Atocha Shine

[divewrecks]

The atocha "polishing" process:

http://www.melfisher.com/SalvageOper...rCoins0406.asp

Don't miss the link at bottome to second page...

Don, do you have any information on how the Capitana coins were conserved? How was the tone preserved so well?

I would love to hear any comments from specialists out there.

Stan

[Mackaydon]

Stan:
Our coins from the "Capitana" were conserved by Joel Ruth. Here's an excerpt from one of my 'Capitana' partner's, Dave Horner's, book; "Shipwreck" (Sheridan House 1999): "Joel Ruth established, with the assistance of the Ecuadoran Navy, a conservation labratory at a facility in the Naval Base at Salinas. A precise daily log was maintained on everything recovered and tagged. He was supervised by officials from Ecuador's Department of Cultural Parimony."
As to the specifics of Joel's conservation technique, I'll defer to Joel, himself. You may be able to contact him here at TNet. In several postings, his user name has been "Patrimony". BTW, Joel was also our conservator when we (Dave, Lou Ullian and others) worked on the 'San Miguel Archangel' at Jupiter--immediately after the 'Capitana' project.
Don.........

[divewrecks]

Nice 1715 fleet coin. Too bad it got the Fisher polish job. A more careful conservation methodology would have prompted me to place a bid on it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Silver-8-Reale-1...mZ160339731760

Stan

[divewrecks]

For newbies: Here are two untouched "beach find" coins for reference. Notice the high bids early on for these unmolested coins....

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-8-Reales-...mZ160339872674

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-8-Reales-...mZ160339473691

Treasure hunters and collectors affectionately refer to these as "greenies".

Stan

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Hi Stan and Good morning from the other side of the World. Question, would you do some sort of cleaning with these greenies
or leave them untouched? Just Interested. I like seeing the definition of the coin.
Sam

[divewrecks]

I would leave these as is because they are rare. Since they were found in what was essentially a beach hoard it is possible that they never spent much time under water. Otherwise they would have a much darker color from the sulfided silver and might not be even recognizable as coins. In fact, Kip Wagner at first thought some of the coins he found were flat rocks and supposedly skipped them across the surf! On these coins you can see some of the detail, but leave the hidden part to the imagination.

Hope you are doing well mate....

Stan

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Thanks for the Information Stan

[divewrecks]

Sam, check out what this uncleaned coin went for....

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexico-8-Reales-...mZ160339473691

It would have been worth half that if it had been through the Fisher polish process...

Stan

PS - The seller of this coin was Joel Ruth, the Capitana conservator that Don mentions on the second post in this thread. Obviously he had the expertise to clean this coin, but thankfully he did not.

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Thanks Stan, great price it went for. I would have cleaned it, so I've learnt something today
Sam

[Bigcypresshunter]

With all the fakes going around at least you know these greenies are for real. Maybe the reason for the high price.