Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Source: Doubloons.com. (See link below) |
Did you ever find one of those coins the Krewes from the Mardi Gras floats? I've found a few, but surprsingly few. I can think of only like three right off. I didn't know what they were when I found them. Just looked like a token or fake game toy or something. Then I looked up the word Krewe, which put me on the track. This was years ago. And I think they were found over in West Florida. There might be an exception or two that I don't recall, but that makes sense. When I think of Mardi Gras, I think of New Orleans.
Mardi Gras Doubloons are Mardi Gras throws shaped like coins that commemorate various Mardi Gras Krewes. They are typically made of aluminum and are thrown from floats in carnival parades. The first doubloons used as throws from parades of Mardi Gras Krewes date to 1960, and these early doubloons are collectible.
Mardi Gras doubloons were first created by New Orleans artist and entrepreneur H. Alvin Sharpe in 1959. Sharpe had his own metal dies for striking the doubloons from aluminum blanks. He presented a design to Darwin Schreiver Fenner, who was the captain of the Krew the leading Mardi Gras organization of the time. As a result of the presentation, Schreiver personally financed production of 3000 doubloons for the 1960 Mardi Gras year, although the Krewe of Rex produced 80,000 undated doubloons using Sharpe's design, all minted by a firm in Ohio... (Source: doubloonswap.com/guide.htm)
So what are doubloons worth? Most people who want to know what a collection is worth have probably just inherited a relative's moldy binders and cluttered boxes from the 80's. And, they wrongly associate quantity and age with the value they conjure up for the collection. But, both of these assumptions are basically wrong. Unsorted boxes of doubloons have little value mostly because they require too much work to sort through. The best you can hope to get is the base metal price of scrap aluminum, even if there could be some treasures buried in the box. Typically that is about 50 cents to $1 per pound or half a cent to 1 cent each. Ironically, it costs much more to produce doubloons and krewe members pay much more than that to have them as one of their throw options. There simply is not enough collector interest to drive the price any higher than that.
Collections already sorted and in binders will fetch a better price because the buyer can more easily evaluate them. Still the sorted collection will be split mostly by base metal content and value will only be placed on non-aluminum doubloons and the better classes of aluminum doubloons. The only doubloons which typically fetch a higher value are pure silver and multi-colored cloisonne (bronze metal base) doubloons. As you can imagine, these rarely find their way into common collections. If you have binders of just common throw doubloons, then you won't get much better than scrap value. Better classes of aluminum doubloons will rarely fetch more than 25 cents each...
Crescent City Doubloon Traders Club Home Page
Origin of the Mardi Gras Doubloon | New Orleans
I have a good number of old books on New Orleans history. I especially recommend those by
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| The Grandissimes by Georg Washington Cable. Copyright 1880. |
If you aren't content to simply believe what they tell you it was like, and you'd rather get a vivid detailed picture of the culture and race relations of the times, read this or any of Cable's other books. You will be richer for it. No book I've read could do a better job of conveying the feeling and nature of life in New Orleans back in the day.
Washington Irving is good for historical fiction, but his books do not compare with those of George Washington Cable.
I like old books. When people find a coin or artifact, they often say, "If it could only speak what a story it would tell." Well books do speak.
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I didn't know where this post was going when I sat down to begin, but I was reminded of the Mardi Gras doubloons I found years ago, and started to do a little research with the intent of doing a post on them. . Unfortunately, I didn't know where I put the ones I found, or even if I kept them. So, I didn't take photos, but maybe I posted them before ad maybe you can find them if you look back. I couldn't.
Doing a daily post is not always easy. I don't know of any other blogs that deliver a daily post, and if they do, they have multiple authors and/or have a commercial element.
Anyhow, I sometimes start on a topic, and it doesn't come together right away. I might not have the photos I want or I want to do more research, so I abandon the topic for a while, or I get started and then end up going down another track, and the post ends up way different than what I was thinking when I began work. Sometimes I start a post and don't have everything I want yet, so leave the incomplete post or topic to be completed at some later date. Not being the most organized person in the world, I often forget to post things, Sometimes I start things, type a few paragraphs or notes, and then eventually forget about it or lose my notes and drafts before posting. It doesn't make me happy to lose my notes or the materials I planned on using either.
I hope no one gets insulted when I don't post something they send me. Sometimes it just doesn't fit in well with what I was working on and I put it off for another day. And sometimes those things get lost. It doesn't make me happy have some good ideas or some good material and lose it, but it happens. You don't see the work I put in or the way the gumbo is made. It is sometimes messy, and I apologize for that, but it isn't always easy putting these posts together.
I thought about posting my Mardi Gras doubloons several days ago and just decided to finish it last night and was happy to that Tuesday is Mardi Gras, so the timing was perfect even if not planned that way. I wonder if it was coincidence or if in my subconscious, I knew it was time for Mardi Gras.
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A few days ago, I posted about a broken Wedgewood teapot that I found.
Here is a good value and priced guide for Wedgewood if you are interested.
Wedgwood Patterns: Value and Price Guide
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All we are saying is give peace a chance (Beatles).
War, huh, What is it good for? Absolutely nothin. (Edwin Starr).
I'd like to play that but don't want to take the time to record it, so here is a link.
(5) Edwin Starr - War (Original Video - 1969) - YouTube
Funny how it seems the Republicans have turned into the Peaceniks.
The times they are a-changin. (Bob Dylan)
You might have noticed that I stopped ending my posts with "Happy Hunting," when the Ukraine War started. With the bombings and destruction, it just seemed too trivial for me. That is when I started ending my posts with "Good hunting," I might go back to "Happy hunting" some day, but maybe not.
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| Source: Surfguru.com. |
Monday had some good wind. Last night wasn't bad either, but the wind has changed and the surf decreasing. Still the wind is pretty good this morning - just from a more southerly direction. Which isn't all bad.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net