Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
The coins in the hoard were not worth a lot more than the kettle the coins were found in. Due to the small value of the coins in the hoard, some think it might have been deposited by a child.
The thing that to me is most interesting about this article is how serious numismatists think about hoards.
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I've been posting some sites where old Spanish coins have been found in Florida. I'll haven't been going in any particular order, but yesterday I talked about a find from the northern panhandle of Florida. I'll stick with that area of the Gulf Coast again today.
In 1901 at Bear Point on Perdido Bay, another Charles and Johanna reale was found at another indigenous burial site. It was found by Clarence Bloomfield Moore.
This site is actually just on the Alabama side of the Alabama/Florida border.
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| Source: Good Maps. |
A good number of Charles and Johanna coin finds come from that general area of the Gulf Coast, which does not seem too surprising because of the 16th century wrecks up that way. So here is another case where Charles and Johanna coins were found in indigenous burial contexts. Those are coins evidently removed from wreck sites or obtained by contact with early Spanish explorers.
I visited the general area Perdido Bay a good bit when I was doing consulting at the Navy Air Station at Pensacola and did a little metal detecting around there, but mostly detected closer to Pensacola.
One day one of the civilian personnel workers at the NARF (Naval Air Rework Facility) told me he had been detecting an old site and hadn't been finding much and he asked if I would visit the site with him and show him what I did. During WWII an old hotel that was used for R and R stood on the site, but it was a much older site than that. It was just on the other side of the Florida/Alabama border near Milton. He had been detecting the site but didn't find much.
When I arrived, the site looked like it had been carpet bombed. There were big holes and piles of dirt everywhere. Not only didn't he find anything, but he left the site looking terrible.
It was a good site though. I found a variety of things, mostly WWII era, including both silver and gold and some nice items, such as a gold heart shaped lapel pin. A single visit is not enough for a site like that. Most of what I found was WWII stuff. I mostly worked around the hotel. As soon as I got out of the car, which was closer to an old mill than the hotel, I immediately hit a shallow buffalo nickel. The area around the burned down hotel produced a lot of finds and I never fot far from there. There were old Alabama tax tokens, older coins, a gold lapel pin, and other silver items from the hotel. I could have spent days there, but I only managed probably a couple of hours.
People from the Navy facility told me about other sites and took me out to one popular party area. Unfortunately there was too much junk at the party spot. It would have taken more time than I had to get down to more of the good stuff.
Anyhow, I usually enjoyed my evenings after work up in that area even though I didn't know it well and didn't have the kind of time that I would have liked to spend on those sites.
I was chased out of one popular swimming hole by a water moccasin.
Traveling with a detector can be fun, but normally you don't have the time to work some of the more promising sites as well as you'd like.
I did well on the beach behind the hotel where I often stayed, but those were modern finds. The first evening at the Gulf Breeze Holiday Inn produced a nice man's gold and onyx ring.
Those were good days. When I start writing about one thing, it starts a flow of memories that I haven't thought of for a long time. One thing leads to another.
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Here is a good link to information on Connecticut Coppers.
Connecticut Coppers - Introduction (nd.edu)
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We now have a subtropical storm named Don in the middle of the Atlantic. It won't affect us much.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net