Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| "Piece" of Eight. Found by Al. C. |
Al C. sent the above find photos and the following email.
I went on a paid hunt in Kentucky a few weeks ago. Before the paid hunt my buddy and I hit a school with a park next door. The area did not look old at all. I was shocked to dig this up. Found nothing else old there.
Great find Al. Congrats and thanks for sharing again.
It looks like maybe about 1/8th of a Charles III (1659 - 1788) eight-reale something like the one shown below, although we don't have the complete date of Al's example.
Maybe you've heard the expression, "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar." So eight bits would be a dollar.
The English colonies of America were prohibited by royal law from coining, minting, or even so much as using coins. The colonists were supposed to ship any and all coins to Mother England in payment for manufactured goods. This, of course, precluded any foolhardy colonist from starting a mint. Besides, there is little silver or gold to be had in New England and eastern Canada to this day. So, the English Colonies decided to use paper money which served them well until they attempted to finance the USA Revolutionary War with it. By 1780, this form of currency became useless and worthless and the money called Continental Currency collapsed.
Immediately, part of the vacuum was filled by the milled Spanish-American silver issues based on the real system in denominations of 1/8R through eight-reales. The most widely circulated of these was the piece of eight, which, when supplies of smaller denomination coins dwindled were chopped or cut into smaller pieces to make change. Thus, one eighth of eight-reales became one bit, one quarter two-bits–the equivalent of our present day quarter-dollar. One-half is four-bits and three quarters are six-bits. Many believe these expressions to be slang, yet, history suggests they are perfectly good nomenclature...
Here is a link for more about that.
History of Coins - TWO-BITS, FOUR-BITS, SIX-BITS, EIGHT... (coinweek.com)
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If you hunt bottles, you'll occasionally find a nice decanter. Below is one I found. One photo also shows a nice glass stopper that was found separately. Too bad it doesn't fit better.
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| Treasure Coast Decanter Find Along with Glass Stopper. |
I've found other decanters, but this is one of the nicer ones. I stuck a nice glass stopper in it, but the separately found stopper doesn't fit perfectly. I'll have to try some others.
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Enigmatic "ivory rings" found in dozens of Anglo-Saxon burials in England have long baffled archaeologists, who weren't sure of the rings' origin and which animal they came from — elephants, walruses or mammoths. But now, scientific techniques have revealed that these rings likely came from African elephants living about 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away, a new study finds...
Here is the link.
And here is another article with additional information on the same topic.
The ivory rings have been found in more than 700 early Anglo-Saxon graves across England, but are too large to fit a finger. Archaeologists now think they were used to hold open cloth bags tied to the waist.===
Still nothing new on the Atlantic National Hurricane Center map to watch. We are having mostly west winds now and the surf is predicted to remain small for days.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net