6/17/18 Report - Charles II Half Reale. Shipwreck and Artifact Laws. Embossed Vintage Bottle.

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

Half Reale 1989 Find Showing Charles II Monogram.

This one shows no date but would be between 1668 and 1697.

The Florenza cross on the other side shows it to be from Mexico.

Other Side of Same Half Reale.

Found during the same short hunt as the two shown yesterday.

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I often get questions about the laws concerning metal detecting.  I don't like to try to answer those types of questions because there are so many contradictory and confusing issues and I'm far from an expert.  An article I just found entitled LOST AT SEA: A treatise on the management and ownership of shipwrecks and shipwreck artifacts, by Michael C. Barnette as published in New Jersey Scuba Diving, will help anyone get a better understanding of some of the most important legal issues related to shipwrecks and artifacts.  Here are just a few excerpts to get you started on this lengthy and very helpful article.

... The law of salvage and the law of finds are the two principal aspects of admiralty law that provide legal guidance for how the issue of shipwreck ownership is approached. When property, such as a vessel and its cargo, is lost at sea, salvage law generally applies. Under the law of salvage, salvors take possession of, but not title to, the distressed vessel and/or its cargo. Subsequent to the salvage of a vessel or cargo, a court awards the salvors a reward depending on various factors, such as the value of the salvaged property, the risk involved, and the overall success of the salvage effort...


...In the case of the C.S.S. Alabama, the French government proceeded to excavate the wreck and recover artifacts following her discovery in 1984. It was not until October 1991 and after extensive negotiations that the French government conceded ownership of the warship to the United States, and recovered artifacts were exported to the Naval Historical Center at the Washington Navy Yard. Similarly, the aforementioned H.M.S. Fowey was also subjected to potentially unauthorized excavation, in this case by the National Park Service.

In fact, when the H.M.S. Fowey was included in the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1990, it was erroneously stated in the Federal Register that the "wooden British merchant vessel" Fowey was "owned by the U.S. Government." While the National Park Service had the jurisdiction to act as custodian over the site, they definitely did not own it. Even with a custodial jurisdiction, it would appear that the National Park Service would still have been required to request permission from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense to conduct the several excavations that have since been completed. Further, instead of returning the collected artifacts to the rightful owners of the warship, they are housed in at least three repositories in Florida and Texas.

Regardless of the official party line, the U.S. Navy sometimes offers hypocritical advice in regards to collection of artifacts from military shipwrecks. In the case of the U.S.S. Murphy, a destroyer that was involved in a 1943 collision at sea that resulted in her forward half being lost off New York, the United States Naval Historical Center recommended that artifacts could be collected from the then unknown wreck and used to identify the vessel. In fact, it was the recovery of a gauge with the destroyer's designation number that ultimately led to the wreck's identification and revelations into the vessel's tragic involvement in a largely unknown maritime accident. Subsequent events led to an official U.S. Navy investigation into diving activities on the wreck, whereupon they requested that all recovered artifacts be turned over to the U.S. Navy...

Here is the link. I hope you will read the article.

https://njscuba.net/artifacts/misc_salvage_law.php

It does not address some issues that are of interest to Florida detectorists.  It does not, of course, address county or park rules or laws or Florida's waterways, including the Indian River Lagoon.  There seems to be a lot of uninformed talk about the lagoon lately.  Anything found in Florida's waterways belongs to the State of Florida, and they consider anything over a few decades old to be protected historic property.

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Here is another bottle find.

Hire's Household Extract.

I was surprised to learn that Hire's still sells the extract and you can still make your own root beer at home.

This vintage bottle, like all that I show on this site, was found on the Treasure Coast.

This one reads, "MANUFACTURED BY THE CHARLES E. HIRES Co.

I posted a photo of another side of this bottle and instructions for making root beer from the extract on  tgbottlebarn.blogspot.com.

Happy Father's 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

6/15/18 Report - Multiple Error Eight-Reale. 100 Top U. S. Error Coins. Coins and Cash.

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

1775 8-reale Error Coin.
Source: MintErrorNews.com (See link below.)

But what has happened to this particular piece? First, it was struck slightly off-center to about 7:30 o’clock. Then it flipped over and was struck a second time, about 75% off-center to 7:00. However, during the second strike it was sandwiched between the obverse die on one side, and the obverse of an already struck coin on the other. This produced a partial brockage (indent of the the obverse of an already struck coin) on the obverse of our coin, and a clear flip-over, double-strike on the reverse. The 1775 date is indicated by the “75” that shows from the second strike on the reverse...

Here is the link for the rest of that article.

Source: https://minterrornews.com/issue3.pdf

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I've been spending some time looking through coins to see if I can find any good mint errors.  An error penny can be worth more than a Royal escudo.  Mint Error News lists one error penny that sold for 1.7 million dollars.  In fact they list 100 error coins, all of which sold for over $29,000.

Here is a list of the top 100.

https://minterrornews.com/news-1-10-12_top_100_prices.html

If you want to learn about war pennies struck on the wrong metal or three legged Buffaloes, take a look.

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I received a few thoughts on the mystery item I posted yesterday, but will wait a few more days to see if I get any more responses before I tell you what I think it is.  Please send your ideas on that.

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According to the Federal Reserve web site there is about thee times the amount of cash in circulation today as there was in 1997.

Today there is something over $1.6 trillion.  I don't know why there is so much increase.  I wouldn't expect that.

Here are some interesting tables.

Here is the source link for those tables.

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/how-many-dollar-bill-circulated/

I was trying to find how many coins are thought to be in circulation today, but couldn't find that.  I bet they have no idea how many are lost.

Over half of all coins produced in 2016 were pennies.

How many coins and bills are lost, collected or stored away is another thing.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

6/14/18 Report - What I Found While Scouting For a Good Detecting Site. Mystery Item. Christopher Columbus Letter Returned To Vatican. High Tides.

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

Glass Mystery Find Dated 1876.

I have one good high-priority detecting site, but I can work it only when things are just right, and that is rarely.  That is where I'd prefer to be spending my time, but I have to wait for the right set of circumstances.

While waiting for the chance to get back to my preferred site, I went out to scout for other promising spots.  While scouting around,  I found some glass items of interest that gave me an approximate date on a somewhat promising site.   I hope to detect that site as soon as I can.

One of the finds was the glass mystery item shown above.  I don't know what it is or which side is supposed to be up.  The bottom half (as shown in the photo) is void with just the open ended cone extending up into it.  The top half is solid other than the opening that goes through the central part.

Below are two additional views - one from each end.

Opening Into Hollow Side.

Opening That Extends Through The Solid Side.

This is the side that has the patent date on it.  It is difficult to see but clearly reads NOVR 1876.

Any ideas or help on what this is will be greatly appreciated.

Helping to date the site, another item of similar age was found close to the above item.

Boericke and Tafel, New York Bottle Find.

This one was easy to research.  It would date to between 1869 and 1883, so it seems the site might provide some late 19th century coins.

In 1869, F. E. Boericke and A. J. Tafel formed the partnership under the name of Boericke and Tafel. Together they bought the pharmacy and book-publishing business of William Radde in New York City. A. J. Tafel moved to New York to manage the business.

l

In 1883, F. E. Boericke, in ill health, retired from the partnership. A. J. Tafel formed a new partnership with F. E.'s sons, Felix and Frank. In 1901, Adolph L. Tafel, the son of A. J. Tafel, entered the business.

Information from: http://julianwinston.com/archives/bt/bt_history.php

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A copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus that was stolen and replaced with a forgery was returned to the Vatican.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/14/europe/christopher-columbus-stolen-letter-vatican/index.html

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I adding bottles to my TGBottleBarn.blogspot.com website.

We're definitely into summer conditions now.  There will be more small surf this week, but we are getting some nice high and low tides.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/13/18 - How Shipwrecks From Penobscot Expedition of 1779 Found. Vintage Diet Soda Bottles and Carrier. 1917 Penny.

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

After spending considerable time scanning coins for errors, my eyes grew tired and I wanted something easier on the eyes, so I decided to go out and photograph some bottles.  Here are three types of vintage diet cola bottles - some filled- in a vintage cardboard carrier.

It isn't often that you find a surviving cardboard carrier or filled vintage bottles, but I had found these in an abandoned building years ago and put them aside.

Coca Cola produced TAB in 1963 to compete with Diet Pepsi.

Not often you find a full vintage bottle.  As you can see on the TAB bottle, it was a product of Coca Cola.

The Coca-Cola Company introduced Diet Coke in 1982 and this product has since been the principal competing product to Diet Pepsi.

Too bad the caps rusted.  Florida heat and humidity is hard on things.

A 1970s TV commercial spokesperson for TAB was a lady that later lived on Indian River Drive for a while.  If you are old enough you might remember those commericals.

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On July 24, 1779 the American naval and land forces--known collectively as the Penobscot Expedition--entered Penobscot Bay and laid siege to the British fort. However, just as victory appeared to be within their grasp, the Americans were forced into a disorganized retreat up the Penobscot River by a British relief squadron that arrived at the entrance to the bay approximately one month later. The British vessels rapidly overtook the fleeing American forces, causing the latter to abandon and scuttle most of their ships to prevent their capture.

During the mid-1990s, Brent Phinney, the owner of a sawmill and steel fabrication shop in Brewer, Maine, discovered the remains of a wooden shipwreck in shallow water immediately off the Brewer (eastern) side of the Penobscot River. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a scatter of colonial-era cannon and other artifacts in the river just offshore of downtown Bangor. In June of 1998 Phinney contacted Dr. Warren Riess, Research Associate Professor of History and Marine Sciences, University of Maine (Darling Marine Center), to assist in recovering artifacts from these and other archaeological sites. Riess in turn contacted the Naval Historical Center's Underwater Archaeology Branch. Naval Historical Center representatives then met with state officials in Augusta to discuss Phinney's discoveries. Among other things, the meeting addressed the shipwreck site's preservation and protection, as well as the removal of artifacts. The mutual interests of the Navy and the State of Maine and their overlapping responsibilities for the Navy's ship and aircraft wrecks in Maine waters was also discussed...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology/sites-and-projects/ship-wrecksites/penobscot-expedition-archaeological-project.html

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GoldNugget send a nice email that included the following.

Seems Impossible


During the 3-1/2 years of World War II that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and ended with the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, "We the People of the U.S.A." produced the following:
            22 aircraft carriers
              8 battleships
            48 cruisers
          349 destroyers
          420 destroyer escorts
          203 submarines
            34 million tons of merchant ships
   100,000 fighter aircraft
     98,000 bombers
     24,000 transport aircraft
     58,000 training aircraft
     93,000 tanks
   257,000 artillery pieces
   105,000 mortars
3,000,000 machine guns and
2,500,000 military trucks

Thanks Gold Nugget.

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I'll be getting back to looking at some cobs someday soon, but first here is another cache coin.

George V Large Cnet Coin.

Reverse of Same Coin.

A lot of cache coins are in good shape.  This one probably grades Very Good to Fine.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/12/18 Report - How to Get More Fun and Money Out of Your Coin Finds. 1719 Battlefield Surveyed.

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

A find is the beginning for another hunt.  After the find comes research, which adds additional  meaning, interest and value to the find.  That is true for coins as well as artifacts - even what are apparently common coins.

There are coins in circulation today that are worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.  As you would suspect, such coins are rare, but you still might be lucky enough to find a good one if you carefully check the coins you have.

If you've been detecting very long, you've probably found a lot of coins.  Even pennies can be valuable if they have a mint error.

Most of us spend our common coins without paying too much attention to them, but you might enjoy and even profit from going through them very carefully.

First though, familiarize your self with the types of coins you have and what to look for.

There are many web sites such as this one entitled Lincoln Penny Key Dates, Rarities and Varieties (  https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/lincoln-wheat-penny-768219 ).

That one is not necessarily the best.  It is just one of many that provides useful information.

I've been spending some time searching for errors lately and learned a few things that might make it easier for you.

I'd recommend categorizing your coins before you begin.  It is much easier to search one type of coin and date at a time.  You can research that type of coin at a site like the one I just mentioned and then go through those coins.  There  is just too much to remember to go through a bunch of random coins and dates.  It is much easier if you know what you are looking for and look at one type and date at a time while the known errors that you found through your research are still fresh in your mind.

Another advantage of doing one type and date at a time is that you can compare coins.  After you've seen several of a particular type and date you'll quickly notice any that appear different.  Maybe it is one digit in the date that is smaller, larger or in some other way different.

Unfortunately many of the coins found by detectorists have been buried, banged up or corroded.  That makes many coins, even with errors, less valuable.  It also makes it difficult to identify any errors.

Some mint errors are common or inconsequential, while others are valuable.  If coins are damaged, it is hard to tell if something suspicious is an error or something that happened to the coin after it went into circulation.  That can require some real detective work.

In the coins that I've been searching lately I've found a variety of surprising things.  One coin was made to look like what is called a "greaser," which is a coin that was struck through grease, resulting in an unclear image on part of the coin.  It has been determined though, that that coin, a wheat penny, actually had acid applied to it in such a way that the image was blurred.  The coin weighed two grams less than a normal wheatie, which would not have been the case if the coin was actually struck through grease.

Even something as seemingly simple as a double die error can be difficult to see and identify.  Some are small, and double die errors can easily be confused with die bounce, which is not the same thing.

As with everything, knowledge helps.  If you just want to go through a stack of coins and hope to find something odd, you'll probably miss important things.

There are some types of damage that are difficult to distinguish from true mint errors.  The easiest thing is to scan coins that are in pretty good shape to begin with and know what kinds of errors are known to exist for that type of coin.

Many valuable errors are not easy to see.  I would consider some type of magnification to be absolutely necessary.

I have a little lighted system that I use to make some of my coin photos.  It blows the coin image up several times and makes it much easier to scan for errors.

In summary, you can add to your enjoyment of common coin finds and possibly find something interesting, but you need to do a little research first.

Again, I highly recommend, starting with one small class of coins, depending upon what you have.  If you have enough coins, maybe start with steel pennies, war nickels, or certain dates of wheat pennies.  The more coins you scan, the better chance you have of finding a coin worth something, and the more you'll learn in the process.

The most valuable coins are rare, so it might take some work, but if you search enough coins, you probably will find at least some of the more common error coins and you'll learn enough to be on the alert for the more valuable coins.

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Here is an excerpt of a nice article from Scotsman.com.

...The catalyst for the 1719 Rising was the outbreak of war between Spain and Britain the year before.

The Spanish saw the benefit of resurrecting a Jacobite uprising for increasing pressure on the British government and offered the Jacobites an alliance and assistance in war, according to the inventory of Scotland’s battlefield.

Around 5,000 Spanish soldiers set off to invade Britain but the fleet was wrecked by a storm off the south coast of England and the manoeuvre abandoned.However, a smaller contingent led by Jacobite George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal Keith, of Dunnottar Castle, was on its way from the Basque country and set up camp at Eilean Donan Castle.

In May, the castle - traditional seat of Clan Mackenzie - was attacked by the Royal Navy with 39 Spanish marines taken prisoner....

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/study-at-battlefield-glen-where-spanish-joined-the-jacobites-1-4753199

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We should soon start to hear from the local salvage crews about the new finds made this year.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/11/18 Report - Swindlers and Bamboozlers: Treasure Hunters and Scams.

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

I ran across an interesting article in True West Magazine.  In one article on swindlers and bamboozlers I read the following.

Salting is best loosely defined as increasing the value of a worthless mine with a fraudulent intent to enrich it in a manner contrary to the laws of nature.

There were a number of ways to do this. A shotgun was a handy instrument when it came to salting a worthless mine. One of the qualities of gold is that it’s malleable. The rascal simply removed the shot from the shell and substituted gold dust. Then he blasted the walls, impregnating with gold.

Another clever trick was filling his smoking pipe with gold dust then casually emptying the contents right before the unsuspecting eyes of the prospective buyer.

And if the clever buyer wanted to look beyond the surface walls the seller would oblige but in anticipation of such a request he’d prepared headsticks of his dynamite with gold dust. Light the fuse and the inner rock would be impregnated right before the buyers eyes.

But my favorite was the deceptive method using bichloride of gold. You see, when gold is chemically treated it becomes a liquid. It was commonly used for medicinal purposes in the treatment of alcoholism and kidney ailments and when taken internally it passes through the body exiting liquid fluid with high assay values. The scalawag could salt his mine by peeing on the rocks anywhere the spirit moved him.

See https://truewestmagazine.com/swindlers-bamboozlers/ for more of that article.

Now that is interesting enough - at least I thought so - but human nature hasn't changed and salting and other forms of deception are still practiced today.

Maybe you've heard of salted shipwrecks designed to lure investors, but fraud can be carried out in many ways.

DelawareOnline reported on one complicated scheme involving a fake treasure map and altered emeralds.

( https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/10/08/wilmington-attorney-law-firm-sued-fraud/16949099/ )

Here is another scam.

The 44-year-old Palm Beach Gardens man would lend $190,000 and get it back in four months with 10 percent interest. If the borrower defaulted, he’d get collateral worth 150 percent of his investment: $285,000 worth of shipwreck treasure.

The venture was a fraud, he alleges, with each detail more bizarre than the previous — involving a self-anointed doctor of theology, a faked Time magazine cover, a psychic that located the ship, a chest of lesser jewels that experts said couldn’t have come from Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes’ stash, and a business headquarters dubbed “the treasure room” inside the defunct Ambrosia pizza parlor on South Dixie Highway..

And the link for more about that.

https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local/lawsuit-treasure-hunters-scammed-out-190-000/NBvw6xIUrJ2Tp92XXN22KN/


Sometimes deception might be no big deal, and sometimes the intent might even be generous.  I remember one instance when I wanted to learn about hunting fossils and paid a fee to go to a good fossil site with an expert and his partner.  I was digging and using a sifter.  After a short while, a good sized shark tooth showed up in my sifter.  I'm sure it was slipped there by the expert, and I think a little earlier I heard him say to his partner who was digging off to the side, "Let them have this one."

I found a lot of fossils that day myself and had no complaints, but I'm sure he slipped that one into the sifter when I wasn't looking.  Maybe he wanted to make sure I had a good time or would go with them again.  It really had no effect, and it might have even been a generous move.

But the thing that started me off on this today is of another sort.  TV provides a bigger tent than Barnum ever had, and the pressure is on to make sure there is something of interest for the viewers.  A string of fruitless hunts will quickly lose viewers, and, for a TV show that is death.

I watched a show last Friday that featured a few Florida "treasure hunters," most of whom I know and respect - but also one I know who is not trustworthy.  I caught him in too many lies.   It was no surprise that his spot on the TV show was the only one that actually produced on-camera finds.

Not too long ago I was asked by a TV station to take them on a hunt.  I told them the truth.  I told them that considering the current beach conditions, the chances of finding anything very exciting was very slim and it wouldn't be a good time to do it.

I've seen TV shows where I'm sure they planted things.  It is especially easy on a beach.  It is even easier in the water.  Just toss out a coin and watch it disappear or drop an item and walk over it.

On the TV show I was watching last Friday, I caught an item being tossed out into the murky water while the host was working with his detector.   It was done quickly and it was hard to see, but if you run it back a few times, you can clearly see the trick.

Other cases simply involve misrepresentation of finds, sometimes where they came from, time period or the value.  It is easy enough to make a mistake like that, but when you see the same person doing the same type of thing over and over, pretty soon you have to wonder about their honesty.

You can't believe everything you see on TV.  You know that, but there is usually a motive and a pattern of behavior that will tip you off. 

TV is a demanding and rewarding medium. There are plenty of people who will take advantage of the opportunities, even when it means being deceptive.  There are total fakes and then there are little things done just to build a reputation or spice up a program.

Treasure hunting too often gets a bad rap.  It isn't made any better by individuals or programs that do not maintain the highest standards of integrity.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net