Odd Silver object with mounted stones - New photo added in response

[IndianRiverSonrise]

The following item was found on one of the treasure wreck beaches on the Treasure Coast. It acid tests silver, but appears to have the remains of some gold plating which you might be able to see in the picture, but I am not sure if that is gold plating or something else. It is hollow. I don't know what the stones are. The four holes on the front and back go all the way through. There also appears to be a hole that goes through the object, going from what I would take to be one side to the other. I'd appreciate any thoughts on what it might be. The following pictures are in the order of what I would consider to be the top, side, bottom. The sides are slightly in from the edges of the top and bottom. The item was also posted on treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[BioProfessor]

I really don't know much about interpreting test results for silver so I can't go there. But what I think we can conclude from this new information along with the condition of the item is that it did not come in from the sea. It seems it better represents an item that was lost high on the beach and has not seen much, if any, time in salt water.

Still a neat find.

Daryl

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[Bigcypresshunter]

I dont know what the purpose of it being hollow would be except to save on silver, making me think its not pre-Colombian. ....now if it had emeralds....

 

[IndianRiverSonrise]

In my research, I found the following, which I found too interesting to not share. It's not a lot of help, but does touch on a couple of questions, such as the creation of hollow items, and the appearance of electroplating and how they accomplished the manufacture of similar items. I also found a number of pictures of gold (not silver) frogs from this group of PreColubian indians, although in this particular group, it said that only the chiefs wore the gold items. The article is from an early 1900s museum report that gives a lot of nice information on treasure finds by the Spanish in the 1600s in S. A. Unfortunately the copy that I have access to was digitized in a manner that makes it extremely difficult to manipulate and copy. I apologize for the large files. I'm not ready to conclude that the item in question is very old, but I am learning a lot in my research.

 

[BioProfessor]

I agree that the article does a good job at making hollow items with the lost-wax process but in ancient times, the metal they used most all the time was gold. There were several reasons for this. One was that they had figured out how to smelt it and get it pretty pure - 22kt or so. Another was that they would work with it and it would not react with anything. But the most important was its ductility. Unlike other metals they had access to, silver, copper, brass, etc., gold could be worked and worked and worked without any changes in the properties of the metal. It could be hammered to a thickness of less than a human hair. So gold is really special and different. Silver on the other hand is much more difficult to work. It is usually an alloy. It reacts with things and gets brittle or corroded. It is difficult to get a thin sheet. It is like working copper or other metals that aren't gold.

So silver items don't fit with gold techniques. It is good to know about how they worked gold but I don't think any of it applies here.

Daryl