Does anyone know about the metal plate discovered on a California beach in 1936 ? It was inscribed with a message and dated 17 June 1579 and is supposedly the plate erected by Francis Drake claiming the land for England. I've always thought it was genuine, but I've heard that it's been shown to be a fake. It was certainly regarded as genuine up until the 1970s.
All I could find out about it is that the zinc content on the brass was more indicative of post-1800s, not the 1500s, & that the edges seemed on close inspection to be machine-cut & then hammered in an attempt to disguise it. Some bored historian went to a lot of trouble here to make a very clever forgery LOL Apparently they got it on display at UC Berkeley still, though.
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