6/25/21 Report - Rare Gold Coins Found by Detectorist. Dating a Metal Detecting Site: Story of a Lens.

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

Source: See link below.

A "very rare" Edward III gold coin lost in the wake of the Black Death has been found by a metal detectorist.

The 23-carat leopard was discovered with another gold coin, called a noble, near Reepham, Norfolk.

Finds liaison officer Helen Geake said the leopard was withdrawn within months of being minted in 1344 and "hardly any have survived".

She said the coins were equivalent to £12,000 today and would have been owned by someone "at the top of society".

The leopard - which has never been found with another coin - was discovered with a "rare" 1351-52 Edward III noble...

Here is the link for the rest of that story.

Gold coins lost in Black Death confusion found in Reepham - BBC News

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Blue Signal Lantern Lens Find.

I was going to do a post on dating sites from finds today, but won't get too far on that this morning.  I have an appointment this morning, so will put off most of that discussion for some other time, 

Some detecting sites, including beaches, are dominated by finds from one particular period of activity.  Other sites, such as the Corrigans salvage camps, shows two distinct periods of particular interest.  There was the original Spanish salvage camp of 1715 and 1716, and then there was the later British camp.  Of course one period of activity will provide artifacts from earlier periods.  In centuries past, items were often used for many years and repaired and used again so that many diagnostic artifacts will predate the period of activity by a large number of years.  It is not unusual for an artifact to predate the time it was lost by a hundred or more years.  In more modern times we use items that are not made to last, and many are thrown away and replaced without any thought given to repairing them.  The shape of the artifact date distribution of will be more narrow for more modern times.  I'll try to get into more detail on that some other time.

The site I've been metal detecting provides good examples.  Just last night I found the lens shown above.  After doing a little research, I am pretty sure it is a signal lantern lens.  It was found a foot or more down, and was under a layer of more modern junk. 

The lens was more helpful than I expected.  Just this morning after cleaning it off, I noticed very clear printing.

Blue Lens Embossed
OPTICAL CORNING U. S. PATENT 10 OCT. 1905.

It reads, "OPTICAL CORNING U. S. PATENT 10 OCT. 1905."

Corning began in 1850, and in 1880 they began making glass lightbulbs for Edison.

Corning also helped make early train travel safer after the railroad industry sought the company’s help in developing a more reliable signal glass. In the early 1900s, Corning scientists William Churchill and George Hollister developed Nonex (or CNX), short for Corning nonexpansion glass. The glass, able to withstand dramatic temperature changes, was used in railroad signal lanterns. Churchill would go on to work with the Railroad Signal Association (RSA) to develop a set of ideal colors that would later become the RSA national standard.

Here is the link.

Corning History of Innovation | Glass Inventions and Discovery | Corning

Signal Lanterns Showing Different Lenses Lighted.
See railroadiana line below.

The purpose of all railroad lamps, lanterns and signals was nothing less than the protection of people's lives, but glass colors were yet unstandardized, and this created ambiguity and worked against safety. The danger lay in the unavoidable breakage of a given red glass roundel or lens falling out of the signal or lamp thus giving a white light or a false clear. Many lives were lost due to this exact occurrence on railroads over many years. The worst of such disasters happened on the P.R.R. in 1915 when a cracked red roundel fell out of it's semaphore spectacle giving that fatal false clear indication. A high speed passenger train collided with the rear of a stopped train on the mainline as a result.

The obstacle to the standardization of signal colors was in the providing of a good caution indication. The British had early on (in the 1870's) adopted "red" for stop and "green" for clear thus eliminating the false clear of a broken signal glass. But the problem of distinguishing between a "home" semaphore signal and a "distant" had yet to be successfully addressed. Further, the shades of greens extant varied from a yellow green to a blue green, and the yellows from a yellowish orange easily confused with red to a yellowish green; thus many "yellows" were easily confused with "green". The Railway Signal Club (forerunner of the RSA and later AAR) had for several months entertained the use of a "violet" for the caution aspect in the mid 1890's but quickly reversed that decision to the red, green and white since the violet indication was found to be too short range for mainline use.

The Nels "Baird Yellow Roundel" of the late 1890's was adopted as the intermediate or caution night signaling aspect first by the New Haven in 1899. The Railway Signal Club physically met at Boston's South Station to witness the effectiveness of the new colors and made motion for the adoption of this new "yellow" as the standard caution night aspect.

Enter Dr. William Churchill of Cornell University who immediately after the turn of the Century went to work on establishing the parameters of color characteristics and light and dark limits for all signal standard glass at Corning Glass Works in the Southern Tier of New York State. His work resulted in six RSA standard colors and was accepted and signed into officialdom by the R.S.A. on October 10 1905 . This date is found as a legend molded onto the rims of many early period lenses and roundels....

Here is that link.

Railroad Glass Colors and "Cobalt Blue" - Railroadiana Online

(As a side note, I believe one of my ancestors was killed in that 1915 wreck. I'll have to look that up to see if that was indeed the wreck.)

Now you know how our traffic lights came to be red, yellow and green.

But not only did I find the lens, it looks like I also found the rim that goes with it.  That was found a short distance away.

Signal Lens With Rim.

The rim fits perfectly even though I didn't fit it into the rim for the photo.

So once again we have an early 1900s date on a railroad related item.  We know that the lens dates to after 1905, but not how much after.  

The case grows stronger and stronger for an early 1900s wreck event providing the bulk of artifacts on the site.   A bunch of more modern items have been found in a couple well-defined areas of the site.  The lens was found under one of those and would not have been found without digging through the modern junk.

Assessing the number and distribution non-metallic finds leads me to believe that there still could be as much as 40 or more buried bottles, ceramic and glass non-metallic items of possible interest on the site.   

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The only activity now on the National Hurricane Center map is one area coming off of Africa.

We are having some nice high and low tides now.  The surf will be increasing to 3 or 4 feet for Sunday and Monday.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net