Has anyone ever found a spanish coins on South Padre Island, TX

[Texasguy24]

I was curious if anyone has ever found any spanish coins on the South Padre islands in Texas left by the 1554 shipwrecks? If so let me know your story...
Thanks everyone, Kevin

 

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[pcolaboy]

Maybe try hooking up with the guy on this posting about the same topic. Just an idea.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php?topic=90044.0

Good luck .

 

[ivan salis]

find stuff in texas at padre island --the state will want it --- ssssshhhh

 

[Salvor6]

I know someone that found coins on Padre Is. but he doesn't want to talk about it.

 

[ScubaFinder]

The area where the known 1554 wrecks sank is from the Mansfield cut to about 5-7 miles north. That area is a national seashore, and metal detecting is not allowed. A few coins have been brought up south of the cut too though....rent a dune buggy or quad-runner, it is many miles from any roads...neat place to camp though. Short of a few shark fishermen along the way, you are unlikely to see another soul out there, so take everything you need. If you have access to a small boat or jet ski, you can tie up in shallow water on the inland side of the island also. Obviously the best time to go is after some really rough seas have pounded the beaches for a few days.

Oddly enough, there is an old map of Padre Island in some of the nicer t-shirt shops that pretty accurately lists where coins have been found in the past. I'll see if I can find some pictures of the one I saw. It wasn't hard to line the contour up with Google Earth and find promising areas to hunt. I recommend the trip to anyone, neat experience being on an isolated and unimproved/inhabited beach for a few days. Makes you think what it must have felt like to be a shipwreck survivor. I found some old indian pottery and artifacts out there a few miles south of the cut, as well as some shipwreck items that will remain nameless.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

hi my good friend scuba finder: Sigh, to think that in the early 1950's I was in the Border Patrol based in Kingsville Texas. Part of our beat was the islands, I had free access to them with no questions asked. Except for a few fishermen, the beaches were deserted.

Unfortunately detecting and metal detectors were relatively unknown then. Also no detectors could work on the salt beaches with the exception of the Gardner, which ran just about $ 1000 Us then.

To think of all of the wonderful opportunities that were lost to detect, and err, meet, lovely delectable females. sigh.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Texasguy24]

Yeah i know the Texas Antiquities Committee has really taken over the whole thing, and if anyone does find something I would keep it hush hush myself so they don't snatch it from us; its understandable! There was just so many coins and a few artifacts not recovered yet that they have to be somewhere. Also, there has to be some loophole in the laws that govern the whole site, but after reading the laws following the discovery of the wreck I wonder if it is possible? Texas is taking big steps to preserve the archaeology of the site, which is a good thing, but bad for treasure hunters like us.
Thanks ya'll for the feedback!!!
Kevin

 

[mariner]

Does anybody know who owned the three ships that wrecked in 1554?

Mariner

 

[Salvor6]

They were owned by Spain.

 

[mariner]

Thanks, Pete.

From what I have read, one of the ships, the Santa Maria, was privately owned, albeit probably under contract to Spain for the voyage. However, this ship was appaarently destroyed when some dredging took place.

I was just entertaining the idea that if any of the ships was privately owned, then the current legal successor to the owner might have a legitimate claim, but it doesn't sound as if its specific artifacts (if any) could be identified.

Mariner

 

[Texasguy24]

The entire Spanish galleon was sailed under "New Spain" - Most of the precious cargo belonged to individuals aboard and others transporting their goods but not on board to Havanna, Vera Cruz, and the Northern cities of what is now Brazil. There were around 30 cannons give or take 4-5 on the 3 ships.
Some of the artifacts that the T.A.C. salvaged will eventually be handed over to Spain if they have not already done so.
Since the Santa Maria wreck was the farthest South and hardly ANY of the silver bullion was recovered by the TAC (due to the dredging) - and the Spanish salvage (july-sept 1554) which recovered about 41% of Santa Maria de Yciar's bullion.
So, there has to be a bunch of that stuff either laying at the mouth of the mansfield cut or all over the beaches there.

If you're interested in this wreck I would recommend The TAC publications on the wrecks!
-Kevin-

 

[ScubaFinder]

Let us not forget the salvage of Mr. Billy Kennon...they salvaged all 3 of the wrecks for several years...and in turn started the battle that caused Texas to close the doors on treasure hunting. Mr. Kennon won the court battle, but was only re-paid the bullion value (at the time of recovery) of the salvaged cargo. Mr. Kennon did some great archeaological documentation and excellent conservation on all of the artifacts...the state now takes credit for it in the form of a book, but I know who did the original work. I worked for Mr. Kennon for 2 years in Port Isabel, TX, great guy.

Jason

 

[gus]

old book but interesting. Padre Island Treasure Kingdom of the World Willioan Mahan published back in 1967 by Texan Press

 

[OldSowBreath]

old book but interesting. Padre Island Treasure Kingdom of the World Willioan Mahan published back in 1967 by Texan Press

Bill Mahan was a patient of my father and sold me my first metal detector, a D-Tex, if I recall. I believe he was a pioneer inventor of the modern metal detector. In his house, and this is back in the 60's, he had jars full of cobs that he found on South Padre. I don't know if he found all of them north of the Mansfield Cut, but I believe he found some on the south side. He told me to look in the dunes, not on the flat part of the beach. Obviously, if you were to go, go as far up north towards the cut as you can. BTW, a hurricane may be due there this week and that may churn it up and expose something. Heed the advice to take everything with you, especially water. A four wheel ATV would be ideal, but you are going to be going along the beach for 20 or more miles and a regular vehicle will get stuck in the soft sand, although I read somewhere that if you deflate your tires to 13 -15 psi, and go 20 mph, you can make it. Watch for rattlers in the dunes. Resist the temptation to cross over to the north side of the Mansfield Cut; the authorities are relentless.

 

[JamesFariello]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15864318/Western-Treasure-1964-Volume-1-Number-6
Enjoy.......

 

[paratrooper]

I read a story about how some guys were successful in eluding the law while detecting all over the "Off Limit" parts of Padre . The speaker on your machine gives off different amounts of sound relative to the power of the signal . They then changed the power to lights . A small row of LED lights mounted on a board that was clipped to the visors of their ball caps . The stronger the signal the more lights that would light ( 1-10 as I remember). Kinda like some stereo speakers that light relative to the music . Couple this logic with hunting at night and it seemed to work . They could get signals AND hear the "dreaded Broncos" as they came around giving them time to duck down and hide in the dunes . Dunno if it's true BUT it sounds good .

 

[SeaChaser]

Let us not forget the salvage of Mr. Billy Kennon...they salvaged all 3 of the wrecks for several years...and in turn started the battle that caused Texas to close the doors on treasure hunting. Mr. Kennon won the court battle, but was only re-paid the bullion value (at the time of recovery) of the salvaged cargo. Mr. Kennon did some great archeaological documentation and excellent conservation on all of the artifacts...the state now takes credit for it in the form of a book, but I know who did the original work. I worked for Mr. Kennon for 2 years in Port Isabel, TX, great guy.

Jason

I also work for Mister Billy and yes I agree that it is a shame that the state of Texas is not giving him the credit for the work he did.

 

[BillA]

there used to be helo pilots who carried visitors out to the rigs and on the way back would hover over Padre and then land,
everyone except the pilot would walk around and pick up coins, heard in the '80s

 

[Bum Luck]

A four wheel ATV would be ideal, but you are going to be going along the beach for 20 or more miles and a regular vehicle will get stuck in the soft sand, although I read somewhere that if you deflate your tires to 13 -15 psi, and go 20 mph, you can make it. Watch for rattlers in the dunes. Resist the temptation to cross over to the north side of the Mansfield Cut; the authorities are relentless.

I got this years ago from a great Texas source. The sand can get soft on you, so an ATV is better. Take an army shovel and sand anchor for your winch. When you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, it's crappy. You may find "quicksand" pockets.

I've done the tire thing, but it's riskier. Why tempt fate?

I take it that on the north side of the Mansfield Cut the authorities are relentless since that's the known locations of the Santa María de Yciar, Espiritu Santo, and San Esteban, from south to north, each about 3 miles apart.

San Esteban, sinking in 12 - 18 feet, was mostly salvaged.

Santa Maria de Yciar's hull split and cargo was scattered some. There should be some left. I'd guess that quite a bit of sand has accumulated on the south side, so the north may be a better bet but for the authorities. Jason says it is a national seashore. Must Read.

Espíritu Santo was found by treasure hunters in 1967. but IDK how much is left.

ScubaFinder has an excellent post here from 2006: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/shipwrecks/26961-1554-spanish-wrecks-padre-island-tx.html

The survivors went south toward Mexico, but few made it. I don't think they were searched for, but hunger, thirst, and attacks by natives got them as they tried to walk back to the port of Vera Cruz. Strange things are found in the dunes. Lotta sand though. There's 20 miles from Mansfield Cut south to the end of the road from Port Isabel.

It sounds like a great lonely place to go and meditate. Who knows what that will bring?

 

[Bum Luck]

Here's a bit more info on where the dredge material went: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a042651.pdf

The channel was dredged 16 feet (3.05 meters) deep, with a bottom width of 100 feet, from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to the gulf side of Padre Island; from this point to the 16-foot depth contour in the Gulf of Mexico, the channel was dredged16 feet deep and 250 feet wide at the bottom. Material removed from Laguna Madre was placed in equally spaced piles 750 feet south of the channel, anticipating its use as fill material for a proposed causeway connecting Padre Island with the mainland(Texas Game and Fish Commission, 1956). The material dredged from Padre Island was used to construct levees on the island along the north and south sides of the channel.

I thought so, but it was nice to track it down. Gotta love engineers!

As I thought, the shoreline changed unevenly, eroding on the north and accumulating on the south. The engineers even mapped that:

from: https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2017/08/11/rio-history-the-cut/
Disregarding advice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, local engineers (well, not all of them) chose to construct their jetty with geometrically-shaped concrete blocks called tetra pods which are vaguely similar to the toy jacks used in sidewalk games. The blocks were placed with three legs touching the sandy bottom and the fourth leg sticking straight up. In addition, the rocks to the north of the channel were placed atop the shattered remains of the Spanish galleon. No footing was laid down however and with nothing below but Padre Island sand, the jetties soon fell victim to a flurry of late November storms in 1957, sinking completely out of sight.

Before long, the new channel was almost completely closed. The Island might have healed itself if it were not for the intervention of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Bringing in modern dredges, the Corps began re-dredging the channel in July 1962.

The initial operation proceeded smoothly until the day the dredge ran its hoses over the final resting spot of an ancient Spanish galleon. There was a loud groaning sound as the rotted wood of the sunken ship yielded to the irresistible suction…. Suddenly an arc of twinkling silver flashed in the afternoon sun as a fortune in Spanish treasure spewed onto the spoil banks. Work was briefly stopped as the workers scrambled into the mud to gather as many of the coins as possible. After a short time, the hoses were once again lowered and the men resumed their task and by year’s end the new jetties were in place.+

Here's the north section of beach from 1953 photo:

Here's the south section; the cut is somewhere on these. You could try to compare these with the 1960s photos.

Now you all know about as much as can be reasonably found without shaking the locals down for info with drinks, never a sure outcome.

Happy TH'ing! The silver cobs are out there!