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Monday, April 20, 2026

4/20/26 Report - Shipwreck Artifacts and Other Fine Treasures: Escudo Coin Rings and Other Artifacts. Gold Chains and Columbian Escudos.

 

Written by the Treasreguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

SPAIN, Seville, gold 1 escudo, Charles-Joanna, assayer * to right, mintmark S to left, mounted cross-side out in large (size 12) 18K gold ring. 35.8 grams total. Nice full cross with some legend details as well, sturdily mounted in a large gold ring that allows for viewing of the shield side.


I've been looking through the Sedwick auction lots, which are extensive.  One of the items that caught my attention was the ring shown above.  There is also in the auction a 1715 Fleet ring mounted in a Fisher ring.  It was a 1-escudo. 

The rings caught my attention because there was a 1715 Mexico 2-escudo detector find made years ago.  I possted a photo before.  

I always assumed it was a Fisher mounted escudo but never knew for sure.  Here it is.


This one is an OMJ.

The auction is really varied and extensive.  There is everything including the normal stuff plus some unusual lots such as a few  coin clumps containing coins of more than one nation.  I think one clump had both Spanish and British shipwreck coins for example.  I don't know that I've ever seen clumps like that before.

Of course there are the many cobs and escudos, musket balls and cannon balls, olive jars, foreign and ancient coins, paper money, medals, as well as the various jars, ceramics, including Oriental porcelain such as the piece below.

I've talked about the Kang-Hsi porcelain found on the 1715 Fleet wreck sites, but this is from another dynasty and isn't from a 1715 Fleet wreck.

Lot 1600.

Here is the lot description for that really unusual lot.

Gold-plated silver Columbus statue for religious processionals, ex-1715 Fleet. approx. 17 inches tall and 2.8 lbs (total) Research and careful reassembly (per the accompanying photo) revealed that this fascinating artifact, consisting of three main parts and several small pieces (as found), the main part filled with encrustation, is a three-tiered gold vermeil sacramental with Columbus statue at top of a type used in religious processions in the streets of Spanish colonial cities in the Americas. The use of Columbus on a New World church relic is not unusual, as the Spanish culture revered him as the original vehicle for spreading Christianity in the Americas. The accompanying certificate states it was found in the "Cabin Wreck" area in 1978-80 along with a six-foot gold rosary and three rings, which were all shown to and reviewed by Mel and Deo Fisher in 1990. XRF results: 67.50% gold, 30.88% silver. From the 1715 Fleet, with Sedwick photo-certificate from 2008 and Karen McKee certificate from 2007.

It is from the 1715 Fleet and is gold plated silver.  But a Christopher Columbus statue on a sacramental?  That to me seems like a pretty unusual lot.

If you thought, like I've heard it said, that silver plated items are modern, here is another example of how that is wrong.  The confusion comes from the development of modern electroplating techniques being modern, but some form of plating, or laying one type of metal over another has been done seeming for a very long time.  Here is an excerpt from a 2012 post from TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com.


According to one source, "electroplating" has been used on jewelry since 1857. Before that other forms of plating were used.

There are even Morgan and Peace dollars in the auction along with other silver U.S. coins.

Here is the link to the auction lots.

Treasure, World, U.S. Coin & Paper Money Auction 39 - Page 1 of 44 - Sedwick & Associates, LLC

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I found an article on the gold chains of the 1622 Fleet.  Here is an excerpt.

However, there were other dimensions to the chains from the 1622 fleet. One of the interesting findings was that some of the largest chains had links of very pure gold (usually 23K) and each of those links weighed a very specific amount. In fact, these links weighed the same as some of the gold coinage that was circulating at the time. Why would this be? Even by the year 1622 the king had not given permission to mint gold coins in the New World, although many had petitioned the court for this to be done. As a consequence, there was a shortage of gold coins in the New World to be used in commerce. So, these chains are thought to represent a way around this shortage and were in a very real sense portable wealth.

Here is the link for more about that.

Gold Chains of the 1622 Fleet.pdf

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Here is a very detailed study entitled, Collecting Colombian Cob 2 Escudos (Ongoing Research—a Supplement to Arce’s Doubloons) by Daniel Frank Sedwick   Below is the link.

Microsoft Word - Collecting Colombian 2E Cobs article FINAL REFORMATTED.docx

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Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

So today we should be seeing a rougher surf.

There will be another late afternoon negative low tide.

Good hunting,

Treausreguide@comcast.net


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Sunday, April 19, 2026

4/19/26 Report - Bigger Surf Coming with Nice Low Tides. Goloid, Electrum, and Coinage Over Time. My Times and Seasons Metal Detecting.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.




Few moments in American monetary history caused more disruption than the years after California’s gold discoveries. The flood of new gold upset the long-standing ratio between gold and silver. As a result, silver coins traded at $1.04 for every gold dollar. That gap looked small. However, it created a real crisis. Silver coins vanished from circulation because people hoarded them.

Congress stepped in with the Coinage Act of 1853. Lawmakers lowered the weights of the half dime, the dime, the quarter, and the half dollar. That change reduced their intrinsic value and pushed them back into circulation...

Still, the government needed a large silver coin that could compete with the Mexican peso. So, the Coinage Act of 1873 created the Trade dollar. That coin carried more silver than a traditional silver dollar...

On May 22, 1877, the Patent Office awarded Hubbell patent No. 191,146. Hubbell described goloid in exact terms. He wrote that it “consists of certain proportions of gold, silver, and copper. The exact and best proportions are one pound of gold, twenty-four pounds of silver, and two and a half pounds of copper [and] one grain of sulphate of sodium or sulphate of potassium to one thousand grains of the metal.”...

Goloid did not mark the first time coin makers combined gold and silver into a single composition. Today, numismatists know that alloy as electrum.

In fact, coinage first used that combination as early as the seventh century BCE. The most famous early examples came from Lydia. Those electrum issues spread across western Asia Minor, eastern ancient Greece, and the wider Mediterranean world over the next few centuries....

For much more of that story, here is the link.

Goloid Dollar and the Crime of ’73: The Failed Coin Experiment

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Scientists Made Something Out of Nothing. Literally.

Like ghosts in the void, virtual particles can materialize from (almost) nothing.

That is what it says.

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

Scientists Made Something Out of Nothing. Literally.

There is little honesty in titles anymore.  Note the contrast between the word "literally" in the title and "almost" in the very next sentence.

I'm getting very tired of misleading titles and spun stories.

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When I first started metal detecting I thought of it primarily in economic terms.  Possibly a way to make a little extra change.  I was finding coins, but not much more than pocket change. Taking expenses, including such things as the metal detector, gas and batteries, there was seldom any profit in it even though you could actually buy things in those days with a few coins.  I think you could still buy a candy bar for a dime or maybe a quarter. As I've described before, at first I kept detailed records and totals for my coin finds.  Before long I managed to find enough coins to pay for a new and better metal detector and found a few pieces of gold and other things every once in a while.   

As I continued to improve, I began to target and find greater numbers of gold rings and jewelry.  The price of both silver and gold fluctuated a good bit.  Sometimes it seemed worth finding silver or gold and other times much less.  I never planned to sell precious metals though, and put those finds away for the long term, for an emergency or maybe as part of a retirement program.

In 1990 the average value of gold was about $383.00 per ounce, which in 2026 dollars would be worth about $986 per ounce.  But now the price of the same amount of gold is about five times greater, which makes finding gold seem much more worthwhile.

Another big change for me occurred when I moved from South Florida to the Treasure Coast.  When I moved to the Treasure Coast I began focusing more on shipwreck artifacts rather than either coins or jewelry.  

Of courses there were other changes too.  On the Treasure Coast I also got into hunting old bottles.  I only did that once when I was in South Florida and that was by accident.  I just happened to find some old bottles when metal detecting after Hurricane Andrew.  After moving to the Treasure Coast I started bottle hunting on a regular basis.  

The same kind of thing happened with fossils, which i hunted quite a bit for a while on the Treasure Coast.  My big introduction to that was by accident too.  I found a lot of fossils one day after a storm metal detecting on the Treasure Coast.  

I often talk about the seasons and cycles of metal detecting.  The way I looked at metal detecting when I began is very different from how I look at it now.  Changes in beaches and changes in the values of metals also changed my approach at different times.  

Not only has the world changed but I've changed and my life circumstances have changed as well.  Now metal detecting plays a very different roll in my life than when I began.  There was a time when it was primarily an economic activity. and a time when I hit it hard really hard and tried to see how far I could take it.  Now it is very different for me. Now it is more about recreation and education.  I look at it more like a relaxing game that peaks and satisfies my curiosity.

This blog plays a big role.  I started it when circumstances gave me different priorities.  The blog has added another aspect to my detecting.  Now I blog more than I detect.  It takes time to do this nearly every day, but it makes me think it out more clearly and in more detail in order to communicate my thoughts. 

I had jobs that provided many of the same satisfactions.  I enjoyed research, consulting and teaching and those jobs allowed me a lot of spare time and actually took me different places where I could metal detect.  So it all worked out very well.  

Everybody is different.  Their circumstances are different.  They have different personalities, characteristics, abilities and situations, but for each, there is a different role that metal detecting can play.  

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Fort Pierce South Beach Saturday.

Even though the many of the snowbirds have gone home there were still a lot of beachgoers enjoying the beautiful days.  Take a look up the beach in the picture above.  Might be some new drops out there.

We're having some nice negative low tides.  The Sunday afternoon low tides is supposed to be a negative .85.  You don't get that real often.

The Fort Pierce North causewayy appears to be nearing completion.

Looks like we'll also have a nice bump in the surf around Monday.


Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

It will be a quick one though

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

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Friday, April 17, 2026

4/17/26 Report - Upcoming Treasure Coin Show and Auction Highlights. Extensive Shipwreck Survey.


From Sedwick...

following our sale of his 2 reales in our prior auction. The current offering focuses on 8 and 1 reales, carefully assembled over many years with an emphasis on quality, rarity, and important pedigrees from notable prior collections. It begins with some exceptional highlights, including an example of the earliest dollar-sized silver coin struck in South America, the famous Rincón 8 reales. The collection continues with a strong selection from the early Lima mint, featuring multiple varieties, especially from the period of assayer Diego de la Torre. Next are a few special “Star of Lima” issues, followed by a comprehensive run of pillars and waves coinage, with nearly all dates represented and including several very rare round presentation “Royals” (galanos). Comprising over 200 lots, this is one of the largest offerings of Lima cobs we have presented (if not the largest). We follow Lima with a singled-out collection of Potosí dated shield-type 8 reales; watch for several more very rare “Royals” in the regular Potosí cob offering.



Throughout World Coins we feature an outstanding group of Spanish bust gold minors, covering not just Spain itself but also all major colonial mints in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Nearly all are certified, many at the highest levels, including numerous “top pop” examples. This is a rare opportunity to acquire multiple dates and types in a single sale that would normally take years to assemble.

 

Speaking of Spain, in this auction we proudly present The Andalusi Collection, an important expansion into an historical area. These coins reflect a period when Spain was under a different cultural influence, offering a fascinating connection with the evolution of coinage. The selection includes some of the finest pieces offered in recent years, all certified by NGC, many at the top of their population reports. Carefully cataloged by Ana Serrano, a recognized expert in the field, this collection provides collectors with a clear and accessible introduction to this specialized area.


This event will take place at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Winter Park, Florida. Our regulars will remember this venue from our auctions prior to last year. This time, however, instead of educational talks, we will fill the room on the day before the auction (during lot viewing) with our inaugural Winter Park Coin Show.  Selected dealers from all over the Americas will have tables to browse while you wait to view lots. The date is May 6, from 10 am to 6 pm. Come see your friends or make new friends while you get ready for the auction!

 

As always, we are at your service with any questions or concerns. We wish everyone the best of luck and happy hunting!


NOTE: Floor auction lots will be available for viewing at the Central States show (Express lots by request only). All lots will also be available for viewing at our offices by appointment and on the day of the Winter Park Coin Show.

 

With thanks to all from the Sedwick & Associates, LLC team:


Daniel Sedwick, Augi García-Barneche, Cori Sedwick Downing

Michelle Heidt, Connor Falk, and Sarah Sproles



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The oldest is that of a Punic era ship dating to the fifth century BC, while other finds include 23 Roman ships, two late Roman ships, four medieval ships and 24 vessels from the early modern period.

Between them, the sunken items – which include an agile and fearsome 18th-century Spanish gunboat and the engine and propeller of a plane from the 1930s – tell the story of war, trade, exploration and settlement in and around one of the most strategically important waterways in the world...

Although the team has come across large ships from the 16th and 17th centuries, one of the most exciting finds has been the wreck of the Puente Mayorga IV, a small, late 18th-century gunboat of a type used for rapid, stealthy attacks on British ships of the line around Gibraltar. The attack craft would often disguise themselves as fishing boats before flinging off their netting and firing their prow-mounted cannon at their enemies...

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

Hidden treasures: Spanish archaeologists discover trove of ancient shipwrecks in Bay of Gibraltar | Archaeology | The Guardian

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Fort Pierce South Beach Friday Morning.



Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

Looks like they'll be a nice bump in the surf next week.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net





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Thursday, April 16, 2026

4/16/26 Report - First Machine Gun(?). Coastal Erosion and Archaeological Sites. Great Site to View Spanish Colonial Artifacts.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.



The trail of an ancient Greek “machine gun”

Researchers identified clusters of quadrangular cavities arranged at short, regular intervals and following a curved path near the Vesuvian and Herculaneum gates. The shape and spacing of these marks closely match the profile of the projectiles fired by this machine, confirming that they were not caused by any other weapon currently known to archaeologists...

The polybolos, which literally translates as “multiple launcher,” was invented by Dionysius of Alexandria, a Greek engineer who worked in the weapons workshop of Rhodes in the 3rd century B.C. Its design was remarkably sophisticated for its time. The weapon used a system of gears and a chain mechanism to load darts automatically and fire them in bursts. In practice, it operated much like a modern machine gun that uses a belt-fed ammunition system...

Here is the link for more about that.

Archaeologists find evidence in Pompeii of an 'automatic' weapon used more than 2,000 years ago - AS USA

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I found an interesting archaeological survey of coastal sites being eroded or vulnerable to erosion.  Several Treasure Coast coastal sites are being eroded.  The salvage camps are included, but there are also sites whether human activity or nature has deposited different kinds of treasure in the vulnerable dune areas and are periodically eroded.  Much of this archaeological survey applies in the same way to those Treasure Coast sites.

Here are a few excerpts from the archaeological article.

Although our work identified previously unreported sites, professional archaeological survey has not been as effective a way to add to the site inventory as meeting with local residents. In the western Quoddy Region, the only newly identified site was reported by a collector (see Hrynick and Anderson Reference Hrynick and Anderson2021). In Nova Scotia, six of the newly identified sites were reported by collectors, including the most surprising addition to the site inventory: a Palaeoindian point recovered on an eroding shoreline (Betts et al. Reference Betts, Hrynick and Pelletier-Michaud2018). The disparity between avocational and professional identification of sites probably occurs because local residents tend to walk along beaches all year, rather than just for a few weeks during each summer. As a result, they have had many opportunities to identify eroding archaeological sites...

Ten or twenty years ago I did a post suggesting that archaeologist quit portraying the public as the enemy, first and most importantly, because the purpose of archaeology is to save history "for the public" and secondly because the public, if not alienated, will advance archaeology in several ways. The public will make discoveries, as this article describes. Avocational archaeologists contribute in many ways to archaeology and the public, if properly involved, will protect sites. Unfortunately, there are always dishonest individuals that put private gain before public interest, but that applies to archaeologists as well as the general public.  Saving history for the public doesn't mean hiding it from the public.

I do believe that since the time when I did that post, some progress has been made and the public is not so routinely viewed as the enemy of archaeology as was previously the case.  

Fifty-five flaked lithic artifacts from Sipp Bay are recorded in the RSPI collections. Some were excavated by Stoddard in 1951, but the vast majority were collected from the beach and erosional face by Kingsbury, Hayward, and the Knapton brothers. The collection reflects an opportunistic, visual collecting strategy: 20 of the 55 artifacts are bifaces, 21 are flakes, 12 are utilized flakes or unifaces, and two are cores. The catalog numbers used here refer to the RSPI’s system from the time of Stoddard’s research and are usually written on the artifacts.


Artifacts on the beach and in the water have often been eroded from the dunes.

The implication of this work is clear and unsurprising: coastal archaeological sites on the Maritime Peninsula are rapidly eroding and have been substantially eroded. As others (e.g., Young et al. Reference Young, Belknap and Sanger1992) have suggested, coastal erosion has preferentially obliterated older portions of the archaeological record in this region.

Here is the link for the entire article.

Characterizing the Erosion of Coastal Archaeological Sites on the Maritime Peninsula Using Survey, Collection Analysis, Excavation, and Modeling | American Antiquity | Cambridge Core

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Below is a small sample from nice web site showing the artifacts of 16th Century Isabella.



And here is the link to that site.

CHICHILTICALE.COM

I always recommend browsing as many Spanish colonial artifacts as you can if you want to find shipwreck treasure on the Treasure Coast.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

Still looks like a jump in the surf next Monday.

Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net
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Wednesday, April 15, 2026

4/15/26 Report - New 2026 Coins and a Mint Error to Watch For. Strikethrough Errors. Solving Missing Colony. Pleistocene Probability.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.



LITTLETON, NH – A Littleton Coin Company employee has discovered an unusual production error in a bag of Uncirculated 2026 quarters from the Philadelphia Mint featuring the Mayflower Compact.

The first of five newly designed quarters to celebrate the USA’s 250th anniversary, this coin features a Pilgrim couple facing West on the front, or obverse. The Mayflower ship, on which early English settlers journeyed in search of religious freedom, is the design featured on the back (reverse). 

Known as a “struck-through,” the newly discovered error occurred on the obverse of the Mayflower Compact quarter. It appears as an incuse impression between god and we in the motto in god we trust and between the dual dates of 1776 and 2026...


The noticeable, and unintended, impression occurred from a foreign element, according to Ken Westover, Littleton’s chief coin buyer. “It was likely stuck to the design die.”...


Here is the link for more of that article.

2026 Mayflower Compact Quarter Features Unexpected Error - Numismatic News

 It actually looks to me like the strike-through covers part of the word "God" on the obverse.

You can see it above.  

I don't believe I've seen a 2026 coin yet.  I'd like to find one of the new two-date coins whether it has the error or not, but I'll be looking for that error.

I've found some strike-through coins in the past.  Here is one.

Strike-through Error Quarter.


Here are the new dual date 2026 coins to watch for.



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A breakthrough in one of America’s oldest unsolved mysteries may have come not from law enforcement, but from an amateur investigator who uncovered a crucial clue hiding in plain sight: microscopic flakes of metal.

The case centers on the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, a 16th-century English settlement that vanished from present-day North Carolina in the late 1500s, leaving behind only the word “CROATOAN” carved into a post....

The investigation highlights the growing role of independent researchers in solving historical puzzles. Using modern analytical tools and cross-referencing historical records, amateur sleuths are increasingly contributing to fields once dominated by academic institutions.

Experts caution that further testing and peer review are needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn. Still, the metal flakes — small as they are — may provide one of the strongest physical clues yet in a case that has baffled historians for more than 400 years....

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

How An Amateur Sleuth May Have Solved America's Oldest Cold Case - American Liberty News

The smallest clues can be overlooked and often require better technique and being more attuned.  (I bet that word will be popping up again in the near future.  Attuned.  Say it.  Let it resonate.) 

Amateurs are often ahead of the game.  They don't worry so much about the return on investment and are often more interested in the product rather than how much they'll benefit from it.  Solving the puzzle is the goal.  The best professionals are often those that would be doing the same thing even if they were getting paid.

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Probability in the Pleistocene: Origins and Antiquity of Native American Dice, Games of Chance, and Gambling is the title of an article I found very interesting.  I wasn't expecting that.  Take a look.

Here is a

Probability in the Pleistocene: Origins and Antiquity of Native American Dice, Games of Chance, and Gambling | American Antiquity | Cambridge Core

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Beautiful Fort Pierce Beach Wednesday Morning.

Beised the earth moving equipment, you can see the seaweed and building beaches.


Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

Looks like another front is expected.  We'll see how that one turns out.

It looks like the Fort Pierce North Causeway bridge is close to completion.  That will be a big help to some.  That closure must have been a big inconvenience for some people.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

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