🥇 BANNER Does Coral beep? yes, when its full of coins!!!

BVI Hunter

Bronze Member
Apr 8, 2013
2,092
1,901
VIRGIN ISLANDS
🥇 Banner finds
2
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Detector(s) used
ACE 250
AT Pro
SEA HUNTER 2
Garrett Pro Pointer
Ghost Amphibian Headphones
Vibra Probe 580
Vibra Tector 730
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Could'nt work out why this lump of coral (in 2 ft of water) at the beach kept "hitting"?

brought it home and it started to fall apart in my bag - WOW!!!

just need to identify them and work out how to save / clean them???

any ideas???

thanks!!


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Upvote 57
Im pretty sure these are early philip V
Spanish pistareens. Very cool find
 

Wow now that is real treasure. you must be thrilled. I am NOT normally the jealous sort but I am green with envy right now that is an amazing chunk of history you have there congratulations. I would say if you're thinking of selling I would leave them alone. if I had found them however I would not be able to stop myself from separating them and cleaning them and displaying them and ruining the value to anyone but myself.
 

I'm so jealous I'm not even going to post anything!! lol Congrats !!MORE PICS!!
 

I personally don't understand all the fuss about keeping them together, in situ, or, as a specimen. Do we really call lumps of lost coins specimens? Thought that was more a term for naturally occurring things. The finder has already stated that he was messing with it a little and some lumps fell off revealing the coins. It's not really in it's "raw" form anymore. I think the coins will come out fine, and since the finder is new to the hobby, I think he would get more satisfaction, knowledge, and enjoyment out of having his coins professionally separated, encapsulated and certified.

AWESOME FIND! Whatever YOU decide to do is the right thing to do.

Now go back and get more. A big old stack of coins like that always has friends. Don't tell anyone where you are or what you're finding.

And most of all. POST YOUR NEXT FINDS!

:):)
 

I personally don't understand all the fuss about keeping them together, in situ, or, as a specimen. Do we really call lumps of lost coins specimens? Thought that was more a term for naturally occurring things. The finder has already stated that he was messing with it a little and some lumps fell off revealing the coins. It's not really in it's "raw" form anymore. I think the coins will come out fine, and since the finder is new to the hobby, I think he would get more satisfaction, knowledge, and enjoyment out of having his coins professionally separated, encapsulated and certified.

AWESOME FIND! Whatever YOU decide to do is the right thing to do.

Now go back and get more. A big old stack of coins like that always has friends. Don't tell anyone where you are or what you're finding.

And most of all. POST YOUR NEXT FINDS!

:):)

I know what you mean. In the UK many hoards of Roman Silver coins are found in big lumps. The Museums never leave them as is, the information about the different types all found together is far more historically important.
 

That is amazing, you are one lucky dude!
 

Congratulations on a stupendous BANNER find! :notworthy: Five pages so far of great reading!
 

Could'nt work out why this lump of coral (in 2 ft of water) at the beach kept "hitting"?

brought it home and it started to fall apart in my bag - WOW!!!

just need to identify them and work out how to save / clean them???

any ideas???

thanks!!
<img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=801652"/><img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=801653"/><img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=801654"/><img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=801655"/><img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=801656"/>

Nice what a find

Sent from my iPhone using TreasureNet
 

I know what you mean. In the UK many hoards of Roman Silver coins are found in big lumps. The Museums never leave them as is, the information about the different types all found together is far more historically important.

Ironicaly, the only thing i ever found when I lived in the UK, was an 1800 penny on Wimbledon Common!!
Man, you gotta do what i done - move to the tropics!!!!:drunken_smilie:
 

Ironicaly, the only thing i ever found when I lived in the UK, was an 1800 penny on Wimbledon Common!!
Man, you gotta do what i done - move to the tropics!!!!:drunken_smilie:

Its not only too hot for me, but I still have lots of fields to finish, & I'm doing OK here.
 

Was the coral attached to the sea floor or was it just a random piece floating around on the bottom? If the latter it may have washed up from a wreck relatively far away. If so there may not be any more coins in your search area in the 2 ft. water. Hopefully that is not the case and we see more posted here. As someone else posted you should investigate the water rights where you are searching in case there are more coins -- not sure if you are in the US or British Virgin Islands, but I'd assume the laws in each territory may be different regarding this sort of thing. Also any word from Daniel Sedwick? He's usually pretty responsive--I have spoken to him before on the phone when I found my Marevedis cob several years back. I found it in an unlikely spot on an island and it was a one off as far as I can tell--I'm assuming it washed up from the ocean at some point.
 

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It's probably obvious but when discussing your finds with these experts you should be careful about disclosing the location because finds like this can draw a lot of interest from all sorts of parties and all of a sudden there might be laws that you have never heard of before that keep you from searching the area for more treasure or worse someone else may try to claim ownership. So when are you going back out to find the rest of the treasure chest?
 

Was the coral attached to the sea floor or was it just a random piece floating around on the bottom? If the latter it may have washed up from a wreck relatively far away. If so there may not be any more coins in your search area in the 2 ft. water. Hopefully that is not the case and we see more posted here. As someone else posted you should investigate the water rights where you are searching in case there are more coins -- not sure if you are in the US or British Virgin Islands, but I'd assume the laws in each territory may be different regarding this sort of thing. Also any word from Daniel Sedwick? He's usually pretty responsive--I have spoken to him before on the phone when I found my Marevedis cob several years back. I found it in an unlikely spot on an island and it was a one off as far as I can tell--I'm assuming it washed up from the ocean at some point.


It was about 2 inches under the sand, lots of other stuff in the surrounding area (musket shot etc, iron nails etc) but we just had some bad weather so maybe a heap got pushed ashore??

Sedwick says apprx $500 - not sure if thats good or not, but think I may keep intact and use a conversation piece!

have looked into the local laws and am happy!
 

Hi John,

Yeah sounds to me like bad weather brought a bunch of stuff up from the depths. If you're finding musket balls too that's a great sign that there may be more coins there too! The good news is that if this stuff is coming up from a wreck, it will probably continue to wash ashore so I'd probably dig every signal in that area over a long period of time. Hope you can do some research on what the nearest wrecks were that may have been carrying Spanish coins.

Well, I think $500 is a reasonable price for those 10 Spanish coins (unless there are some very rare ones in that stack which is probably unlikely)...you see how many Spanish coins are unearthed on a regular basis here in the US even--even a lot of the Roman coins that us Americans oooh and ahhh about don't seem to be worth that much relatively speaking when they are priced out. I think the historical value of that piece is much greater than $500 (as well as the fact that it's a real conversation piece) and that's why I'd recommend that you keep it in tact and put it in a very nice glass display case.

Again congrats on a stellar find--especially for your sixth time out with a detector!! Please dig all of the musket balls & iron nails etc. too and post those here as you'll be putting together a very interesting historical snapshot.

Best, Erik
 

I would say long ago someone washed ashore and all that is left is what was in his booty pouch finally found !! excellent :skullflag:
Jim
 

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