Written by the Treasreguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
I've been looking through the Sedwick auction lots, which are extensive. One of the items that caught my attention was the ring shown above. There is also in the auction a 1715 Fleet ring mounted in a Fisher ring. It was a 1-escudo.
The rings caught my attention because there was a 1715 Mexico 2-escudo detector find made years ago. I possted a photo before.
I always assumed it was a Fisher mounted escudo but never knew for sure. Here it is.
The auction is really varied and extensive. There is everything including the normal stuff plus some unusual lots such as a few coin clumps containing coins of more than one nation. I think one clump had both Spanish and British shipwreck coins for example. I don't know that I've ever seen clumps like that before.
Of course there are the many cobs and escudos, musket balls and cannon balls, olive jars, foreign and ancient coins, paper money, medals, as well as the various jars, ceramics, including Oriental porcelain such as the piece below.
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| Lot 1600. |
Gold-plated silver Columbus statue for religious processionals, ex-1715 Fleet. approx. 17 inches tall and 2.8 lbs (total) Research and careful reassembly (per the accompanying photo) revealed that this fascinating artifact, consisting of three main parts and several small pieces (as found), the main part filled with encrustation, is a three-tiered gold vermeil sacramental with Columbus statue at top of a type used in religious processions in the streets of Spanish colonial cities in the Americas. The use of Columbus on a New World church relic is not unusual, as the Spanish culture revered him as the original vehicle for spreading Christianity in the Americas. The accompanying certificate states it was found in the "Cabin Wreck" area in 1978-80 along with a six-foot gold rosary and three rings, which were all shown to and reviewed by Mel and Deo Fisher in 1990. XRF results: 67.50% gold, 30.88% silver. From the 1715 Fleet, with Sedwick photo-certificate from 2008 and Karen McKee certificate from 2007.
It is from the 1715 Fleet and is gold plated silver. But a Christopher Columbus statue on a sacramental? That to me seems like a pretty unusual lot.
If you thought, like I've heard it said, that silver plated items are modern, here is another example of how that is wrong. The confusion comes from the development of modern electroplating techniques being modern, but some form of plating, or laying one type of metal over another has been done seeming for a very long time. Here is an excerpt from a 2012 post from TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com.
According to one source, "electroplating" has been used on jewelry since 1857. Before that other forms of plating were used.
There are even Morgan and Peace dollars in the auction along with other silver U.S. coins.
Here is the link to the auction lots.
Treasure, World, U.S. Coin & Paper Money Auction 39 - Page 1 of 44 - Sedwick & Associates, LLC
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I found an article on the gold chains of the 1622 Fleet. Here is an excerpt.
However, there were other dimensions to the chains from the 1622 fleet. One of the interesting findings was that some of the largest chains had links of very pure gold (usually 23K) and each of those links weighed a very specific amount. In fact, these links weighed the same as some of the gold coinage that was circulating at the time. Why would this be? Even by the year 1622 the king had not given permission to mint gold coins in the New World, although many had petitioned the court for this to be done. As a consequence, there was a shortage of gold coins in the New World to be used in commerce. So, these chains are thought to represent a way around this shortage and were in a very real sense portable wealth.
Here is the link for more about that.Gold Chains of the 1622 Fleet.pdf
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Here is a very detailed study entitled, Collecting Colombian Cob 2 Escudos (Ongoing Research—a Supplement to Arce’s Doubloons) by Daniel Frank Sedwick Below is the link.
Microsoft Word - Collecting Colombian 2E Cobs article FINAL REFORMATTED.docx
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| Surf Chart from Surfguru.com. |
So today we should be seeing a rougher surf.
There will be another late afternoon negative low tide.
Good hunting,
Treausreguide@comcast.net