

There are some cases when you might not want to detect everything, such as on a beach cluttered with small pieces of iron.  In that case you can decrease sensitivity.

To sum it up, the ATX is a very good detector that will detect small and deep targets and is very good on gold.  It is a bit heavy and requires some practice and skill for optimal peformance.  It can beat most of the detectors being used on the beach if used well.  Like I said yesterday, if you are a person that likes to use discrimination, I'd select another detector.  You can discriminate with the ATX, but then you are minimizing the power that you paid extra money to get.

In many ways the ATX is just the opposite of the Ace 250 that I once reviewed.  I would use the Ace when I don't need maximum depth and want a detector that is easy to use.   The ATX costs nearly ten times as much as the Ace.  Of course the ATX is more rugged than the Ace.

I've heard of problems with the ATX rod freezing but I have not had that problem.  The ATX eats up batteries, but comes with rechargable batteries and a recharger.

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Often wedding rings will be inscribed with a date.  Did you know that 8-10-11 does not always indicate August 10, 2011?   It sometimes indicates the 8th day of October.  Some countries put the day before the month.

So if you see something like 20-10-2011 and are wondering how the month can be the twentieth month, it is probably the day rather than the month and your ring is from another country.

Gold purity is often given in either K (karat) or as a three digit decimal.

Karat purity is measured as 24 times the purity by mass, or in other words 24 times the mass of gold divided by the total mass of the item.   24-Karat gold is fine (99.9% Au w/w), 18-Karat gold is 18 parts gold 6 parts another metal (forming an alloy), 12-Karat gold is 12 parts gold (12 parts another metal), etc.

14k is approximately .5833% gold, but jewelers increase it to .585% for easier mixing.

Back in the old days there was a time when I used to see KP stamped on an item and thought it meant the object was gold plated.  That was a big mistake.  KP stands for Karat Plumb, where "plumb" indicates "exact."   So the KP mark is a good thing instead of a bad thing.

Look for and make good use of any markings but don't blindly accept them.  There are times when they are wrong.  Sometimes intentionally.

A lot of rings these days are 9K.   That might lead to some confusion if you do an acid test.  Normally the first container of test acid will be for 10K.

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Expect more days of calm surf on the Treasure Coast.  This is getting old.  We do still have a good negative tide.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net