Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Druzy Quartz Crystalized Seashell Source: cystallizedshells.com. |
You might not know it, but there is money in shells. Like with any collectible, there are rare and highly desired items. The item shown above is listed on crystallizedshells.com for $75. In case you don't convert centimeters very often, it is just under 2 inches - not big at all.
I've shown examples of cyrstallized shells that I've found in this blog, and they were found on Treasure Coast beaches.
While I'm not a shell collector, I'm always open to various types of treasures that I see, and can't see why anyone would be happy passing up an interesting item that might have some value just because they either didn't go out looking for that kind of thing or just didn't know it's value.
A treasure is a treasure even it isn't what you were looking for. Sometimes you just encounter interesting things that are presented by the beach.
I've been doing some shopping for an upcoming anniversary and noticed crystal shells being used in store displays at some local stores. In two cases they were used as a part of a nautical display that also included shark teeth and Spanish reales.
Of course shells don't have to be crystallized to be valuable.
I ran across a great article about shell collecting on the SmithsonianMag web site. Here are a few paragraphs from that article.
The peculiar human passion for the exoskeletons of mollusks has been around since early humans first started picking up pretty objects. Shellfish were, of course, already familiar as food: some scientists argue that clams, mussels, snails and the like were critical to the brain development that made us human in the first place. But people also soon noticed their delicately sculpted and decorated shells. Anthropologists have identified beads made from shells in North Africa and Israel at least 100,000 years ago as among the earliest known evidence of modern human culture...
The madness for shells that took hold of European collectors from the 17th century onward was largely a byproduct of colonial trade and exploration. Along with spices and other merchandise, ships of the Dutch East India Company brought back spectacularly beautiful shells from what is now Indonesia, and they became prized items in the private museums of the rich and royal. "Conchylomania," from the Latin concha, for cockle or mussel, soon rivaled the Dutch madness for collecting tulip bulbs, and often afflicted the same people. One Amsterdam collector, who died in 1644, had enough tulips to fill a 38-page inventory, according to Tulipmania, a recent history by Anne Goldgar. But he also had 2,389 shells, and considered them so precious that, a few days before his death, he had them put away in a chest with three separate locks. The three executors of his estate each got a single key, so they could show the collection to potential buyers only when all three of them were present. Dutch writer Roemer Visscher mocked both tulip maniacs and "shell-lunatics." Shells on the beach that used to be playthings for children now had the price of jewels, he said. "It is bizarre what a madman spends his money on."...
For many collectors of that era, shells were not just rare, but literally a gift from God. Such natural wonders "declare the skilful hand from which they come" and reveal "the excellent artisan of the Universe," wrote one 18th-century French connoisseur. The precious wentletrap, a pale white spiral enclosed by slender vertical ribs, proved to another collector that only God could have created such a "work of art."...
Here is the link if you want to read more about that.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mad-about-seashells-34378984/
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JamminJack recommends the 1963 book, Lore of the Wrecker, which discusses shipwreck salvage in Florida during the 18 and 1900s. |
| Source: nhc.noaa.gov |