HOT NEWS !

By Daniel Frank Sedwick - CoinNews.net

Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC is working around the clock to present another big auction with over 2150 lots and a pre-auction estimate of over $1 million. Lots will be online around the first week of March and available for viewing in person at the Baltimore Coin Show March 3-7.

Also lot viewing in person will be available by appointment at our private office in Winter Park, Florida, March 8-April 1 (weekdays only, 9 am to 5 pm).

In great deference to the Sedwick patriarch, for the first time ever we will see selections from the Frank Sedwick study collection of 1715-Fleet gold cobs, including plate coins from past editions of the Practical Book of Cobs and other pieces never seen or offered for sale, coins that the pioneering "Dr. Cobs" kept as the best examples among thousands that passed through his hands.

The unique opportunity to own a "Frank Sedwick" specimen will start in this auction with just two 1715-Fleet masterpieces: The finest-known Lima 4 escudos 1711 and one of the best Lima 8 escudos 1712 ever offered.

Also in the gold cob category there is a choice Cuzco cob 2 escudos 1698, plate coin in Diving to a Flash of Gold by the legendary Marty Meylach, who found the coin and certified it.

But perhaps most intriguing in the 1715-Fleet gold cobs this time is a Mexican 1 escudo that was flown aboard Apollo 14 in 1971, the only one of its kind.

Before this specially engraved coin came to us, we had no idea that the Apollo astronauts included genuine shipwreck treasure in their "flown" souvenirs on their trips to the moon, but apparently the link between NASA and the Real Eight Co. was more than just geographic.

We have come to understand that flown medallions made of 1715-Fleet silver are very hot with space collectors, who will no doubt go crazy for this genuine coin as well, but we hope the treasure collectors will win out in the end. And yes. of course we have a full date 1715, probably our favorite so far.

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By Lamaur Stancil - TCPalm

It’s taken almost four centuries for someone to find the shipwrecked remains of a Spanish treasure galleon, and it’s just east of Indian River County.

Orlando-based treasure hunter Tom Gidus said he’s been examining the debris from the ship, which is more than 14 miles east of the barrier islands.

Indialantic shipwreck historian Robert Marx said he reviewed pieces Gidus found and concluded they are from the ship known as the Espiritu Santo el Mayor, a 480-ton galleon that sank in a storm in 1626.

“A bronze cannon was found a number of years back and that is what led us to the area,” Gidus said.

Retrieving the pieces of the wreckage has become a long-term project, Gidus said. He’s dived and removed just a handful of loose pieces from the wreckage for identification purposes.

Much of the rest is partially or fully submerged under the sand of the ocean basin, he said. His crew will use either an airlift or underwater handheld blowers to retrieve the ship’s belongings.

Marx said the ship took 1 million pesos worth of valuables and 250 crew members down with her in the storm. Other ships in the fleet were able to save 50 crew members, Marx wrote in a book called “New World Shipwrecks, 1492-1825: A Comprehensive Guide.” Gidus also said shoals in the vicinity of the site made ships susceptible to wrecking there.

As more pieces from the ship are recovered, Gidus said he eventually wants to have them displayed at museums. Gidus’ company, Gold Coast Explorations, found a pair of 19th century wrecks last year on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

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By Jonathan Mattise - TCPalm

The Maritime & Boating Museum at Indian RiverSide Park is kicking off a word-of-mouth campaign aimed to triple membership in less than two months, all in hopes of eventually expanding its facilities at the park.

Museum board members and volunteers are focusing on hitting 1,000 members by mid-April through several grassroots initiatives.

The museum, currently with about 240 members, dropped its membership prices to $15 for a single person, $20 for a couple and $35 for a family until April 15.

By that time, board members hope to add about 750 members through a Pay-It-Forward member referral challenge, membership parties, and by bringing along potential members to the museum and its special events.

“The museum needs to increase its volume, its quantity of members, its base of support, so that when we go to larger donors we can show that we have an extended group of people who have invested in our museum,” said Museum Executive Director Sheila Stewart-Leach.

Board members and volunteers at the museum currently in the Frances Langford Pavilion’s first floor hope the initiative will pave the way for plans to construct its own facilities at Indian RiverSide.

Adding the proposed three buildings at the north end of the park including space for exhibits, boat restoration, wooden boat galleries and a 180-seat auditorium would probably cost about $15 million, said Doug Smith, Martin County commissioner and museum board president.

“I’m really excited. I can see the museum in my head, in terms of what it’s going to look like,” Smith said. “How those pieces all fit together I can see the exhibits, the displays.

It gives us the chance to tie this marvelous piece of our cultural history with our local history.”

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By Chuck Holton - CBN

The tiny island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea has a rich history as one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

It all started with a shipwreck, as told in the book of Acts, about 60 AD while the apostle Paul was enroute to Rome.

Boarding an Alexandrian grain freighter on the isle of Crete, a fierce Nor'easter blew the ship off course. It looked like all was lost.

"On the fourteenth night, they were still being driven across the Adriatic sea when the sailors sensed land approaching," said Douglas Gresham, producer of Chronicles of Narnia and a resident of Malta.

"They took soundings and found that the land was 120 feet deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found that it was 90 feet deep. Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, the sailors dropped four anchors from the stern, and prayed for daylight."

"When daylight came, they did not recognize the land. But they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could," he continued. "Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea."

With the storm still raging, the ship struck a sandbar, and began to break apart. With the vessel and her cargo a total loss, the nearly 300 men on board swam for their lives. Miraculously, everyone survived.

"Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta," Gresham explained of the sailors experience.

And so began a Christian influence in Malta that has continued down through the centuries. Today, it is the most religious nation in Europe -- 98 percent of its citizens are members of the Catholic Church.

Saint Paul is memorialized throughout the island, no where more than in Saint Paul's bay, where tourists come to visit the Shipwreck Cathedral, and see the spot where most believe Paul's ship ran aground nearly 2,000 years ago.

From People's Daily Online

The National Museum of China, Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museology, as well as the Kenya National Museum jointly signed an agreement February 23, under which, Chinese and Kenyan experts will investigate and excavate underwater and onshore cultural relics in Kenya's Lamu Archipelago, in a bid to further solve relevant historical mysteries relating to China-Africa cultural and economic exchange in ancient times.

In addition, some Chinese experts will visit Kenya to explore the sunken ships from Cheng Ho's fleet.

Zhao Hui, director of Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museology, said that this project has witnessed 5 years of investigations, argumentations and preparations and it involves investigating, exploring and excavating the underwater cultural relics in and around the Lamu Archipelago, unearthing ancient ruins in and around Malindi City, and researching Chinese cultural relics unearthed in Kenya's coastal areas.

Reporters learned that the Ministry of Commerce has allocated 20 million yuan to fund the important foreign-aid project scheduled to last 3 years. Every year, the Chinese side will dispatch experts to Kenya to work there for 2 to 3 months.

Due to special climate conditions in Kenya, cultural relic excavation can only be launched during 2 dry seasons, namely, from June to September and from December to February of the following year.

The curator of the Kenya National Museum disclosed that a Chinese expert group will arrive in Kenya in July 2010 and more Chinese experts are expected to arrive later.

According to Zhao Jiabin, director of the Underwater Archaeology Center at the National Museum of China, ship debris and ancient chinaware from China's Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties have been discovered during the archaeological excavation and investigation in Kenya's 5 coastal regions such as Malindi.

Fonte de informações : Leituras da Historia

O naufrágio foi localizado nas proximidades das praias do Sonho, Naufragados e Papagaios, na parte sul da Ilha de Santa Catarina, local por onde entravam as embarcações que trafegavam na região na época das grandes navegações.

Oito metros de altura de sedimentos encobrem o que mergulhadores do Projeto Resgate Barra Sul acreditam ser uma nau do século 16.

O naufrágio foi localizado nas proximidades das praias do Sonho, Naufragados e Papagaios, na parte sul da Ilha de Santa Catarina, onde era a entrada de embarcações que trafegavam na região na época das grandes navegações. Caso a hipótese se confirme, será o naufrágio mais antigo até agora identificado no Brasil.

Na parte mais alta dos sedimentos foi localizado um pequeno canhão de sinalização e, ao redor de uma área de cerca de 30 metros, os aparelhos utilizados na busca indicaram a presença de metais, o que pode revelar a estrutura total do navio.

Além de cabos, cacos de cerâmica e pedras de lastro, uma âncora foi achada nas proximidades.

A âncora é o achado mais antigo. Foi ela que, encontrada por acaso pelo mergulhador Gabriel Corrêa, em 2005, deu início à criação da ONG Projeto Resgate Barra Sul.

"Pelo tamanho e formato da peça acreditamos que pertence a uma nau do século 16. Esse tipo era utilizado por embarcações dessa época", disse Corrêa, diretor do projeto.

As perguntas ainda não respondidas são se a âncora faz parte do mesmo naufrágio e se a nau era mesmo de Sebastião Caboto, uma das hipóteses mais viáveis.

Cabotto comandou, em 1526, uma expedição que saiu da Espanha tendo como destino o Oriente, mas ao saber das histórias de um rico povo no interior da América, que se adornava dos pés à cabeça com ouro, resolveu deixar seus planos iniciais para trás.

"A Ilha de Santa Catarina era um ponto estratégico de abastecimento para os navegadores que nos séculos 16 e 17 serviam aos reinos de diversos países europeus e seguiam rumo ao rio da Prata.

Quando adentravam a baía sul, eram surpreendidos pela geografia acidentada do leito marinho e muitas vezes pegavam um inesperado vento, vindo a naufragar", disse outro mergulhador e diretor da equipe, Nei Mund Filho.

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By John Christoper Fine - The Epoch Times

Ocean explorers in West Palm Beach found the treasure of Hernan Cortez. Long after the conqueror of Mexico’s death, his family was shipping some of his personal fortune back to Spain.

The cargo contained Aztec crystal skulls.

The ship was lost in a fire at sea. It burned to the water line then sank in deep water off Florida’s coast.

Diver, art expert, and undersea explorer Dr. Victor Benilous was contacted by a representative of the Cortez family and given information about the shipwreck. Benilous was well-known for his work on the oldest shipwreck in the Western hemisphere, found off Juno Beach.

The information he was given was sparse. It contained a log entry from another captain who had reported seeing a fire out in the Atlantic 250 years ago.

With the use of world-renowned psychics, Dr. Benilous and his team of divers located the wreck. One of the psychics was taken aboard the dive vessel. This same psychic is used by U.S. military and police authorities to locate missing planes and people.

“Dive here,” the psychic said. Deep below the spot where the psychic said dive, not 10 feet from the place where the anchor was dropped, an Aztec crystal skull was recovered.

Power ? Special properties ? Healing and spiritual abilities ? Margaret Ann Lembo thinks so. Margaret is the affable owner of The Crystal Garden on North Federal Highway in Boynton Beach, Florida.

The center conducts workshops and sells books, gifts, and jewelry. She invited Bill Homann from Indiana to speak at the Boynton Women’s Club and bring the famous Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull with him.

Bill Homann is a tall man with a moustache. His business card shows him in safari hat, in a tropical background, with the legend “A ‘Real Life’ Indiana Jones” printed beneath it.

He came to Boynton Beach with a PowerPoint presentation that showed F.A. Mitchell-Hedges and his daughter Anna during their exploration and digs in Central America.

The vintage photographs depict the jungle around the Mayan city of Lubaantun, in Belize, where the crystal skull was found.

Margaret Ann Lembo’s introduction of “Bill’s intention of goodness and love,” preceded the lecture. Photographs from the 1920s showed Mitchell-Hedges and his daughter Anna on various expeditions, including fishing, a sport the explorer was fond of.

The crystal skull was found in 1924 inside a pyramid. “It is a perfectly made quartz crystal, anatomically correct for a Meso-American female, aged 25 to 29.

The jaw and the top cranial part are the same crystal. It was one piece of crystal at one time. It is very hard to separate crystal. It’s brittle. The skull contains three prisms and two lenses built into the crystal skull. The only way you can do that is in zero gravity,” Homann explained.

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By Peter Collins - The Standard

It's sailed half-way around the world, survived a shipwreck 130 years ago and is valued at more than $4 million. Now the Loch Ard peacock has finally been included in Victoria's heritage register.

The life-size Minton porcelain artwork statue, which is the centrepiece of Warrnambool's Flagstaff Hill maritime history display, is insured for $4 million and kept in a padded glass case with electronic security.

Heritage Council of Victoria chairman Daryl Jackson described the peacock as a "very significant" object for Victoria.

"It is associated with a number of important events in the history of Victoria: the Loch Ard shipwreck, the exhibition of 1880-81 and the opening of the Royal Exhibition Building," he said.

The statue was shipped to Australia in the Loch Ard from England in 1878, destined for the official opening of the Melbourne exhibition building. But it only made it as far as the rugged coastline near Port Campbell when the ship was wrecked in one of Australia's worst maritime tragedies.

It sank in just 15 minutes with the loss of 52 lives.

Two days later a wooden packing crate containing the peacock was washed onto the beach at what is known as Loch Ard Gorge. It was found by local resident James Miller and remained in his family until 1943.

It came to Flagstaff Hill in 1975 after a local committee, the city council and Fletcher Jones organisation chipped in about $4500 to buy it through a Melbourne auction house.

The precious statue made the trip to Warrnambool in the back seat of a car.

Yesterday's heritage listing announcement was the culmination of months of work by retired teacher Ron Sproston a Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village volunteer who compiled an extensive document for Heritage Victoria on the peacock's history and significance.

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