Additional Finds from the Maravillas

Experts thought the 17th-century Spanish galleon-known as the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas (meaning "Our Lady of Wonders")-had been "salvaged into oblivion", Sean Kingsley, editor-in-chief of Wreckwatch magazine, told Newsweek.

But four years of underwater archaeology conducted by Allen Exploration (AllenX) has painstakingly mapped the heavily scattered wreckage of the 891-ton galleon. The team identified different parts of the ship, as well as thousands of artifacts, including silver ingots, emeralds and amethysts.

The Maravillas sank late at night on January 4, 1656, in the northern Bahamas as it was heading home to Cádiz, southwestern Spain, with around 650 people on board-most of whom perished.

To read the complete article, see:
Divers Discover Fresh Riches From Sunken Treasure Ship Thought Picked Clean(https://www.newsweek.com/divers-discover-fresh-riches-sunken-treasure-ship-thought-picked-clean-1848649)

Coins of Future Economic Powerhouses

The world numismatic market has seen several truly major moves in the coins of different nations and societies over the last 40 years or so. There was a time when British coins were not in particularly keen demand, so his clients acquired a wide range of historic gold and silver coins - proofs, patterns, hammered and milled. That market exploded in the early 2000's, and has gone from strength to strength since then.

Japanese coins had an incredible surge in the late 1980's; values of Chinese coins have obviously surged over the past 20 years - not just historic coins, but rare modern coins also.

The market for rare Indian coins - Zodiacal gold coins; silver and gold coins from the Mughal era; rarities from British India have all risen strongly over the past several decades.

I've had some minor activity in each of the above areas over the years, so I can only imagine just how satisfying it would have been to have taken the time to really learn about just one of those areas and then build a collection that had risen in value exponentially since it had been put together.

To read the complete article, see:
A Proposed Collecting Theme - Getting In Front of an Emerging Market(https://www.sterlingcurrency.com.au/blog/news-research/world-numismatics/a-collection-based-on-an-emerging-market-boom-time/)

New Book: The Book by Design

If you're shopping for the bibliophile on your list this holiday season (or you are said bibliophile), look no further! The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World's Greatest Invention (2023, University of Chicago Press) is an ambitious compendium that seeks to catalog and analyze the history of the book in myriad forms - from illuminated manuscripts to the illuminated screen of your Kindle; from scrolls to scrolling.

Along the way, the book explores standouts from the British Library's collection of historic manuscripts dating back to the 7th century and spanning millennia of international human effort and innovation in book form. Edited by P.J.M. Marks, curator of bookbindings at the British Library, and Stephen Parkin, curator of the library's printed heritage collections spanning 1450 to 1600, each chapter by an individual author is dedicated to an important or iconic work in the history of bookmaking.

To read the complete article, see:
A History of Bookmaking, From Scrolls to Scrolling(https://hyperallergic.com/857703/a-history-of-bookmaking-from-scrolls-to-scrolling-book-by-design/)

Counterfeit Shover Eats Fake Bills

According to police, a North Miami Beach woman caught trying to use counterfeit money to pay for items at a Walmart Supercenter made an unsuccessful attempt at disposing the evidence Sunday - by eating it.

An arrest report from the Miami-Dade Police Department states that at around 10:20 a.m., Zipporah Abraham tried passing off the fake bills to customer service staff at the chain's location at 1425 NE 163rd St., leading workers to alert the store's loss prevention officers.

To read the complete article, see:
Woman tries eating counterfeit bills as cops arrest her at Miami-Dade Walmart, police say(https://www.local10.com/news/local/2023/11/27/woman-tries-eating-counterfeit-bills-as-cops-arrest-her-at-miami-dade-walmart-police-say/)