7/7/14 Report - Mule Cobs, Silver Ring Find and 100 Year-Old 4th of July Post Card

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

Silver Ring Found by Leonard G.
Photo by Leonard G.

Not long ago I mentioned errors or anomalies that you might find on cobs.  I talked about transpositions of the lions and castles but didn't continue with that topic.  I'll address one more type of cob anomaly today and others in the future.

In numismatic terminology a mule is a hybrid made by mismatched dies.  A mule would be made by using a die on one side of the coin, or cob, that does not match the die used to create the other side.

Dies wear out at different rates.  Sometimes one of the two dies would be used into the next year while another of the pair is replaced.   As a result one side of the cob might have a date that is a year earlier than the date on the other side of the cob. 

In Sewall Menzel's book he shows a couple of examples of Potosi cobs like that.  On one side one cob has a date of 1708 while the other side has a date of 1709.  Another example shows the dates of 1736 and 1737.

Unfortunately beach cobs often are missing a lot of detail.  You are lucky to find one with a single date, let alone two dates.

Above is a find by Leonard G.  I normally would have cropped a find photo like this, but this one is both a find photo and a beach photo.  You can see the mushy beach conditions and small surf in the background.

Congratulations Leonard.

Here is a good article on a topic that I've discussed before.  It is a reminder to make sure you know what you have before you sell it.  It is easy to make mistakes unless you know the market for things like coins and artifacts, or any collectible for that matter.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/junk-or-antique-the-difference-means-cash-2.aspx

Here is a postcard that was mailed around 1914 (100 years ago) to my grandfather.  I'm a few days late with this, but here it is. 

The photo doesn't do it justice.  Before people had telephones and email, cards like this were a convenient way to send a greeting.  Post cards like this acknowledged Christmas, Easter, New Years, Birthdays, Valentines Day, and as you can see, even the 4th of July.    I'm pleased to have some of those that were used by my ancestors.

I'm interested in various types of treasure, not just coins and gold or silver.  That includes fossils, artifacts and even ephemera.

A variety of non metallic treasures can be found on beaches and overlooking them can be a big mistake.  For example, one really neat treasure that was found on a Treasure Coast shipwreck beach near the water line is an actual wax seal. 

It wasn't in great shape, as you would expect from being nearly 300 years old, but you could see an eagle or big bird embossed on it.  I showed it once in this blog.  It isn't made of metal, but to me it is a indeed a treasure as much as any coin or jewelry.  That is why I tell you to keep your eyes open when you detect.  It was found at the water line on a 1715 beach.


I was on a Treasure Coast beach this morning near high tide.  Conditions were still poor so a good number of finds were recent drops.  I'll have pictures of some of those in the near future.

The surf was a touch bigger this morning, I thought.  The web sites are predicted a little bigger surf for the rest of the week, but only around two feet.  We've had something close to a one foot surf for quite a while.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/12/14 Report - Jupiter Inlet Dredge, 1875 US Postal Card and Time Flies

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

Looks Like A Dredge Just South of Jupiter Inlet
Photo submitted by Goldnugget or NC

Last night I was looking around at some of those web sites that show where ships and boats are and what they are doing.  Those sites can be pretty interesting.  They are much like the web sites you can use to track airplane traffic.  Anyhow while looking at one of those nautical sites I noticed a dredge just below the Jupiter Inlet.  Then just this morning Goldnugget sends this picture.  There it is.  It looks like there will be more sand dumped somewhere real soon.

Web Site Showing Nautical Activity.

Here is an example of one of those web sites showing nautical traffic.  On the web sites you can generally click on the object and get additional information, such as the name of the vessel, its speed, etc. etc.

I'm not sure  now if the track I'm showing here is the one I found for the dredge, but you get the idea.  It might be the track for the dredge, but I'm not sure.




There was another vessel that was running in and out just below the Jupiter inlet.  That was interesting too.  Could have been someone doing a mag survey or just trolling for fish in a very systematic way.  I wasn't looking for that at the time.


I like ephemera.  You can often finding interesting information in old newspapers, maps, pamphlets, posters, photos, etc.

I found this post card a few years ago.  It was written in 1875 by a theology profession at Bethany College in West Virginia and sent to a fellow in Ohio wanting to know about the classes that were going to be offered.

What I recently discovered is that the first US Postal Cards were made in 1873.  Here is soe of the information I found by using this link.   http://www.metropostcard.com/guidepostals.html

Notice the spatters on the postcard.  Black ink turns brown with age.

You can go to the web site if you want to learn more about those early postcards.  I had no idea that this post card was one of the earliest.

If it was written and postmarked in 1875, it could have been created earlier.  I haven't narrowed that down yet.


Here is the obituary of the fellow that sent the postcard.  He was somewhat notable.


The internet is a great research tool.  Amazing what you can find.

For a while I taught at a West Virginia State College just a few miles from Bethany so the post card and history was a little more interesting for me.



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If any young people are reading this I wanted to post a warning to them today.  Here it is.  It doesn't take very long to go from being a young pup to an old dog.

I woke up from a dream last night.that made me think.

You know how dreams are - they don't always make much sense.  Well in this dream it seemed I was in the selection process for the US Military with a group of fellas and we were shooting rifles.  In the dream I didn't do very well.  My first shot missed the mark, and my second went through the window of a truck.  By way of excuse, I told the fellows that I had been collecting social security for three years, and the last time I was drafted was fifty years ago.  That was in the dream that I said that.

I woke up, and being that the dream was on my mind, I calculated to see if it had been that long since I was drafted in real life.  It hadn't been that long.  It was back in, mmmmm,  probably 1970 that I actually reported for my physical. 

Being in graduate school in Louisville Kentucky at the time I received my notice, I and a bunch of other young fellas loaded the bus in downtown Louisville and was chauffeured out to Fort Knox.  I remember that well.  The mood was sombre, like we had just won a free trip to Viet Nam.

I remember that I blew the top off the charts on my hearing test.   I had ears like a dog and could hear high pitch frequencies that not many people could hear.  I think listening to a constant threshold tone in my detector ear phones might have done some damage to that, but maybe it is normal aging.

I remember standing in Fort Knox in my underwear and the fellow who was inspecting us stared at my feet and wrote something down.  I thought at the time that he was noting my flat feet.  I'm not so sure that was what he was writing about now. 

I also had a trick knee at the time.  Sometimes it would lock and other times give way without warning.  That was my greatest reward from high school football.  One doctor thought I should have surgery on my knee, but there is no remaining evidence of that problem today.  I flunked my physical for some reason or another and received a 2Y draft status, which was not as bad as a 4F, if I remember those things correctly.

Anyhow, after waking up I calculated that it had only been about 43 years since the time I was drafted and not fifty something.  That isn't that long.  Nonetheless I've definitely changed from a young pup to an old dog.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge even though it doesn't seem like it has been all that long ago.  I've been a lot of places and done a lot of things in those 43 odd years.  In many ways it seems that I'm a totally different person now.

I can only feel blessed to not be much worse off for the wear.  In a lot of ways I'm better off than when I was a young pup even though I might not look like it.  The amazing thing to me is that it all took so little time.

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On the Treasure Coast the tides are now pretty flat with less than 2.5 feet of variation.

The surf is running about three feet. 

I'm hoping that by Easter we get another good chance to get some older things.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net