Mar 17 2009
Hopefully everyone is wearing green today…
Sadly I find myself facing relentless pinching and have to constantly keep looking over my shoulder! I wanted to give a quick reminder that Kellyco is offering a St. Patrick’s Day Week Special with up to 72% off on selected metal detectors. I’m sure with some of those deals you can find your own treasure to celebrate with 
-Matt
Mar 16 2009
Kellyco Metal Detector Superstore is now offering for a limited time excellent museum quality authentic reproductions of a treasure coin. The coin is offered exclusively with select metal detectors so keep your eye out for this deal. This coin is a replica of one that was salvaged from one of the Spanish Treasure Fleet ships that sunk off the east coast of Florida during a hurricane in 1715.
A little background about the coin can be traced back to the 1715 Treasure Fleet. It was returning from the New World back to Spain and was holding silver known as the “1715 plata treasure fleet.” These overloaded galleons were so heavy with treasure that steering through the storm was nearly impossible. Most were brought to shore by the tall waves and strong winds and smashed apart off the coast of Florida. Over one thousand sailors lost their lives to the storm that took the mighty galleons. The silver coins were spread across the floor and even though famous treasure hunters like Mel Fisher and Kip Wagner salvaged many of the spoils, there is still much more that has yet to be discovered.
Back to the coin in more detail… it’s a full size piece of 8 with decent strikes on both sides of the coin. The “Cross” is full with excellent interior reliefs. The shield side contains most of the shield plus assayers mark and a few letters on the rim. What a great deal! Also, it comes with a historical certificate if you want to mount it up on the wall or keep as a collectors item.
Mar 13 2009
I came across this while surfing the news. Workers who were digging a drain found 62 silver coins buried in the ground. The coins have initially been identified as 13th century Arab coins from the Delhi Sultanate era, from 1206 to 1526.
The workers who discovered them didn’t report the find to authorities… at first. They divided them up amongst themselves, but apparently some were not happy with their share and reported the find to authorities. The coins were confiscated and a team from the Archeological Survey of India is expected in the area today to examine the coins.
You can read the article here at: news.cn
This is an awesome find. I’m sad but not surprised that the coins were not reported at first, but I’m glad they were recovered. It’s another link to the history of the region and that’s priceless. I admit I get a thrill whenever I dig up a find, but anything of historical significance shouldn’t be hidden away, it should be shared with the world. How else will we learn about our past?
Liz
Mar 11 2009
Matt here, I just wanted to write about an interesting topic I found while browsing the web the other day. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, so I apologize for the long overdue entry. So here it goes: Are metal detector hobbyists a nuisance to the public parks?
In the article mentioned above, a local group out of New York were told they couldn’t attend local Prospect Park where many priceless finds have been found with their metal detectors. These items are a defining connection to our past, something we overlook in our everyday lives as we walk upon our natural history. For some people this is their way of both doing something enjoyable and finding that link to the past. Part of the thrill is making your own discovery by using determination and at the same time having fun doing it. So my question is simple, are we careless by our common hobby? Should we be resorted to hunt on private land and open fields for instance rather than share a park with countless other people.
As a fellow metal detectorist I find myself perplexed about this subject… On one side, I can see why altering the land would be a nuisance for park staff and other recreation goers. Alternately, most if not all metal detector hobbyists are very careful where and how they dig. Usually they cover their holes in the way they found it out of courtesy to other people. They also use pin pointers and probes to lessen the damage and practice safe digging. How often have you reminded yourself to cover a hole so someone doesn’t come by and trip; especially if it’s at a park where other people often run and play in the grass?
And what about people who say that using machinery in a park is annoying with all of the buzzing and what not that the machine makes. Simple, use headphones! Even without them, I’m sure with all of the ambient noise around a park, plus man made noises, there is no way someone could pick up a beep on a metal detector. Lastly, could this be considered an issue of destroying mother earth? Well generally, it isn’t because if you consider the low number of metal detectorists out there who actually prefer to hunt in parks; the number is too low to result in man-made erosion. The roots in the grass will heal, holes which usually are only a few inches deep will repair in the rains, and it will be as if nothing ever changed.
Public parks have often been a place for recreation, leisure, and an avid destination by metal detectorist. Parks overall, were also designed to encourage people to get out and get in touch with nature. So why should this be any different when it comes to metal detecting? Yes, it’s true that when digging for a find you are disturbing the earth; which again, if you use good digging techniques it will regrow very fast. Now, the real question would be, how this is any different than a dog ripping up the grounds at a park? Are the owners of these pets thinking of the grounds by replacing soil, grass, etc when it is displaced? Imagine the uproar if the local council restricted pets in parks. Where can we draw a line with what is acceptable and what is not.
Surely, there must be regulations for destroying public property. But just because there are a few rotten eggs that don’t follow the rules doesn’t mean they should ruin it for the rest of us. What this comes down to is people should have the common decency to clean up after themselves, which most people in our line of hobby do.. I’ am personally a proponent of using safe/smart digging in local parks and playgrounds and will continue to use these techniques everywhere I go.
Treasure Quest has a great article on how to dig for finds without causing much disturbance to the ground. I suggest everyone check it out, who knows you might learn something new!
Mar 05 2009
Today I found an older article that I thought ya’ll mind find interesting. It was written for The BBC in September 2008, and is called “Living off the sewers of gold.”
From what the article says, the sewers of Dhaka, Bangladesh, are disgusting. The city is overcrowded and polluted, and basically as awful as one can imagine. But many people make a living by panning for gold in the sewer’s dirty water.
With stained fingers, men pan for gold in the drains in exactly the same way as the treasure-seekers of “the legendary California gold rush of the 1850s.”
So how does the gold get there?
Tiny specks of gold are accidentally brushed into the open sewers that run alongside the narrow streets of Dhaka’s historic “gold bazaar.” The area is lined with shops selling gold jewelery, about 350 shops which employs about 20,000 people! The gold is softened over charcoal fires or gas burners and then made into necklaces and earrings.
Every morning all the workshops and gold shops are swept clean, the gold specks (and sometimes even precious stones!) get swept into the streets and ending up in the sewers.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the price of gold has been tempting everyone at nearly $1,000 an oz. But on the flip side - gold is now so expensive that many people aren’t buying it anymore, the district is slimming in size, and the amount of gold being swept into the streets is getting smaller and smaller.
Mar 04 2009
The AP is reporting that Mexico has denied a US sea salvage company’s request to explore and recover artifacts from a sunken 17th century Spanish galleon in the Gulf of Mexico.
The ship was named “Our Lady of Juncal” and part of a fleet hit by a powerful storm in 1631. Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. of Tampa, FL has said “the proposal presented to Mexico for archaeological services is in compliance with the UNESCO Convention and would keep all cultural artifacts together in a collection.”
According to Odyssey Marine Exploration, treasure hunters have always had their eyes on the wreck site and the want to preserve the items before treasure hunters actually get to it.
So what the heck is “UNESCO?” Well it’s the “United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” that apparently aims “to preserve in situ all remains of human existence submerged for at least one hundred years.” huh. The more ya know, I guess?
Anyway back to the ship: Our Lady of Juncal set sail from the Gulf coast port of Veracruz on October 14, 1631 bearing “a valuable shipment of the goods obtained by the king’s ministers to feed the Spanish empire.” It was part of a 19 ship fleet - most of which never made it.
Galleons returning to Spain in that era commonly carried large amounts of silver and lesser amounts of gold from mines in Mexico, Peru and elsewhere. In fact, Odyssey Marine is currently in a legal dispute with Peru and Spain over what could be the most valuable shipwreck ever — $500 million in silver coins salvaged from a Spanish galleon that sank in 1804 off Portugal.
Odyssey Marine’s Web site describes it as “the world leader in deep-ocean shipwreck exploration” and says its teams have found nearly 300 wrecks, including the recently discovered remains of the HMS Victory, a British man-of-war that sank in the English Channel in October 1744.
Mar 03 2009
I could swear we already blogged about this….
But this article was written February 23, 2009 so I know it’s current news.
A Civil War era shipwreck has turned up among Hurricane Ike debris along the bay in Galveston Texas. Apparently none of this was a surprise to the State Marine Archaeologists Steve Hoyt. “There have been nearly 2,000 ship wrecks in Texas coastal waters, with a lot of those concentrated around the Galveston area.”
Which is surprising,… maybe because we’re in Florida, but we just don’t think of “Texas” when someone says “Shipwreck.”
But apparently a surprising amount of Texas history is underwater. The bays of Galveston were particularly busy and “its possible the shipwreck has been buried in mud and Ike’s surge might have uncovered it. Or, it could just be that it had simply been overlooked until now.”
Either way - that shipwreck is OLD and could yield a treasure trove of historic artifacts. The ship was apparently made from wood, so the iron or ceramic parts and fixtures will serve as a footprint of the site. Door hinges, drawer pulls, engines, anchors, mast and rigging will all be found and sonar crews will soon begin work on the area - which will remain undisclosed to protect it from plunder.
Mar 02 2009
Get ready Nantucket Island, Mass! The new Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum will open May 15th and showcase a collection of more than 5,000 objects that include period surfboats, beach carts and vintage photographs.
The museum will be open from May until October, and feature exhibits on local characters as well as have book signings by treasure authors.
View more information at:
