2/1/20 Report - The After-Hunt. Monitoring the Cleaning of a Cob. Not a Heart Cob. Looking At a Mystery Item. Tobacco Comes To Europe.

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

Partially Cleaned Surface of Four-Reale Found on Treasure Coast Beach on 1/22/20

I'm going to focus on the after-hunt today.   The purpose of the "hunt" is to find objects, but after a successful hunt there is the "after-hunt," which has the purpose of learning more about the found objects.  The after-hunt often involves cleaning the object so that it can be better inspected.

The four-reale shown below was cleaned with a diluted solution of Muriatic acid.  I showed the pictures of that four-reale before, but you can see it as it was found compared to how it looked after a couple hours of cleaning.  One thing that was revealed by the initial cleaning is the Arabic numeral "4" to the right of the shield, which indicates the denomination of the cob.

Four Reale as Originally Found and After a Couple Hours in Muriatic Acid.

I cleaned it a little more in since then - maybe just an additional hour or so - and was thinking about how much more I wanted to clean it.  I don't usually clean reales to the point that they look shiny new.

I was thinking about how much more cleaning I would do when I decided to take a good look at the surface to see how much foreign material remained on the surface.  I looked at it under magnification, and saw there was still a good bit of foreign material on the surface (See picture at top of post.).  I didn't see that with the naked eye.  The picture shows quite a bit of encrustation remaining. I think you can see that very well in the photo.

I also noticed that when a small bright light made the cob sparkle when the light was shined parallel to the surface.  (I didn't see it sparkle when the light was shined down on the cob.)  I don't think it will sparkle like that when all of the remaining silica is removed.  That might be another way you can tell there if the surface is clean.

I'm glad I looked at this cob under magnification, and will use magnification to check the progress of any cob I'm cleaning in the future.

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Here is another photo of the same cob.  Does it look to you like the cross is debossed or embossed? 

Another View of the Same Coin showing Foreign Material To Be Removed.

For me it changes.  Sometimes it looks debossed and sometimes embossed.

The light is coming from the bottom of the photo, which is why the bottom edge of the cross is lighted and the top edge is in the shadow.

That is an interesting illustration of visual perception.

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Since one of my main topics today is the after-hunt, here is another example.  GC sent me this photo of an encrusted object and asked for thoughts about it.  I posted the object, but didn't get much input.  It is a tough one, but here it is again.

Encrusted Object Found and Photographed by GC.

Just to remind you, here is a little of GC's description.

Not at all magnetic. Checked again at home with stronger magnet. Nope. When I tried, perhaps too vigorously, to chip off some of the encrusted material it broke, pretty much in half. The inside material appeared to be carbon, maybe charcoal like substance, in all appearances. and properties.

If we stick with the "flask" idea that CG also mentioned in his email and combine that with the carbon or charcoal like substance inside, we might think of a powder flask.  Below are some examples.

Squares are one inch.

Those are in the approximate size range, might be expected to hold powder, but it seems they are not the right shape.

Treasure hunters think of pirates, galleons, swords and romantic swash-buckling types of thing, so weapons and weapon-related objects are among the first to be considered, but we must remember that there is a much wider range of possibilities for an unidentified object.  People must be involved in a wide range of activities, including the mundane.  They had to eat and drink and be involved in the mundane and ordinary activities of life as well as those more romantic things which we tend to think of first.

Containers would be used for a lot of different kinds of things, such as medicines or cures, habits, cosmetics, kitchen or food related, such as spice containers, etc.

Tobacco was first introduced to Europeans in 1492 when Columbus landed in the Americas. Columbus wrote in his diary, on October 15th, 1492, that he observed an Indian sailing in a canoe with water, food, and tobacco leaves.² Use of tobacco spread rapidly among the Spanish colonists and in 1531 its cultivation began in Santo Domingo. In 1526 Gonzalo Ferdandez de Oveido y Valdez noted that his fellow Spaniards were turned into drunks by tobacco. Bartolome de las Casas observed the following year that the colonists were developing a strong dependence on it and that it was hard to give up... 

The 17th century saw the organization of the tobacco trade and the implementation of new laws regulating the sale of tobacco. In 1614 Spain proclaimed Seville the tobacco capital of the world. All tobacco produced for sale in New Spain had to first go through Seville before moving on to the rest of Europe...

(See https://www.lib.umn.edu/bell/tradeproducts/tobacco)

Here are some examples of old tobacco boxes, which as you see are made of various metals, including brass, steel and silver.

This object presents a very daunting task.  There is little data, certainly nothing like definitive marks or engraving.  Our minds provide another important limitation.  We tend to only consider a very limited range of possibilities.  Yet, there are clues.  In this case, the small size of the object helps us narrow it down a lot but we are still left with just a few clues and a range of possibilities, some of which I'm sure haven't been mentioned yet.  One step that I would consider is an analysis of the substance.  Can it be determined to be tobacco, gun powder, or something else?

The after-hunt can be just as fun, challenging and rewarding as the hunt.

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The other day I posted a photo of a half reale that was found on the 22nd of January.  It had a nice little curly tail and a remarkably centered and perfectly oriented cross.  I considered the possibility that it could have been created as a "heart cob", but after having researched it and considered how commonly Mexico half reales have that type of little tail along with the fact that there are no recognized Mexico heart reales, have for all practical purposes abandoned the idea that it might be a Mexico "heart reale."

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I hope to discuss the mystery object I showed yesterday some more in the near future.

I also plan to discuss some other topics such as long-term and short-term changes in beach conditions.

Happy Super Bowl Day,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/16/18 Report - A Closer Look At Some Old Treasure Coast Cobs. Tobacco Use Started Much Earlier Than Previously Thought in North America.

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

Philip V Half Reale Showing Mint Mark and Partial Date.

Since I have my close-up photo system working well I decided to go back and photograph finds that I was never able to photograph so well.

While using the system I get a better look at old finds and document them in the process.

Above is a half reale that I found on a very cold day in December of 1989.  I told that story before. It was freezing.  I actually hit ice on a bridge on 95 north.  I was going to my parents for Christmas and was traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Coast and stopped for a short hunt at John Brooks.  The short hunt turned up several cobs including the one shown above.  You can clearly see the OMJ, and the 17 and part of the next 1 in the date.

You don't often get that much of the mint mark and date on a half reale, especially if it is a beach find.

Below is the reverse of the same cob.

Reverse of 171? half reale shown above.

Below is one more half reale found on the same hunt.

Half Reale Found at John Brooks in 1989.

You can see bits of the monogram in the photo above.  It is another Philip V cob.

There are traces of rust on both of these.  More on the second one.  I didn't really see it as well before.  Also you can see bits of shell attached.

Neither of these have been cleaned and remain pretty much as found.

Now that I have good pictures of the original found condition, I might clean them a little.

Reverse of Same Philip V Half Reale.

I'm sure the cross will show better if I play with the lighting.  Nonetheless, you can tell it is the type of cross found on cobs minted in Mexico.

There is more sand sticking to this side.  I'd say some of it got cleaned off as the cob was washed around in the surf before being deposited on the beach.

As I've said before, cobs found on the beach are often way under their original weight.

I'm glad I had these labeled with the date and place of the find.  Always a good idea.

I'll have more cob photos in the near future.

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A study into the use of tobacco has yielded some interesting findings including dating the practice to around 4,000 years ago – about 1,500 years older than previously thought.  The study, “Evidence of Tobacco from a Late Archaic Smoking Tube Recovered from the Flint River site in southeastern North America”, has been undertaken by various researchers and was led by Dr. Stephen B. Carmody , Troy University (Ala.) assistant professor of anthropology.

“For the past eight or nine years, I have been exploring pipe use, pipe-smoked plants, and the use of tobacco here in the eastern woodlands of North America,” said Dr. Carmody.  “We have made several interesting finds.  Until recently, the earliest evidence for the use of tobacco was discovered in a pipe that was approximately 2,500 years old, dating to what we refer to as the Early Woodland Period.”

Here is the link for more of that article.

https://theonefeather.com/2018/06/study-finds-older-use-of-tobacco-than-previously-thought/

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/29/17 Report - Gold Coin and Ivory Icon Found. Changing Products and Markets With Discovery of the New World. Pirates.

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

Ancient Gold Coin Discovered
Source: See sofiaglobe link below.

...News of the find of the ivory icon comes a few days after the finding of a rare gold coin from the time of the Byzantine emperor Phocas, which the dig team believes proves that the Rusokastro – also known as the “Red Fortress” was working in the sixth century CE.

Commenting on the finding of the ivory icon, Milen Nikolov, head of the Regional History Museum in Bourgas, said that ivory was extremely valuable, “much more valuable than gold in the Middle Ages”...

Ivory Icon.
Source: See link below.

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

http://sofiaglobe.com/2017/07/26/archaeology-ivory-icon-rare-byzantine-gold-coin-found-at-bulgarias-rusokastro-fortress-site/

One thing thing that I took from the article is that when we look at an old find we have an idea of its value but our the way we look at the item and the way we value the item might be very different from the way the item was valued back in the day by the people that made, used or lost the item.

As the above excerpt points out, ivory was much more valued than gold back in the Middle Ages.

Things change.  I've observed changes in market values of certain items in just the past twenty years due to the internet.  The discovery of the new world resulted in huge changes too.

Beginning in the 1600s, sugar and tobacco offered people on both sides of the Atlantic new flavor sensations. Exotic and expensive, they made some planters in the Americas, merchants in England, and ship owners who connected them immensely rich. The price was the forced labor of millions of African people. The work of field hands on plantations in the Americas changed the lives of consumers elsewhere...

That excerpt comes from a very nice history site that you might want to look at.  It has some good information and some nice illustrations.

Here is the link.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/1_3.html

If you look around at that web site you will find that it has a section on pirates, which you might also want to see.  Below is one of the illustrations from that section.

A Few Shipwreck Artifacts.
Source: See piratechart link below

Here is some of the text that goes with this illustration.

• Nails

  Nails were a multipurpose fastener aboard ships. In addition, a handful thrown into the muzzle of cannon served as an effective antipersonnel weapon or sail shredder during a battle.

• Lead patch

  Lead patches of various sizes and thicknesses are common finds on the wrecks of wooden ships. They were used for patching holes in the decks and hulls.

• Cask and barrel hoops (casting)

  On sailing ships, barrels were the most common containers for food, cargo, and other storage. These fragments represent a nest of barrel hoops. On many ships, the barrel hoops and staves were stacked and stored belowdecks; the barrels were only assembled as needed.

• Lead sounding weight

  Blackbeard eluded the British by using his knowledge of local waters to sail into shallow areas where bigger warships could not safely follow. He lowered this sounding lead over the side to learn the water depth under his vessel. The depression in the bottom was filled with tallow or wax to sample the bottom. Knowledge of the bottom conditions was needed for anchoring.

Like I said, you might want to check that web site out.

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The tropical disturbance the I mentioned a day or two ago has disappeared and there is nothing else brewing in the Atlantic or Gulf.

We still have a one foot surf.  The tides are more moderate now too.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/30/16 Report - 12th Century Kite Brooch Eye-Balled On Beach by Student. Two Weather Disturbances. More On 1715 Rings. Tobacco Used in Utah 12,000 Years Ago.

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

The above kite brooch was found by an American college student walking a beach in Irleand.  Imagine making a nice 12th century find just walking along.

It is called a kit brooch because of its shape.  It held a cloak or shaw together.

The NYU student said she was looking at a rabbit burrow when she noticed the brooch.  I always say,to look anywhere that the earth or sand is being moved.

Here is the link to the rest of the story.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/American-student-finds-12th-century-Irish-brooch-on-a-Galway-Beach-PHOTOS.html

That thing is in surprisingly remarkable condition.

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Two Tropical Disturbances.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov

As of Friday night, the first had a ten percent chance of becoming a cyclone in the next forty-eight hours, and the second had a forty percent chance as of Friday evening.

The first looks like it will head towards the Caribbean while the second will probably head north into the Atlantic.

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I mentioned yesterday that I've seen the "clasped hands" motif on 1715 Fleet gold rings before. Checking today, I found one, though broken, from the 1715 Fleet in the Mel Fisher artifact database. The Fisher organization also sells replica clasped hand rings.  They call them friendship rings.

I also found one very much like the other ring that I showed yesterday.  I'm talking about the one made of connected circles with etched designs.  Unfortunately I couldn't see if the pictures on each circle were the same as the one recently found and submitted by Captain Jonah. I could only see what one circle had on his, and I couldn't see what was pictured on any of the circles on the one shown in the Mel Fisher artifact database, so I don't have any idea if they were the same or different, other than the fact they were both made of what looks like connected circles. They sell a replica of that type of ring too.

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Just a few centimeters below the sun-baked surface, researchers have discovered a campsite used by prehistoric hunter-gatherers 12,300 years ago — when Utah’s West Desert was lush wetland.
Artifacts found at the site include the charred remains of an ancient hearth, a finely crafted spear point, and, most surprising, a collection of tobacco seeds — likely the earliest evidence of tobacco use...

Here is the link.

http://westerndigs.org/ice-age-hunting-camp-replete-with-bird-bones-and-tobacco-found-in-utah-desert/

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I'll keep watching for possible storms.  Right now the surfing web sites are not predicting much of any increase in the surf for the next week or two.  We're having some nice negative tides.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net