Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
The 20th Sedwick Treasure Auction is now online for viewing and online bidding.
Here is the list of sessions.
There are many lots and you can find almost anything you might want. There weren't many gold ingots though, and there weren't a lot of artifacts.
One of the things that caught my attention was a good number of galanos (royals).
There are also several "imitation" cobs listed in the auction. Some of them looked very strange and might appear to be obvious fakes if you know what you are looking for, but back in the 1800s I suspect could easily pass as the real thing back in the day.
Here is one example.
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| Imitation Cob Listed As Lot 928 In Sedwick Auction No. 30 |
Here is the lot description.
Cartagena, Colombia, copper "imitation cob" 2 reales, fantasy date "100" (ca. 1815), struck over State of Cartagena provisional 2 reales dated 1813, rare, NGC AU 55 BN, finest known in NGC census. Restrepo-118.1; Cal-unl; KM-unl. Off-center overstrike with traces of the host visible, including a clear 181 and weak but certain final digit 3 of the date on the cross side, dark and a bit unevenly struck but choice in terms of grade. NGC #4332661-011
The date would seem to be one obvious sign of a fake.
Notice that the imitation was struck over a 2 reales. I sure there is an interesting story behind all of that. I'll have to do some research on it.
Here is another of the "imitation cobs."
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| Imitation Cob Listed in Sewick Auction No. 20 as Lot 932. |
Here is the lot description.
Cartagena, Colombia, low-silver "imitation cob" 1/2 real, no date (ca. 1815), very rare. Restrepo-108.2; Cal-unl; KM-unl. 0.94 gram. Choice example with full and well-detailed monogram and cross-lions-castles in a style experts agree is consistent with Cartagena (slightly different design from Restrepo example), the flan thin and octagonal, XF with toning all over, old mark on cross. Pedigreed to the Gran Colombia collection.
Some of the imitations already have some nice bids.
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It has been a couple of months since I detected the Indian River Ridge site that produced all the old railroad artifacts, but since the weather has cooled down a touch I gave it a shot yesterday. There were still lots of mosquitos and all the trees and vegetation were wet from the recent rain. I didn't detect very long, but found a couple more hammer heads. They were under some wire that I passed over some time before.
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| New Hammer Head Finds. |
There are still some areas that haven't been covered well because of the remaining trees and brush. I'll remove some of that someday so I can get into those areas.
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Saturday I was doing some channel surfing and on the Oak Island show saw a find that was referred to as a gold knob (looked like a door knob), which turned out to be brass. Typical!
I think JamminJack wrote to me something about that being a door knob or something like that back some time ago, but since I don't watch that show, I hadn't seen it yet.
You'd think they'd have the entire island turned upside down, inside out and everything totally uncovered by now.
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The Treasure Coast is still getting good high tides, but the low tides aren't going down much. I'm not expecting any significant improvement in beach detecting conditions for a while. Only a couple more months left in the year. How they years fly! At least we are getting into the time of year when we might get some rougher surf.
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net