Monday, February 15, 2021

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Largest Hoard of Roman Coins Discovered in Hoxne in 1992

Did you hear the one about the English farm hand who dug up Roman gold and treasure? It happened.

On November 16, 1992, 1 1/2 miles southwest of Hoxne in Suffolk, England the largest Roman hoard of gold was discovered. On this fall day, Peter Whatling was perhaps knocking mud from the tires of a tractor or trying to bend a piece of a plow with his hammer. Somehow he dropped it, misplaced it, forgot about it, or whatever. When he realized that his hammer was missing, he asked Eric Lawes, a friend, to help him look for it. Eric was a metal detectorist, and he agreed to help.

Hoxne is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about five miles (8 km) east-southeast of Diss, Norfolk and 1⁄2 mile (800 m) south of the River Waveney. The parish is irregularly shaped, covering the villages of Hoxne, Cross Street and Heckfield Green.

The two detectives were searching for a hammer, at most a $12 to $35 item at your local hardware store. Friend Lawes must have been happy to have found the hammer when his metal detector signaled. Lawes, while searching the field with his metal detector, discovered silver spoons, gold jewelry, and numerous gold and silver coins. Having retrieved a few of the relics they called the farm owner and then the police. Nothing else was disturbed below the ground.

The following day archaeologists did what is called an emergency excavation.  When gold and silver are involved, I imagine it does constitute an emergency. The hoard they had discovered was in a single spot. There was evidence from the location of the precious stuff that it had been contained in a wooden chest of some sort - bits of the wood debris' location were cataloged. The area was scoured out for about 93 feet in radius. Whatling's hammer was found along with Roman treasure.  Having been donated to a national museum in England, the hammer, now quite famous, was also placed along side the hoard.

In November 1993, the Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £3.59 million in 2019), which was paid to Lawes as finder of the treasure, and he shared it with farmer Peter Whatling. In 1994, an excavation of the same area yielded 335 items dating to the Roman period, mostly coins.

Theretofore, the law in England was that any loot discovered which was found in a way that suggested it had been buried with the intent of someone's return for collection had to be turned over entirely to the government. As a result of this huge find, the law was changed with passage of the Treasure Act of 1996. Whatling, Lawes, and the owner per the new law, were paid in fiat the estimated value of the trove - this amounted to about 1.3 million U.S. dollars each! Not only had the two friends discovered the largest gold hoard ever, they were the impetus for the law being reviewed and changed. No doubt, the fact that they were honest and revealed the hoard must have made the legalists consider the future bounty that could be cloistered in national museums if an equal value of fiat were dished out to the excavators. After all, gold is a store of value, and I am sure the government understood this.

The final tally:

The hoard is mainly made up of gold and silver coins and jewelry, amounting to a total of 3.5 kilograms (7.7 lb) of gold and 23.75 kilograms (52.4 lb) of silver

From Wikipedia:

569 gold coins (solidi)

14,272 silver coins, comprising 60 miliarenses and 14,212 siliquae

24 bronze coins (nummi)

29 items of jewelry in gold

98 silver spoons and ladles

A silver tigress, made as a handle for a vessel

4 silver bowls and a small dish

1 silver beaker

1 silver vase or juglet

4 pepper pots, including the "Empress" Pepper Pot

Toiletry items such as toothpicks

2 silver locks from the decayed remains of wooden or leather caskets

Traces of various organic materials, including a small ivory pyxis

For more information about this fabulous find, see https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/hoxne-hoard-0010494



Thursday, February 11, 2021

A Little Gold Miner with A Blue Chip Company - A Joke

 Why was the dwarf's mining company so successful?

Because his overhead was so low.




Texas Gold and Silver Treasure Still Awaits Discovery

There are reportedly a number of buried treasures in the great state of Texas. Here are a few of  the tales about the lost or stolen riches.

1. Burnet County - Using Longhorn Caverns as a hideaway, Sam Bass is said to have shrouded out of sight the loot from robberies. Sam Bass robbed trains and stagecoaches in 1878. His legend has grown over time.

Bass tried working as a freighter, but could not make a living at it, so he formed an outlaw gang preying on stage coaches. The gang literally struck gold when they robbed the Union Pacific Railroad gold train from San Francisco on September 18, 1877. They intercepted the train at Big Springs, Nebraska.  The robbery netted the gang over $60,000, and they split up. Bass promptly headed back to Texas and formed a new gang responsible for a string of stagecoach robberies. In 1878, the gang held up two stagecoaches and four trains within 25 miles (40 km) of Dallas.  Although the robberies netted them little money, they became the object of a manhunt by Pinkerton National Detective Agency agents and a special company of the Texas Rangers headed by Captain Junius Peak.

2. Packsaddle Mountain in Llano county - The gold is supposed to have been hidden in canvas bags. The rumor has it that it is still there.

3. Cove Hollow near Denton, Texas - 3000 gold bars were the object of Bass' thievery. He hit the Union Pacific Railroad for this trove of treasure with some being recovered, but not all. Could they still be there?

4. Austin, Texas - Then there is Mexican payroll money stolen (1836, $3,000,000) and buried near Austen, Texas, 

5. Sabine River - Reportedly $2 million of silver was disposed of at the bottom of a lake. Workers at an oil field apparently located metal before a storm hit and were not able to recover (this sort of thing is common in legend - a catastrophe strikes just before the wealth is uncovered. Read stories of the Lost Dutchman.  

6. Franklin Mountains near El Paso - Conquistadors filled a mine in to preserve a store of valued objects including gold coins and jewelry.

7. Money Hill South Padre Island - $80,000 in Spanish coins discovered by John Singer were buried in the sand dunes.

In all, $340,000,000 of buried treasure may be hidden away in the Texas Hill Country.

If you would like to know more about the life of Sam Bass, try reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bass_(outlaw)


References:

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/padre-island-treasure/

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/texas/buried-treasure-tx/  Seven Amazing Stories

https://texashillcountry.com/buried-treasure-texas-hill-country/2/

https://www.ksat.com/news/2019/08/02/you-can-search-for-an-estimated-340-million-in-buried-treasure-in-texas/

Texas Hill Country

with Hill Country in Pink




Monday, February 08, 2021

Gold Up, Gold Down, What Is Going Around?

 Is gold going up, is it going down? What's the story? I am in the same boat. I, frankly, don't know! But, I can refer you to this article to perhaps give some clarity. I sympathize with those who want to prospect for gold flake, but you probably ask yourself, should I pay the club fees? The key question is, "What will remain a store of value?" Man, what a question. I share in your confusion. Read this article. 

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/top-gold-miners-book-higher-all-in-sustaining-costs-in-q2-20-60328113


Blogger Helped My Prospecting Blog Take Off

I have been negligent in advertising my own blog space. If you have ideas for a blog that you strongly feel could benefit a lot of people, I suggest you sign up for Blogger by Google. Here is the URL. I have been with the organization for about 10 years (I think) and have been pleased with the service, the platform, ease of blogging, and the honest feedback. If you are a beginner, this is the place to start, in my humble opinion. 

https://www.blogger.com/about/?bpli=1&pli=1



Thursday, February 04, 2021

Sunken Galleon's Spanish Gold Uncovered off Florida Coast




July 2015 - 

GPS technology helped a Florida family find gold. No doubt they were able to set up a very thorough search grid to carefully comb the waters with a history of sunken Spanish galleons. They were searching off of Fort Pierce, Florida.

The family grabbed up 60 gold artifacts worth half a million dollars. One of their most precious objects was a Tricentennial royal coin from 1715 - the same year the ship was wrecked.

The workers usually spend their time at about 1000 feet off shore. Prop washers are used to blow debris away from the ocean floor.  At a depth of 10 to 15 feet, the prop moves about 5 to 10 feet of sand and silt. How does the prop washer work? Metal tubes are put over the blades of the propellers which directs the force of the wash down instead of out. Pretty cool idea!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/300-year-old-treasure-gold-found-schmitt-family-off-coast-florida/ 

September 2013 -

In another discovery, the same family uncovered $300,000 worth of gold chains and coins. The discovery came 150 yards off shore and at a depth of 15 feet. They claim to have liberated 64 feet of jewelry grade chain weighing in at 3 pounds! In addition, they found 5 gold coins and one gold ring.

Queen Jewels, LLC owns the rights for diving at the wreckage site. The Schmidt family subcontracts to to excavate the area sea bottom.

The ship originally encountered a hurricane July 30, 1715 and sank. 11 ships and about 1000 people died in those hurricanes in the same locale. Millions of dollars worth of gold and silver treasure were strewn across the ocean floor. 

The man who owns the rights to search for sunken treasure also found 51 gold coins totaling a quarter of a million dollars in value. 

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0728/Florida-treasure-hunters-find-gold-coins-on-1715-shipwreck

Each link features video.

Monday, January 18, 2021

A Prospector's Joke Fit for A Chemist

 Silver walks up to gold in a bar and says, "AU, get outta here."

free photo at dreamstime


Saturday, January 16, 2021

Ancient Peruvian Inca Civilization and Gold

 For the Incas, the sun was sacred. Their religion was a sun cult. Gold was believed to be the sweat of the sun. The ancestors of the Inca had worked gold for along time.Modern day Peruvians were working gold like their ancestors since 1000 A.D. (first to 10th centuries). Objects containing several kilograms of gold with their gold riches of huge proportions.

"These indigenous people were master goldsmiths. They used to blow pipes to fan the flames in their simple ovens so they could smelt this precious metal. For Inca gold was also the blood of Viracocha, their sun god. He is now commonly considered the chief god, at least in pre-Incan cultures. Gold was sacred. It was greatly prized in cult, but had no material value. The craft of working gold was a religious ritual." - Britannica

Inca temples were decorated with gold. Worship areas were gilded inside and out. Only the king was permitted to use gold jewelry - proof that he was of godly birth. The only way nobility could use gold was in their burial chambers, surrounded by gold. One had to die to have gold.

"The Incas believed the creator, a light-skinned god, would return to earth. He had taken his leave of them, heading over the ocean and would return one day, emerging from the sunset. Until that happened, all that remained for them to do was to glorify him with gilded artistic renderings."

This belief was very helpful to the Spanish, who had no problem using, coveting, and hoarding gold.

The Spanish eventually took 13000 pounds of 22 karat gold and twice as much silver.

Between 1500 and 1650, the Spanish imported 181 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver from the New World. In today's money, that much gold would be worth nearly $4, and the silver would be worth over $7 billion.

Viracocha - the Inca god

For more about Inca culture, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire



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