7/5/17 Report - Forty Years Ago: 1715 Fleet Treasure. Serious Storm Developing in Atlantic.

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

Forty years ago (Feb. 1977) Bowers and Ruddy Galleries auctioned 720 lots of 1715 Fleet treasure, mostly cobs, many gold and silver, but also some bars and artifacts from the 1715 Fleet. I decided to take a look back today.

It was in the 1950s that a hurricane ripped the Treasure Coast beaches and Kip Wagner was at the right place at the right time and started finding silver reales from the 1715 Fleet on the Treasure Coast beaches.  You know the story.  Kip and seven others formed the Real Eight Company.  Recoveries were sporadic and slow at times.  On one occasion in the 1960s, their blower exposed gold dubloons, and in 1974 another amazing day resulted in more than a thousand dubloons being recovered.

13 Pound Encrusted Clump of Pieces of Eight.
Source: 1977 Bowers Ruddy Auction Catalog.

Back in 1977 the clump of coins sold for $2000.

9.5 Ounce Gold Splash
Source: 1977 Bowers Ruddy Auction Catalog

The above gold splash sold for $2200.

37.25 Inch Gold Chain.

Source: 1977 Bowers Ruddy Auction Catalog

The gold chain sold for $2200 as well.

The auction house offered the following price guide for escudos in the auction catalog. 

Eights - $800 to $1300

Fours - $600 to $1000

Twos - $200 to $500

From a quick look at the page of realized prices, it looks like the realized prices were not far off the suggested prices.

To give some perspective, the price of gold in 1977 ran around $161.

According to one inflation calculator, it would take about $403 today to buy what $100 would buy in 1977.  That would mean the dollar was worth about four times more back then.

I was lucky to pick up the Bowers Ruddy auction catalog with realized prices in a local thrift store for $1 a number of years ago.

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

This disturbance has a 70% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours.

It is still far out there, so it is difficult to tell where it might go.  Earlier predictions I saw had it going east of us.

According to the surf predictions, we'll just get a small bump in the surf around next Wednesday.

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I appreciated all responses to the blog poll.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/13/17 Report - Multi-Million Dollar Reward For Detectorist. Viking Hoard. Shipwrecks in the Suwannee River. Auction Results.

Written by the treasureguide for the exclusive use of TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com.

Items Found in Viking Hoard
Source: DailyMail link below.

According to a May 12 article in the DailyMail, the British detectorist who discovered the famous Viking Hoard will be receiving a reward of just under 2 million pounds ( a pound is worth just over 1.25 U. S. dollars).

In Scotland the reward goes to the finder, in the rest of the U. K. the reward is split between the finder and the property owner.

Another Piece of the Viking Hoard
Source: See DailyMail link below.

To read the rest of the article and see more of the finds, here is the link.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4500480/Metal-detectorist-line-2million-reward.html

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Mystery Surrounds Sunken Remains in Florida Spring.  That is the title of a National Geographic article on shipwrecks in the Suwanee River.

...So far state archaeologists have found and are working to identify the remains of at least ten steamboats in the Suwannee River, three of which are accessible to divers.

In addition to the ruins in Troy Springs, divers can visit the David Yulee near the Suwannee's mouth, as well as the well-preserved ruins of the City of Hawkinsville,the last steamboat to operate on the Suwannee...

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070215-steamboat_2.html

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As you know, the most recent Sedwick Coins auction has concluded.  You can view the prices realized by browsing through the catalog or jumping right to a spreadsheet that lists the realized prices for each lot.  Below is the link for the spreadsheet.

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/ta21/pr_ta21.pdf

While looking through the catalog, I noticed one category that did not sell well despite the overall excellent auction results.  It was the U. S. paper money category.  Many lots in that category did not sell at all, and many others sold for under the auction estimate.  I don't know much about the paper money market, so I can't say why that happened, but I would guess that Sedwick's customers are mostly intersted in coins and shipwreck artifacts.

The two maps that were offered in the auction did not sell either.

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Something to think about.

According to many books and publications, "information warfare" is reportedly being conducted by Russia on the U. S. and other countries, but what if an information war is being conducted in the U. S. by U. S. agents on the U. S.   If you accept information warfare as a genuine type of warfare and it is being conducted by dissident parties in the U. S., you could say the U. S. would be in a civil war.  It isn't like THE Civil War - North against South - it is more like the war against terror.  In fact one side might be aligned with terror without the intention or realization.  The result is the same.  While information warfare is often associated with computers, TV is one of the most effective tools (weapons) for the delivery and spread of misinformation.

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I didn't detect much last year due to a series of issues, and I haven't detected much yet this year either.  Hopefully that will hange later this year.

Righ now we have a one to two foot surf.  In a few days it will in increase a two to three foot surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/5/16 Report - Storm Headed For Florida. Escudos: Then and Now. Find Face App.

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

Tropical Depression Three
Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Tropical Depression Three is expected to become a storm that passes over North Florida next week.  Don't expect any big surf on the Treasure Coast though.

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We all know about the fantastic 2015 treasure finds made by the savage crews along the Treasure Coast last year.  While those finds are unprecedented, there were definitely big days in the 1900s too.  

First, in the early 1960s the the famed "carpet of gold" was found.  Over 1000 gold cobs were uncovered.

And in 1974, after an otherwise unproductive day of diving, over a thousand escudos were found.

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The chart above shows the realized prices of 18 Mexico-minted 1714 8-escudos that were sold in a 1977 Bowers and Ruddy auction.  The label on the horizontal axis incorrectly says 17 instead of 18.

That is a fairly good sample size for one auction, especially of one specific date.

I'll be analyzing various samples of treasure coins from time to time.

As you can see from the chart, the highest priced 1714 Mexican 8-escudo in the 1977 auction sold for $1500.  The lowest priced of the same mint and year was $550.  There were two that sold at $1350 and two that sold at $550.

That seems like a low prices for 1714 eight-escudos.  One thing that has to be taken into consideration is inflation.  It would take just over $40 in 2016 to buy what $10 would buy in 1977.  So if you wanted to compare 1977 prices with 2016 prices, you might multiply the 1977 prices by four.  That would make make the high price for those sold in 1977 equivalent to $6000 in 2016 dollars, and the low price would then be about $2200 in 2016 dollars.

Why such a range?  One of the neat things about cobs is that they are all different.  Some varieties are more common and others more rare, some are better struck and are in better condition, etc.  The highest priced 1714 Mexico 8-escudo in the 1977 auction, while being nice overall, had one outstanding feature that undoubtedly added significantly to the price.  It was the only one of the 18 that had a partial date showing on the reverse (cross side).

Things were different 40 years ago.  Many more cobs have been found in the last forty years, and I suspect that people looked at collecting cobs a bit differently in the early days.

There was only one Mexico-minted 1714 8-escudo in the most recent Sedwick Coins auction, and the winning bid on that escudo was $10,000.  Without adjusting for inflation, that is a price that is over six times greater than the highest priced Mexico 8-escudo sold in the 1977 auction.  With an adjustment for inflation the 2016 price is still nearly twice the price of the highest priced Mexico 8-escudo  in the 1977 auction, and more than four times the price of the lowest priced Mexico 8-escudo in the 1977 auction.

To be more precise I'd have to take into account a variety of factors, but I'll just look at the comparisons in very general terms for now.   Without getting more specific, I will say that the Mexico 1714 8-escudo in the 2016 Sedwick auction was the second lot in the auction and a fine example.  It undoubtedly compares fairly well to one of the higher priced Bowers and Ruddy Mexico 8-escudos.

I'll do a more complete analysis in the future.

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I thought this Market Watch article was interesting.  Here is an excerpt.

A new app called FindFace, recently released in Russia, gives us a glimpse into what this future might look like. Made by two 20-something entrepreneurs, FindFace allows anybody to snap a photo of a passerby and discover their real name — already with 70% reliability. The app allows people to upload photos and compare faces to user profiles from the popular social network Vkontakte, returning a result in a matter of seconds. According to an  interview in the Guardian, the founders claim to already have 500,000 users and have processed over 3 million searches in the two months since they’ve launched.

What’s particularly unsettling are the use cases they advocate: identifying strangers to send them dating requests, helping government security agencies to determine the identities of dissenters, and allowing retailers to bombard you with advertisements based on what you look at in stores.

Here is the link.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facial-recognition-will-soon-end-your-anonymity-2016-06-02

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net