Archaeologica.org

of those pesky "Out of Place" artifacts.

http://www.sott.net/article/275001-Shil ... an-history

The Spanish were active in exploring the west coast of the Americas from the 1530's onward. It really isn't so hard to envision the Indians themselves trading such trinkets obtained from the Spanish - or the English ( Drake's voyage to Oregon was 20-odd years after this coin was minted ). My point is that it is not necessary to concoct a whole "secret voyage" story to account for a coin ending up north of actual European contact. There could far more easily be a much more mundane explanation.

That may be true min... But mundane explanations lack the Ooo/Ahh factor of a good, juicy conspiracy!

This discovery is very interesting, but it is extremely unlikely that Drake was just giving away such high denominations of coins!! Here is an article that attempts to be more reasonable in explaining this discovery:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... cis-drake/

"Bawlf argues that Bruce Campbell’s recent metal-detecting find suggests that Drake may have given coins away to the people living along the coast. But that defies logic. In Tudor times, people did not have change to throw around. A shilling was more than a day’s pay for a soldier, and worth about twice the daily wage of one of Drake’s sailors. The fact that the coin was found near a 1900 Canadian penny, an 1891 five-cent piece and a 1960s dime suggests less sensational origins.

But Canada’s media liked the Drake shilling theory quite a lot. Journalism requires a bar of proof that’s lower than the one used by academic specialists. In recent days, a single coin became the story of a man who had found a piece of authentic history, possible/likely proof that, in Tudor times, Drake or someone traveling with him either tossed money to the locals on Victoria’s mud flats or walked the Vancouver Island shore with a hole in his purse.

That kind of logical leaping happens a lot. Manuscripts and collections of papers that come up for auction must, according to news writers eager to sell their scoop, be pivotal to our understanding of Canada. Maps and artifacts in foreign collections are vital to our nationhood and must be returned....."

"No historian would take a flier on an old coin and connect it to history in a concrete way unless it was found in some place that was undisturbed, like, say, A grave in the Arctic permafrost or undisturbed soil at an archaeological site. But journalists want to believe. A guy finding an oddball coin worth a few hundred dollars isn’t just a decent page-3 local story, but “proof” that Francis Drake enjoyed the delights of southern Vancouver Island in the 16th century. Alert the front-page editor!"

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I concur with Minimalist that a more mundane explanation is likely.

circumspice wrote:That may be true min... But mundane explanations lack the Ooo/Ahh factor of a good, juicy conspiracy!

<sigh> I know.

Innocence by association?

Ther is, however strong ties to the concept that Drake went far enough north to experience the Alaaska Current.
If he was coasting, it would have taken him north before movibg west.
Not knowing what he was getting into, it scared him and he turned around.

Another one deposited in the memory hole

No Mystery - Drake.

E.P. Grondine wrote:No Mystery - Drake.

On the basis of one 16th century coin found with other 19th and 20th century coins? IMHO, you really need more then a single coin to conclude there is no answer other then it has to have been Drake. Still has to stand as a possibility, though. Can't be dismissed outright.

"No historian would take a flier on an old coin and connect it to history in a concrete way unless it was found in some place that was undisturbed, like, say, A grave in the Arctic permafrost or undisturbed soil at an archaeological site. But journalists want to believe. A guy finding an oddball coin worth a few hundred dollars isn’t just a decent page-3 local story, but “proof” that Francis Drake enjoyed the delights of southern Vancouver Island in the 16th century. Alert the front-page editor!"

But journalists want to believe.

Journalists want to sell newspapers.

But there is some mystery.
It is a strange mixture of coins.
Who would have been carrying it, why would they carry it, when and how did it get where it was?
Was it lost, or purposely deposited, or???

IMO, a few of you should take a look at Drake finds on the West Coast, particularly in the SF Bay area.

I don't think anyone questions that Drake went up the coast of NA.
The question is how far.
Was he on a secret mission to find the west end of the NorthWest Passage.
While coasting If he got as where the Alaska coast and current turn west he may have given up on that assignment and gone back south.
But that is far further than he is supposed to have gone.

Can't have been fun to sail into those currents along an unknown, rocky and frequently foggy coast with storms coming in from the West always threatening to toss you into it, though.

A critique of Bawlf's theories in general...

http://drake.mcn.org/bc.htm