Since when does reales found on a beach necessarily mean that they are coming from a downed ship (manilla galleon or whatever)? I've found several Spanish Reales on beaches near Monterey, CA (a mission era town). All told, from 6 or 7, between other hunters and I, have been recovered, in addition to some mission era Phoenix buttons on this same beach section. But no, they are just like seateds, barbers, or mercs: simple fumble fingers losses.
I mean, don't you think that someone back in the time of reales could have lost a coin on the beach? I mean, when you find mercs or whatever after beach storm erosion, you don't think to yourself "oh wow, this must conclusively mean that a ship sunk here in the 1940s!" No, of course not. You assume "beach-goer losses".
The Mel Fisher "treasure beach" stuff in Florida is unlike our west coast shipping and history. I dunno about "north of Zuma", but if it's like up here in central CA, the seashore drops off relatively fast/deep, NOT AT ALL like the Florida beaches where the off-shore shallows extend much further, inviting near-shore, or in-shallows shipwrecks? Also the history of shipping is much different in the gulf of Mexico, where for 100s of years, ships expressly left south america laden with silver and gold, going expressly past these dangerous shallow beaches on their way out. On the west coast though, they were not carrying cargos like that. Certainly nothing was leaving CA on it's way back to Mexico with anything of value! (no gold and silver here, known at the time). And the Manilla galleons, if they carried gold and silver with them, it was on the way TO the Phillipines, to pay for the goods they were going to be buying. Their route was straight across the Pacific. Only on the RETURN voyage did they skirt the west coast of what is now Alta CA. And on that return trip they did not have gold and silver. They had the things they bought/traded for: china, silk, spice, or whatever. For example: A beached galleon site was found decades ago on a desolate stretch of Baja CA beach. Try as anyone may, all that was and is ever found, is reams of useless china. No gold and silver.
Anywhere in CA that there was mission era European influenced population, there can be reales found. Not only on land (at mission, pueblo, presidio, and rancho sites), but also on the beach. It doesn't mean that shipwrecks are the source of the coins.
