A Little Research Payed Off Big Time!

[UnderMiner]

Back in September I found a broken sterling silver mirror and a cool looking chainmail bag at the dump.
This is the original post: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...0-s-sterling-silver-mirror-chainmail-bag.html

I initially had trouble determining if the mirror was silver or not but I discovered it had an English Sterling hallmark on it before I posted the story to Treasurenet. What I didn't know however was that the cool little chainmail bag was also silver. I couldn't find any familiar silver hallmarks on the thing and an online search revealed that most chain-mail bags of the early 1900's were not made of silver but a base metal alloy made from copper and nickle. I figured the chain-mail bag was not the right tarnished color to be silver so I concluded it had to be a fake. So I put it in a shoe box with the mirror and some other artifacts and considered the case closed.

Today (4 months later) I don't know why but I took the bag out of the box and just started looking at it very closely and feeling it. This thing is WAY to well made to be fake, I thought. So I hunkered down and took note of every single minuscule hallmark I could find on this bag (these hallmarks are literally microscopic). After about an hour of research I had found the answer I was looking for. The bag was indeed silver! But it was not a type of silver I had ever encountered before - it is .800 fine (80% pure) silver imported from Poland made only from 1920-1931. Talk about obscure!

This is the hallmark I found online described as "This silver hallmark was used in Poland from 1920 to 1931. The number 3 indicates the item is made of the third silver standard at the time - 800 silver. The W on the right side of the female's left facing profile indicates the item was hallmarked in the Warsaw Assay Office. The barrel shape outline tells us that the item marked weighed more than 10 grams."


And this is a hallmark I discovered today on my piece, it is identical:


The bag weighs 278.6 grams so it is worth a pretty penny in silver alone, but I bet this thing is worth alot more than its silver content. Maybe $400 or $500?


Props to T-Net user Argentium for asking me a most important question 4 months ago on my original post, "Are you sure the bag is base metal?" To which I replied "Would be really cool if it were silver right? But I did some research and I can't seem to find any examples of these bags made from silver. Almost all examples are made of this material called "Nickle Silver" or "Argentan" which is a base metal alloy of nickle and brass. I'm not 100% sure if that is the same material this bag is made of but I'm pretty sure, I'll have to do an acid test to be 100% certain."

Thank goodness I never tested this thing with acid, a little research and patience payed off in the end! Over 278 grams of .800 silver!

 

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[ARC]

Sweeeet.

 

[Ahab8]

Wow very cool. You're having quite a little run here

 

[pong12211]

Congrats thanks for sharing. Also a very nice post.

 

[Dak]

Wow great recovery. Thanks for sharing. I love going back over my finds. Seems there is usually a suprise that was overlooked the first time.

 

[UnderMiner]

Things have actually really slowed down quite a bit for me. It's too cold to go out and hunt so with my free time I just do more research on the artifacts I've already found. The winter is a great time to just sit back and catalog all your finds. Wish I had a big glass display case for all the neat artifacts, right now they're all just in shoe boxes (the poor man's treasure chest). Was thinking of driving down to St. Augustine, Miami, and then the Florida Keys for some underwater detecting with my new Excal-II. Ever since I found that 1738 silver pepper shaker I've just been obsessed with early Colonial treasure.

Been researching the documented wrecks of the Spanish treasure fleets and now I'm trying to decide where would be a good place to look for some shipwreck treasure. The 1733 Plate Fleet, that was a neat story, 13 treasure ships laden with gold and silver scattered their loot all over the shallow waters of the Florida Keys when they sank in a storm. The Spanish recovered most of the treasure in 1734 and even a few of the wrecked ships. The ships that were too damaged however were abandoned and stayed undisturbed for over 200 years. It wasn't until the late 1940's that some American divers with the world's first underwater metal detectors began re-discovering the many treasure ships of the 1733 fleet.

Those early detectorists were pulling up all the treasure that the Spanish salvagers missed back in 1734. Silver bars - some without tax-stamps (smuggled), silver coins by the handfuls, silver plates, gold bars, gold ornaments, etc. The mid 20th century was the golden age of wreck diving. But much of the treasure has not yet been found due to it being scattered by over 250 years of ocean currents, tidal shifts, and hurricanes. I can't help but think that if I go down to Florida I'll become the next Mel Fisher, lol. The secret is not to hunt the shallows - everyone's already looked there - the next motherload is going to be found in the deeper waters. An ROV and sonar will be needed. Maybe one day I'll get around to it.