SHIPWRECK (AND HOARD) HISTORIES
Throughout
this catalog we offer coins and artifacts from dozens of different
shipwrecks—“treasure” in the truest sense! While we did not want to
break up the flow of the catalog in the listings, we did want to offer a bit
of history behind each wreck concerned, so we present these histories here
in chronological order. Please feel free to contact us for more information
about any of these wrecks or about shipwrecks or treasure in general. After
each wreck title, follow the galleon icon
back to the top of the page.
For information on the salvage team behind the Fort San Sebastian Wreck (ca. 1560) and the Princess Louisa (1743), please click on the Arqueonautas links under those wrecks.
Click
the name below to go to that wreck/hoard:
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“Tumbaga
wreck,” sunk ca. 1528 off Grand Bahama Island
Before there were coins, before there were Spanish Treasure Fleets,
and even before there were any kind of colonies in the Spanish Main, the
conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men discovered treasure in the form of
native-American gold and silver artifacts. While it is a shame that these
artifacts no longer exist, at least their one-time presence is confirmed by
what have become known as "tumbaga" bars: a group of over 200
silver and gold ingots discovered in the remains of an unidentified ca.-1528
shipwreck off Grand Bahama Island. The artifacts that composed these bars
were apparently lumped together in two piles—one for gold-colored
artifacts and the other for silver-colored artifacts—with great amounts of
impurities (predominantly copper) in each pile. The piles were then melted
as much as possible (not thoroughly) and poured into crude molds that in
some cases were no more than depressions in the sand. The resulting ingots,
called "tumbaga" bars, were then stamped with four types of
markings:
1. Assayer, many in the form of BV with "~" over the B and
"o" over the V, signifying Bernardino Vasquez, documented as
personal assayer to Cortés himself.
2. Fineness, marked in Roman numerals as a percentage of 2400.
3. Serial number, usually in the form of the letter R followed by Roman
numerals.
4. Tax stamp, part of a circular seal whose legend (pieced together)
reads CAROLVS QVINTVS IMPERATOR for Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1995 we had the great
fortune to be offered 133 silver bars from this wreck, which divers had
excavated in 1992. These 133 silver bars represented a corner on the market,
as the rest of the bars found (including all the gold bars) were either sold
at auction or doled out to company officials and contractors well before we
made our large purchase.
Each bar is described in detail in the 1993 book Tumbaga Silver for Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, by Douglas Armstrong, a professional conservator hired by the salvage company to clean and preserve all the silver "tumbaga" bars.
“Golden
Fleece wreck,” sunk ca. 1550 in the northern Caribbean
This wreck was nicknamed for a royal stamping (“Golden Fleece”)
on several of the gold “finger” bars (ingots) it yielded. Except for a
handful of extremely rare Santo Domingo pieces, all the coins from this
wreck were Mexican Carlos-Juana silver coins (all assayers prior to S),
including several rarities, the most important being three specimens of the
Rincón “Early Series” 8 reales of 1538, the very first 8 reales ever
struck in the New World (the best of which achieved a record in 2006 for the
highest amount ever paid at auction for a Spanish colonial coin:
$373,750!). To date the finders of the wreck have not identified the
wreck or disclosed its exact location, but they have gone on record as
stating it was in international waters in the northern Caribbean. Though it
was a relatively small find (a few thousand coins at most), it has been the
primary source for Mexican Carlos-Juana coins on the market since the
mid-1990s.
Perhaps
more impressive than the coins from this wreck are the few dozen gold and
silver ingots in has yielded, all of which have entered the market
exclusively through Daniel Frank Sedwick. The
varying purities of these bars are reminiscent of the "tumbaga"
bars (see above), although the later gold ingots do seem to have been cast
in somewhat standard shapes (“fingers”) and sizes. The silver ingots
from this wreck, popularly known as “splashes,” were simply poured onto
the ground, leaving a round, flat mound of silver that was subsequently
stamped with a tax stamp (in the form of a crowned C for King Charles I)
and/or a fineness in the usual block Roman numerals in parts per 2400, much
like the karat system we use today. The gold ingots also show a
fineness marking (but no tax stamps or other markings) in parts per 24, with
a dot being a quarter karat. Silver or gold, many of the ingots from this
wreck were cut into two or more parts, presumably to divide into separate
accounts. We believe these "Golden Fleece wreck" ingots are the
only known examples made in the colonies between the "tumbaga"
period of the 1520s and the specimens found on the 1554 Fleet at Padre
Island, Texas (note, in fact, that the very few gold bars recovered from the
Texas wrecks were marked with the same punches as some of the gold
bars from this slightly later wreck).
"Fort
San Sebastian Wreck," sunk
ca. 1560 off Ilha da Moçambique, east of Africa
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Arqueonautas (company history) Page 1 Page 2
Santiago,
sunk in 1585 off the Bassas da India
atoll between Mozambique and Madagascar, east of Africa
This relatively obscure wreck sank on a reef at night due to pilot
error, following which the captain and crew absconded with the one useable
lifeboat, leaving some 400 or more passengers to perish on the wreck. The Santiago
was found again and salvaged in the late 1970s by Ernest Erich Klaar and
eventually yielded thousands of silver cobs (marketed in the 1980s) of both
Spain and Spanish America (particularly the mints of Seville and Mexico).
This shipwreck is also numismatically notable as one of only two wrecks
(along with the Atocha of 1622) to have produced the extremely rare
cobs of the Panama mint.
"Rill
Cove wreck," sunk ca. 1618 off the southwest coast of England
(also “Lizard
silver wreck,” both nicknames pertaining to the location of the wreck off
the coast of Cornwall)
The
name and nationality of the ship are unknown and even the date of sinking is
not certain—all we do know is that records of its local salvage began in
1618. After re-discovery of the wreck by Ken Simpson and Mike Hall in 1975,
eventually some 3,000 coins were recovered and sold, all silver cobs, mostly
Mexican but also from Potosí and Spain. Most of the coins are thin from
corrosion but with dark toning on fields to enhance details.
Atocha,
sunk in 1622 west of Key West, Florida
Arguably the most famous of all Spanish galleons salvaged in our
time, the Atocha
was the almiranta of the 1622 Fleet, which left Havana several weeks
late and soon ran into a hurricane. Eight ships of the 28-ship fleet were
lost, wrecked on the reefs between the Dry Tortugas and the Florida Keys or
sunk in deeper water (see Santa Margarita and the “Dry Tortugas
wreck” below). Five people survived the sinking of the Atocha and
were saved by another vessel, but the wreck itself was scattered after
another hurricane hit the site exactly one month later, so the Spanish were
never able to salvage what was one of the richest galleons ever to sail.
The cargo of the Atocha did
not see light again until 1971 when the first coins were found by the
now-famous salvager Mel Fisher and his divers, who recovered the bulk of the
treasure in 1985 and thereby unleashed the largest supply of silver cobs and
ingots the market has ever seen. Well over 100,000 shield-type cobs were
found in all denominations above the half real, the great majority of them
from Potosí, as were also the approximately 1,000 silver ingots (most the
size of bread loaves). A handful of gold cobs (1 and 2 escudos only) were
also recovered, mostly from mainland Spanish mints but also a few from
Colombia—officially the first gold coins ever struck in the New World. The
Atocha was also the source for most (if not all) of the first silver
cobs struck in Colombia, as well as a few early coins from Mexico, Lima and
Spain, and even Panama. Even
more significant were the many gold ingots, jewelry items, emeralds and
other artifacts.
Because of Mel Fisher’s
huge publicity, and because much of the treasure was distributed to
investors at high ratios compared to their investment amounts, the coins
from the Atocha have always sold for much more—anywhere from two
times to ten times—than their non-salvage counterparts, even in the
numismatic market. (The “glamour market” in tourist areas, by contrast,
elevates these coins to as much as twenty times their base numismatic
value!) Individually numbered
certificates with photos of each coin are critical to the retention of an Atocha
coin’s higher value. Accompanying barcode-tags with the coins also make it
possible to replace lost certificates through a database system at the
Fisher operations in Key West. Each certificate (with some exceptions) also
specifies the coin’s Grade, from 1 (highest) to 4 (lowest), a highly
subjective evaluation of corrosive damage and overall quality. Most Atocha
silver coins are also recognizable by their shiny brightness, the result of
a controversial cleaning and polishing process catering more to jewelry
demand than to serious numismatists.
Santa
Margarita, sunk in 1622
west of Key West, Florida
From the same hurricane-stricken 1622 Fleet as the Atocha
(above), the Santa Margarita sank on a reef within sight of the Atocha
and was found in 1626 by Spanish salvagers, who recovered only roughly half
its treasure. The other half was found by Mel Fisher and company in 1980. Margarita’s
treasures were similar to those found on the Atocha, yet with fewer
coins in comparatively worse condition overall (yet not as harshly cleaned).
As with Atocha coins, original Fisher certificates are critical to
the premium value for these coins, which is on par with Atocha coins.
“Dry
Tortugas wreck,” sunk ca. 1622 off the Dry Tortugas, west of Key West,
Florida
Presumably a sister-ship to the Atocha
and Santa Margarita of the
1622 Fleet (above), discovered in 1989 and reworked in 1991 by Seahawk Deep
Ocean Technology, among whose finds were numerous gold bars (but no silver
bars) and about 1,200 heavily eroded silver cobs (similar in composition to
the Atocha finds), all picked from
the ocean floor by a robot. Cannons and other artifacts expected on a
typical galleon, however, were curiously absent. The bulk
of the treasure was sold to one store/museum in Key West that later
went bankrupt. Years later, by order of a bankruptcy court, it all turned up
at auction, where nearly all of the treasure was re-purchased by some of the
former principals of Seahawk for a new museum.
Batavia,
sunk in 1629 off Western Australia
The story of the Batavia is a shockingly sordid tale of mutiny
and murder on the coast of a continent that had not yet been settled by
Europeans. The Batavia was a Dutch East Indiaman in the company of
six other ships bound for the East Indies late in 1628, and she was carrying
twelve chests of silver coins. Just before a proposed mutiny was to take
place on board the Batavia, which had long since become separated
from the other ships, the Batavia suddenly struck a reef off the
islands known as the Abrolhos in the night of June 4, 1629, due to a swifter
passage across the Indian Ocean than was expected. While the ship’s
commander departed for the colony of Batavia (modern-day Jakarta, Indonesia)
to bring assistance, the mutineers took charge of the remaining survivors
and systematically murdered most of them before the commander returned
several weeks later with help. Soon after, the commander recovered ten of
the ship’s chests of coins in addition to some loose coins from a chest
that had been already been opened, which left nearly ten thousand coins to
be found in our time.
The Batavia was
rediscovered in 1963 and full-scale salvage commenced in 1973, under the
guidance of the Western Australian Museum. Nearly all the coins were
European, but at least four Mexican silver cobs were among the finds.
“Panama
hoard,” lost ca. 1629 on the Camino Real trail in Panama
In the
early 1990s the numismatic market began to hear about a massive find (tens
of thousands) of early Potosí cobs (practically all 8 and 4 reales) in fabulous
condition—in fact, totally uncorroded but with telltale orange clay on
what were otherwise Mint State (or nearly so) surfaces. Soon this hoard took
on many different names as the stories emerged:
“Camino Real Trail hoard,” “Panama hoard,” and, curiously,
“Mule Train hoard” (based on a rumor that the hoard was lost when a mule
that was carrying the treasure fell over a cliff). The only thing that we
know for certain is that the latest date on the coins in the hoard was 1629,
which is when we presume it was lost.
“Mesuno
hoard,” lost ca. 1636 in the Magdalena River near Bartolomeo de Honda,
Colombia
The name
of this hoard comes from “El Mesuno,” the local name for a bend in the
river where, in 1935, many hundreds of Bogotá cob 2 escudos were found in
the riverbank. The latest of the coins, most of which did not show their
peripheral dates, was 1636. No one knows how or why the hoard was lost; but
it is known that Honda was where freshly struck coins from the Bogotá mint
were offloaded from mules and put aboard riverboats to take the coins to
Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast, where the coins were loaded onto galleons
ultimately headed for Spain. Whether due to the sinking of a vessel or not,
the “Mesuno Hoard” has been one of the world’s most important sources
of gold cobs—basically the only source for Bogotá gold cobs of the
early 1630s.
Concepción,
sunk in 1641 off the northeast coast of Hispaniola
The Concepción was one of the most significant Spanish wrecks
of all time, serving the Spanish with a loss of over 100 tons of
silver and gold treasure. The almiranta of a 21-ship fleet, the Concepción
was already in poor repair when the Europe-bound fleet encountered a
storm in September, leaving her disabled and navigating under makeshift
sails amid disagreement among its pilots about their location. Weeks later,
she grounded on a reef in an area now named the Silver Shoals, just to the
east of another shoal known as the Abrojos, which the pilots were trying to
avoid. After another storm hit the wrecked ship and the admiral and officers
left in the ship’s only longboat, the remaining crew resorted to building
rafts from the ship’s timbers. Survivors’ accounts pointed to drowning,
starvation and even sharks for the loss of around 300 casualties. In the
fallout that ensued, none of the survivors could report the wreck’s
location with accuracy, so it sat undisturbed until New England’s William
Phipps found it in 1687 and brought home tons of silver and some gold, to
the delight of his English backers.
The Concepción was
found again in 1978 by Burt Webber, Jr., whose divers recovered some 60,000
silver cobs, mostly Mexican 8 and 4 reales but also some Potosí and rare
Colombian cobs (including more from the Cartagena mint than had been found
on any other shipwreck). Unlike the Maravillas of just 15 years
later, however, the Concepción did not give up any gold cobs in our
time, and any significant artifacts found were retained by the government of
the Dominican Republic, who oversaw the salvage. The bulk of the silver cobs
found on the Concepción were heavily promoted, even in department
stores! The site is still being worked from time to time with limited
success.
Lastdrager,
sunk in 1653 off the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland
The Dutch East India Co. flute Lastdrager set sail for Batavia
(modern-day Jakarta, Indonesia) in February of 1653, during the first
Anglo-Dutch war, which made passage through the English Channel unsafe. The
alternate route north around the Shetland Islands proved to be equally
dangerous in stormy conditions, which ultimately led to her demise. Only 26
people survived and only two chests of treasure were saved, amounting to a
small portion of the total of 37,500 guilders she was carrying. Modern
salvage efforts in the early 1970s yielded over 500 coins and some
artifacts. The bulk of the treasure is believed to be in the still-missing
stern section.
We should note here that our
offerings from this wreck are thusly attributed by default. The coins came
from a source in Scotland as having been recovered from a wreck off the
Shetland Islands that at first he thought was DeLiefde of 1711 (see
below). However, there is no evidence of this type of coin (Holy Roman
Empire 2/3 thaler) from the latter ship, which is also further removed from
the time period when these coins were struck.
Capitana
(Jesús María de la Limpia Concepción), sunk in 1654 off Chanduy,
Ecuador
This wreck
was the largest loss ever experienced by the Spanish South Seas (Pacific)
Fleet, of which the
Jesus María de la Limpia Concepción was the capitana
(“captain’s ship,” or lead vessel) in 1654. Official records reported
the loss of 3 million pesos of silver (2,212 ingots, 216 chests of coins,
and 22 boxes of wrought silver), augmented to a total of as much as 10
million pesos when contraband and private consignments were taken into
account. By comparison, the entire annual silver production in Peru
at that time was only about 6-7 million pesos!
Obviously overloaded,
technically the Capitana sank due to pilot error, which drove the
ship onto the reefs south of the peninsula known as Punta Santa Elena, a
geographic feature the pilot thought he had cleared. Twenty people died in
the disaster. For eight years afterward, Spanish salvagers officially
recovered over 3 million pesos of coins and bullion (with probably much more
recovered off the record), leaving only an unreachable lower section for
divers to find in our time. Ironically, the main salvager of the Capitana
in the 1650s and early 1660s was none other than the ship’s
silvermaster, Bernardo de Campos, whose fault it was that the ship was
overloaded with contraband in the first place!
The wreck was rediscovered
in the mid-1990s and salvaged (completely, according to some) in 1997. After
a 50-50 split with the Ecuadorian government in 1998, investors placed most
of their half of the more than 5,000 coins recovered up for sale at auction
in 1999. Almost exclusively Potosí 8 and 4 reales, the coins were a healthy
mix of countermarked issues of 1649-1652, transitional issues of 1652, and
post-transitional pillars-and-waves cobs of 1653-1654, many in excellent
condition and expertly conserved.
As an interesting footnote,
the very coins salvaged from the Capitana by the Spanish in 1654 were
lost again on the Maravillas wreck of 1656 (see next), and some of
those coins salvaged from the Maravillas were lost again in the wreck
of the salvage vessel Madama do Brasil off Gorda Cay (Bahamas) in
1657. Furthering Spain’s woes was the destruction of another treasure
fleet in 1657 by English marauders (fresh off a victory in the Bay of Cádiz)
off Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Maravillas,
sunk in 1656 off Grand Bahama Island
As the almiranta (“admiral’s ship,” or rear guard) of
the homebound Spanish fleet in January of 1656, the Nuestra Señora de
las Maravillas was officially filled with over five million pesos of
treasure (and probably much more in contraband, as was usually the case).
That treasure included much of the silver salvaged from the South Seas
Fleet’s Capitana of 1654 that wrecked on Chanduy Reef off Ecuador
(see above). The ill-fated treasure sank once again when the Maravillas
unexpectedly ran into shallow water and was subsequently rammed by one of
the other ships of its fleet, forcing the captain to try to ground the Maravillas
on a nearby reef on Little Bahama Bank off Grand Bahama Island. In the
ensuing chaos, exacerbated by strong winds, most of the 650 people on board
the ship died in the night, and the wreckage scattered. Spanish salvagers
soon recovered almost half a million pesos of treasure quickly, followed by
more recoveries over the next several decades, yet with over half of the
official cargo still unfound.
The first re-discovery of
the Maravillas in the 20th century was by Robert Marx and
his company Seafinders in 1972, whose finds were featured in an auction by
Schulman in New York in 1974. Included among the coins in this sale were
some previously unknown Cartagena silver cobs of 1655 and countermarked
Potosí coinage of 1649-1651 and 1652 Transitionals, in addition to many
Mexican silver cobs and a few Bogotá cob 2 escudos. The second big salvage
effort on the Maravillas was by Herbert Humphreys and his company
Marex in the late 1980s and early 1990s, resulting in two big sales by
Christie’s (London) in 1992 and 1993, featuring many Bogotá cob 2
escudos, in addition to more Mexico and Potosí silver cobs and several
important artifacts. The most recent sale of Maravillas finds,
presumably from one of the many salvage efforts from the 1970s and 1980s,
took place in California in 2005,
again with a good quantity of Bogotá cob 2 escudos. The wreck area
is still being searched today, but officially the Bahamian government has
not granted any leases on the site since the early 1990s. It is possible the
bulk of the treasure is still to be found!
Unidentified
ca.-1667 wreck off Sicily
Unlike most wrecks, this relatively small find (at least for now) of
mostly mainland Spanish cobs (but also some Mexican, including some very
rare dates) has come to the market through the ancient-coin channels, like
so many hoards in and around the Mediterranean.
As a result, any information about its identity or exact date and
reason for sinking is not forthcoming.
Unidentified
ca.-1671 wreck in Seville harbor, Spain
The city of Seville is situated on the Guadalquivir River, about 50
miles inland from the ocean port of Cádiz, where treasure from the New
World arrived on sea-going galleons. From there the treasure went on to
Seville, up the river by boat. Sometime in 1671 it is believed one of these
boats outside Seville sank, or at least its treasure was lost there somehow
in the river, for in the mid-1990s a large hoard of obviously salvaged
silver cob 8 and 4 reales of Potosi, none dated later than 1671, and mostly
in decent condition, began to emerge from markets in Spain without
provenance but reportedly found in Seville Harbor during the installation of
a fiber-optic cable across the river.
It should be noted that the
same type of coins (with characteristics identical to those from the Seville
wreck) have been sold in recent years as having come from the “Señorita
de Santa Cristina” of 1672 off Cádiz, but we can find no record of
this ship or its salvage.
Consolación
(“Isla de Muerto shipwreck”), sunk in 1681 off Santa Clara Island,
Ecuador
When salvage first began on this wreck in 1997, it was initially
believed to be the Santa Cruz and
later called El Salvador y San José,
sunk in August of 1680; but research by Robert Marx after the main find in
subsequent years confirmed its proper name and illuminated its fascinating
history.
Intended to be part of the
Spanish “South Seas Fleet” of 1681, which left Lima’s port of Callao
in April, the Consolación apparently was delayed and ended up
traveling alone. At the Gulf of Guayaquil, off modern-day Ecuador, the Consolación
encountered English pirates, led by Bartholomew Sharpe, who forced the
Spanish galleon to sink on a reef off Santa Clara Island (later nicknamed
“Isla de Muerto,” or Dead Man’s Island). Before the pirates could get
to the ship, the crew set fire to her and tried to escape to the nearby
island without success. Angered by the inability to seize the valuable cargo
of the Consolación, Sharpe’s men killed the Spaniards and tried in
vain to recover the treasure through the efforts of local fishermen. Spanish
attempts after that were also fruitless, so the treasure of the Consolación
sat
undisturbed until our time.
When vast amounts of silver
coins were found in the area starting in the 1990s, eventually under
agreement between local entrepreneurs Roberto Aguirre and Carlos Saavedra
and the government of Ecuador in 1997, the exact name and history of the
wreck were unknown, and about 8,000 of the coins (all Potosí silver cobs)
were subsequently sold at auction by Spink New York in December, 2001, as
simply “Treasures from the ‘Isla de Muerto’”. Most of the coins
offered were of low
quality and poorly preserved but came with individually numbered
photo-certificates. Later, after the provenance had been properly
researched, and utilizing better conservation methods, a Florida syndicate
arranged to have ongoing finds from this wreck permanently encapsulated in
hard-plastic holders by the authentication and grading firm ANACS, with the
wreck provenance clearly stated inside the “slab”; more recent offerings
have bypassed this encapsulation. Ongoing
salvage efforts have good reason to be hopeful, as the manifest of the Consolación
stated the value of her registered cargo as 146,000 pesos in silver coins in
addition to silver and gold ingots, plus an even higher sum in contraband,
according to custom.
Joanna,
sunk in 1682 off South Africa
An English East Indiaman on her way to Surat on the west coast of
India, the Joanna separated from her convoy and sank in rough seas on
a reef off the southernmost tip of South Africa on June 8, 1682, sending 10
people to their death. Eventually, 104 survivors reached the Dutch colony of
Cape Town, from which a salvage party was soon dispatched. The Joanna’s
cargo consisted of 70 chests of silver coins, of which the salvage party
reported having recovered only about 28,000 guilders’ worth. In 1982 the
wreck was re-discovered by a group of South African divers led by Gavin
Clackworthy, who brought up silver ingots (discs) and over 23,000 silver
cobs, most of them Mexican 4 and 8 reales of Charles II in generally low
grade, but a few showing bold, formerly very rare dates 1679-1681. Over the
past two decades these cobs have entered the market from both private
dealers and auctions, but always in relatively small quantities at a time.
Almost all the coins are in very worn condition, usually thin and nearly
featureless, but without the heavy encrustation and pitting that
characterize Caribbean finds.
Association,
sunk in 1707 off the Scilly Isles, southwest of England
The sinking of this ship and four others in a fleet of 21 returning
from the Mediterranean was one of the worst British naval disasters of all
time. The Association sank on October 22 under stormy conditions
after what can only be described as guesswork navigation that led the ships
straight onto the rocks of the Scilly Isles, where as many as 2,000 sailors
lost their lives as a result. The admiral of the fleet, Sir Cloudisley
Shovell, whose ten chests of personal wealth (in addition to several others)
were rumored to be aboard the Association, was one of the
casualties of the sinking, although legend has it he reached shore alive,
only to be murdered there by a local woman for a ring on his finger.
The wrecksite was located in
1967 by British Navy divers, touching off a frenzy of activity on the site
for years to come. Cannons and a few coins were raised in the 1960s, but it
was not till 1973 that a significant amount of coins were found (8,000 in
that year alone). These coins, mostly British silver and gold but also many
Spanish and Spanish-American silver cobs, were sold at auction beginning in
1969 and into the early 1970s. The cobs presented an eclectic mix, mostly 8
reales from the 1650s forward (even a “Royal” presentation issue from
1676!), but from nearly all mints (especially Lima and Potosí), some even
left in as-found conglomerate form combined with British coins. It is
interesting to note that parts of this wreck, like others in the area, were
flattened hard to the muddy sea floor by huge boulders that still roll
around with the currents, making for dangerous and difficult salvage!
DeLiefde,
sunk in 1711 off the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland
Like the Lastdrager of 1653 mentioned above, the Dutch East
India Company ship DeLiefde was avoiding the English Channel (this
time because of the War of Spanish Succession) and taking the northern route
around Scotland when she struck rocks and sank in rough weather. There was
only one survivor: the lookout atop the mast, who was thrown clear onto the
shore when the ship hit. It is not known how much treasure was lost, but
records do indicate it comprised at least several hundreds of thousands of
guilders.
In 1965 the wreck of DeLiefde
was discovered and salvaged over the next couple years. Nearly all the coins
recovered consisted of Dutch silver ducatoons of various periods and
mint-fresh Dutch gold ducats of 1711. Many believe that much more treasure
(in particular the ubiquitous Mexican cob 8 reales, which were absent among
the 1960s finds) still remains on the wreck of DeLiefde.
1715
Fleet, east coast of Florida
The Spanish 1715-Fleet disaster was probably the greatest to befall
any of the Spanish treasure fleets in terms of casualties and money, with
reports of a loss of 14 million pesos (plus an equal or greater amount in
contraband) and as many as 1,000 or more lives. The modern salvage of this
fleet, begun in the early 1960s and ongoing today, has been the largest
single source of gold cobs ever in the numismatic market, turning former
rarities and unknown issues into collectible and popular (albeit still
expensive) commodities.
In typical fashion, the 1715
Fleet was a case of overloaded Spanish galleons foundering in a hurricane
after delayed departure, but on a larger scale than anything before. The
principal elements of the fleet, known as the Nueva España (New Spain, i.e., Mexico) Fleet, had gone to Veracruz
in Mexico to deliver mercury (an essential substance in the refining of
silver cobs), sell merchandise, and pick up quantities of Mexican-minted
bars and cobs. An unfortunate series of complications kept the fleet in
Veracruz for two whole years before it could rendezvous in Havana with the
vessels of the Tierra Firme
(Mainland) Fleet, bearing the Peruvian and Colombian treasure brought from
Panama and Cartagena. After still more delays in Havana, what was ultimately
a twelve- or thirteen-ship convoy (depending on which account you prefer)
did not manage to depart for Spain until July 24, 1715, well into hurricane
season.
The trip back to Spain was
to be the routine one: up the coast of Florida on the Gulf Stream, which
gradually turns outward into and across the Atlantic at about the location
where the fleet was lost. On the 30th of July, the fleet
encountered a hurricane, driving the ships shoreward. Some of the ships sank
in deep water, some broke up in shallower water, and others ran aground
close to the beach, while a lone vessel, the tag-along French ship Grifón,
sailed onward without incident. Hundreds of the crews and passengers lost
their lives while other hundreds of survivors improvised a camp on shore to
await aid from the Spanish fort at St. Augustine, to which a party was sent.
Ultimately news of the disaster reached Havana, whence salvage ships were
dispatched to the scene.
The Spaniards undertook
salvage operations for several years, with the help of Indians, and they
recovered nearly half of the vast treasure (at least the registered part),
from the holds of ships whose remains rested in water sufficiently shallow
for breath-holding divers. Gradually the salvagers enlarged their encampment
and built a storehouse on the spit of dune land just behind the beach that
bordered a jungle. In 1716 a flotilla of British freebooters under Henry
Jennings appeared on the scene, raided the storehouse, and carried off some
350,000 pesos of the treasure to Jamaica. The Spaniards, however, resumed
operations until they could salvage no more and quit in 1719. The rest of
the treasure remained on the ocean floor until our time.
Modern salvage on the 1715
Fleet began in the late 1950s, when local resident Kip Wagner found a piece
of eight on the beach after a hurricane and decided to pursue the source.
With the help of a 1774 chart and an army-surplus metal detector, he located
the original Spanish salvage camp and unearthed coins and artifacts. Then
using a rented airplane to spot the underwater wrecksite from the air and
check the location again by boat, Kip found the source of the coins and soon
formed
a team of divers and associates backed by a salvage permit from the State of
Florida. All of this took place over a period of years before it evolved
into the Real Eight Company, the origin of whose name is obvious.
To salvage the wreck, the Real Eight divers originally used a dredge
and suction apparatus; only later did they adopt the use of a
propwash-blower (known as a “mailbox”) developed by their subcontractor
Mel Fisher. Eventually they found gold jewels, Chinese porcelain,
silverware, gold and silver ingots, and as many as 10,000 gold cobs of the
Mexico, Peru, and Colombia mints; and, mostly in encrusted clusters, well
over 100,000 silver cobs of all denominations.
The salvaged coins were all
cobs, both gold (Mexico, Bogotá, Lima, and Cuzco) and silver (mostly Mexico
but also some Lima and Potosi), minted primarily between 1711 and 1715,
although numerous earlier dates were represented too, some of the dates
extending well back into the 1600s. Many of the dates and types of the
1700-1715 period had been either rare or unknown prior to the salvage of the
1715 Fleet. The gold coins, as can be expected, have been generally
pristine, as have been some of the silver coins, but most silver cobs from
the 1715 Fleet are at least somewhat corroded, some no more than thin,
featureless slivers. Every denomination of cob made in silver and gold, with
the exception of the quarter real (which was not minted past the very early
1600s), has been found on the 1715 Fleet, as well as several different
denominations of round “Royal” presentation issues. Promotions of the
coins by Real Eight and others have spanned the decades, in addition to
auctions by Henry Christensen (1964); Parke-Bernet Galleries (1967) and
Sotheby Parke Bernet (1973); the Schulman Coin and Mint (1972 and 1974);
Bowers and Ruddy Galleries (1977); and even the U.S. Customs Service (2003).
The demand for these coins over the years has steadily risen while the
supply of new finds has dwindled.
As the salvage operation on
the 1715 Fleet reached diminishing returns, some of the associates like Mel
Fisher headed for Key West and other areas to search for new wrecks. Do not
believe, however, that the 1715-Fleet search is over. As many as five or six
of the twelve or thirteen galleons remain undiscovered, search areas are
still leased from the state, and even the old wreck sites continue to
relinquish a few coins to an insatiable numismatic market. Even the beaches
themselves yield fabulous finds (one gold “Royal” 8 escudos—a
six-figure bonanza in our day—was found on the beach by a metal
detectorist in 1989), especially after direct-hit hurricanes like Frances
and Jeanne, which devastated the treasure beaches in rapid succession in the
summer of 2004. Much of the finds stays in the hands of locals throughout
the State of Florida—divers, beachcombers, and old-time collectors who
love their cobs and sell only when they must. The one collector that never
sells is also the one with the largest collection of them all—the museum
of the State of Florida. Spain lost it all to America, whence it came.
Despite a wealth of
publications pertaining to the 1715 Fleet with names of the ships and the
known locations of some of the wrecks, there is no universal agreement as to
the identity of the vessel at each wrecksite. In many cases, in fact, it is
possible that separate wrecksites represent different parts of the same
ship. As a result, salvagers over the decades have resorted to nicknames for
the sites based on landmarks, local individuals, and even features from the
wrecks themselves, such as (from north to south):
“Pines” (Sebastian), “Cabin” (Wabasso), “Cannon”
(Wabasso), “Corrigan’s” (Vero Beach), “Rio Mar” (Vero Beach),
“Sandy Point” (Vero Beach), “Wedge” (Fort Pierce), and “Colored
Beach” (Fort Pierce). (Case in point: In this very catalog you will see
items alternately certified as from the “Corrigans site” and the “Regla
site,” which are one and the same.) Traditionally the range of sites
extends from south of Fort Pierce up to just south of Melbourne in the
north, but rumors of 1715-Fleet finds as far north as Cape Canaveral, New
Smyrna Beach and even Fernandina Beach (near Jacksonville) may have merit.
Regardless of the exact site of origin, a great majority of the coins are
sold simply as “1715 Fleet.”
Guadalupe
and Tolosa, sunk in 1724 off the Dominican Republic
Inbound from Spain and often referred to as the “quicksilver
galleons,” these two ships were carrying a cargo of 400 tons of mercury, a
critical element in the silver- and gold-refining process in Mexico, where
these ships were headed. In late August the ships were blown by a hurricane
into Samaná Bay on the northeast coast of what is now the Dominican
Republic and wrecked there in relatively close proximity to each other
(about 7½ miles), which is why their names are intermingled today. Well
over 500 people died in the tragedy. The wrecks were discovered and salvaged
in the late 1970s and yielded many earthenware olive jars and other
artifacts in addition to the mercury. In 2005 it became known that the 1970s
salvage also turned up a small group of gold coins (including thirteen cobs
from the mints of Bogotá, Cuzco, Lima, and Mexico), which were auctioned
that same year. The present auction represents the first time any silver
coins (presumably from the same salvage in the 1970s) from these wrecks have
ever been sold publicly.
Akerendam,
sunk in 1725 off Norway
Separated
from her two companion vessels in a heavy storm, the East Indiaman Akerendam
foundered off the northern point of Runde Island off the west coast of
Norway on March 8, with no survivors among the 200 people on board.
Throughout the next several months, five of the 19 chests of coins aboard
the Akerendam were recovered, and one of those five had opened up,
scattering coins over the wrecksite. No more was found, and the site was
forgotten until Norwegian amateur divers rediscovered it in 1972 and brought
up almost 40,000 gold and silver coins, with another 16,000 or so found the
next year. Ultimately the coins were split between the divers and the
Norwegian and Dutch governments, and the divers’ portion was offered as a
whole at auction in 1978, following which the coins were largely assembled
into leather-bound promotional sets (each consisting of up to 23 silver
coins and one gold coin). In total, over 10,000 New World silver cobs were
found (no gold cobs), nearly all Mexican, in average condition (but
typically crude strikes).
Chameau,
sunk in 1725 off Nova Scotia, Canada
A
French transport ship on her way from France to pay colonial troops in
Canada, Le Chameau encountered a hurricane and hit rocks in Kelpy
Cove off Port Nova Island, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, toward the end of
August in 1725. There were no survivors. In 1965 the wreck was rediscovered
and salvaged, with the finds selling at auction in December of 1971.
Typically the silver coins from this wreck (all French ecus, or
dollar-sized coins) come very heavily corroded, but the gold coins (French
Louis d’or) are pristine.
1733
Fleet, Florida Keys
Much like the 1715-Fleet disaster above, the 1733 Fleet was another
entire Spanish convoy (except for one ship) lost in a hurricane off Florida.
The lesser severity of the 1733 hurricane (which struck the fleet on July
15) and the shallowness of the wrecksites in the Keys, however, made for
many survivors and even left four ships in good enough condition to be
re-floated and sent back to Havana. A very successful salvage effort by the
Spanish soon commenced, bringing up even more than the 12 million
pesos of precious cargo on the Fleet’s manifest (thanks to the usual
contraband).
The wrecks themselves are
spread across 80 miles, from north of Key Largo down to south of Duck Key,
and include the following galleons (but note there is not universal
agreement as to which wrecksite pertains to each galleon, and also note that
each name is a contemporaneous abbreviation or nickname): El Pópulo, El Infante, San José, El
Rubí (the capitana, or lead vessel of the fleet), Chávez,
Herrera, Tres Puentes, San Pedro, El Terri
(also spelled Lerri or Herri), San Francisco, El
Gallo Indiano (the almiranta, or rear guard of the fleet), Las
Angustias, El Sueco de Arizón, San Fernando, and San
Ignacio. This last ship, San Ignacio, is believed to be the
source of many silver coins (and even some gold coins) found in a reef area
off Deer Key known as “Coffins Patch,” the southwesternmost of all the
1733-Fleet wrecksites. In addition, many other related sites are known,
mostly the
wrecks of tag-along ships that accompanied the fleet proper.
The first and arguably most
famous of the wrecks of the 1733 Fleet to be located in modern times was the
Capitana El Rubí, which was discovered in 1948 and salvaged
principally in the 1950s by Art McKee, whose Sunken Treasure Museum on
Plantation Key housed his finds for all to see. Throughout the next several
decades, however, the wrecksites in the Keys became a virtual free-for-all,
with many disputes and confrontations, until the government created the
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in 1990. The removal of artifacts
from any of the sites is prohibited today.
In contrast to the 1715
Fleet, and because of the extensive Spanish salvage in the 1730s, the finds
by modern divers have been modest, especially in gold coins, of which there
are far more fakes on the market than genuine specimens! Nevertheless, the
1733 Fleet has been a significant source for some of the rare Mexican milled
“pillar dollars” of 1732-1733 as well as the transitional
“klippe”-type coins of 1733.
Vliegenthart,
sunk in 1735 off Zeeland, the Netherlands
The East Indiaman Vliegenthart (“Flying Hart” in Dutch)
had just departed Rammekens for the East Indies when the deadly combination
of a northeast gale, a spring tide and pilot error sent her into a sand bank
behind her sister-ship Anna Catharina. The latter ship broke apart in
the storm while the Vliegenthart, damaged and firing her cannons in
distress, slipped off the bank and sank in 10 fathoms of water. All hands on
both ships were lost.
Contemporaneous salvage
under contract with the Dutch East India Company was unsuccessful, but it
did provide a piece of evidence—a secret map—that did not emerge from
obscurity until 1977. Stemming from that, divers under the former London
attorney Rex Cowan discovered the wreck in 1981, and in 1983 they found
their first coins, one of three chests of Mexican silver and Dutch gold
coins (totaling 67,000 guilders or dollar-sized units) for the East India
trade aboard the Vliegenthart. The second chest was smashed on the
seabed and its contents partially salvaged, while the third chest, intact
like the first, came up in 1992. The divers also recovered several smaller
boxes of large Dutch silver coins known as “ducatoons,” illegally
exported and therefore contraband. Among the silver coins found were
thousands of Mexican cobs, predominantly 8 reales, many with clear dates in
the early 1730s and in excellent condition.
Rooswijk,
sunk in 1739 off southeast England
Off the southeastern tip of England, just north of the Straits of
Dover, the sea hides a most unusual feature known as the Goodwin Sands,
where sandbanks appear and disappear unpredictably and move with the tides.
Many ships over the centuries have sunk here and silted over, and
occasionally one of the wrecks will surface and be discovered. Such is the
case with the Rooswijk, a Dutch East Indiaman that foundered on the Goodwin Sands
in a storm on December 19, 1739, with all hands and 30 chests of treasure,
virtually gone without a trace.
By chance in December, 2004,
the sands that had swallowed the wreck of the Rooswijk parted and
allowed diver Ken Welling to retrieve two complete chests and hundreds of
silver bars. Operating in secrecy, salvage continued in 2005 under the
direction of Rex Cowan and in agreement with the Dutch and British
governments and is ongoing today. So far, several hundred Mexican silver
cobs of the 1720s and early 1730s and transitional “klippes” of
1733-1734, as well as many more hundreds of “pillar dollars” and a
smattering of cobs from other mints, have hit the market from this wreck,
mostly through auction.
DeVisch,
sunk in 1740 off South Africa
This
relatively obscure wreck has come to light again recently because she was in
the same fleet as the Rooswijk of 1739 (see above), although DeVisch
was perhaps more fortunate in having at least made it to the Cape of Good
Hope (specifically Table Bay) before she sank! Only one man was lost in the
disaster, and her cargo was partially saved. Dense kelp, however, kept
divers from reaching the wreck until our time, in which some Dutch silver
“rider” ducatoons of 1730 were recovered.
Hollandia,
sunk in 1743 off the Scilly Isles, southwest of England
Blown off course on her way to the East Indies, the Hollandia
struck Gunner Rock and sank in about 110 feet of water about 1½ miles east
of it on July 13, 1743. There were no survivors.
The first sign of the wreck
came in 1971, when divers under Rex Cowan located the wrecksite and within a
couple years salvaged over 35,000 silver coins among the nearly 130,000
guilders (dollar-sized units) recorded to be on board the Hollandia. A great majority of the coins were Mexican
“pillar dollars,” but there were also some silver cobs, including the
scarce Mexican transitional “klippes” of 1733-1734 and a few Guatemala
cobs, in mixed condition.
Princess
Louisa,
sunk in 1743 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
Arqueonautas (company history) Page 1 Page 2
Reijgersdaal,
sunk in 1747 off South Africa
More popularly known in the U.S. as Reygersdahl, this typical
East Indiaman was carrying eight chests of silver coins (nearly 30,000
coins) when she sank on October 25, 1747, between Robben and Dassen Islands.
After 4½ months at sea, the crew had anchored there to fetch rock rabbits
(“dassies,” for which Dassen Island was named) and other fresh
food to relieve massive illness on board the ship, on which some 125 had
died and 83 were incapacitated out of 297 people; but in the face of a gale,
the anchor-line snapped and the ship foundered on rocks. Only 20 people
survived the sinking, and only one incomplete chest of coins was recovered.
The area was deemed too dangerous to attempt contemporaneous salvage.
Beginning in 1979, modern
salvage-divers on the wrecksite recovered thousands of coins (as many as
15,000 by the early 1980s, when protective legislation was enacted in South
Africa), mostly in near pristine condition, which have been sold in various
auctions and private offerings ever since. A great majority of the coins
from this wreck are Mexican “pillar dollars” (many in excellent
condition), but it also yielded a few hundred New World silver cobs,
including Guatemala cobs, which are rarely seen from shipwrecks.
Dodington,
sunk in 1755 off Port Elizabeth, South Africa
This shipwreck presents an amazing tale of survival and buried
treasure, with a modern twist! Following the customary East India route, the
Dodington outpaced her
consorts and therefore was alone when her pilot followed an erroneous chart
too closely and in the middle of the night she suddenly struck rocks and
sank off present-day Bird Island off the east coast of South Africa. Of 270
people on board, 23 made it to the island, where they subsisted mostly on
seagull eggs for over seven months while the ship’s carpenter crafted a
rescue vessel. Meanwhile, at least a couple of the 10 chests of silver coins
and the one chest of wrought silver on board the ship were recovered and
buried, and the fate of each of those chests is not thoroughly known. There
was also a chest of gold coins on behalf of the English military hero Lord
Clive—more about that later. The survivors set off for Delagoa
(Mozambique) and left behind an island that later became known for
treasure-hunters and ghost stories.
In the summer of 1977 the
wreck of the Dodington
was discovered by South African divers, who proceeded to bring up cannon and
coins…but no gold. In the early to mid-1990s the wreck was revisited by
another set of divers and yielded more silver coins and a smattering of
gold, but nowhere near the 653+ oz. recorded to be in the chest when it was
loaded onto the Dodington in 1755. What is believed
to be the actual Clive’s gold (by composition and total weight) was
supposedly recovered a few years later in a different area entirely,
reportedly in the wreckage of a pirate ship somewhat further along the East
India route. Nobody knows why Clive’s chest of gold was not on the Dodington site—either it was found by the survivors
and buried on Bird Island to be picked up or absconded with later, or it was
salvaged and taken away later in the 18th century. Because the
link could not be proven entirely, and due to a protracted legal battle with
the government of South Africa, this last group of gold coins was sold at
auction in 2000 as simply the “Clive of India Treasure.”
The composition of the
silver-coin finds from the Dodington
was mostly Mexican “pillar dollars” but with a good amount of Potosí
and Lima cobs (predominantly smaller denominations) as well, mostly sea-worn
and at least moderately corroded, sold through dealers and smaller auctions
in the U.S. and Australia. The gold was all Portuguese/Brazilian.
Tilbury,
sunk in 1757 off Nova Scotia, Canada
In
an expedition against the French fortress at Louisbourg, the Tilbury
was one of four ships (in a fleet of twenty) that were carrying a total of
34 chests of silver coins when the fleet encountered a hurricane off the
southeast coast of Cape Breton. The Tilbury and one of the
non-coin-bearing ships, the smaller sloop Ferret, sank in the middle
of the night on September 25, 1757. Two hundred eighty of the 400 men on
board the Tilbury survived to become French prisoners; the other ship
and its crew were lost without a trace.
Famous diver and author Alex
Storm (with Adrian Richards) located the bow section of the Tilbury
in 1969 on a stretch of coastline known, appropriately enough, as “Tilbury
Rocks,” where until the 1980s there was even a cannon from the wreck lying
on shore for all to see. In 1986 divers Pierre LeClerc and Gilles Brisebois
found what is believed to be the midsection of the ship farther offshore,
and these divers recovered several hundred coins, many of which were
auctioned in 1989. Most of the coins were silver pillar dollars, but there
were also several silver cobs and even at least one gold cob among the
finds. The missing stern section of the ship, where the bulk of the treasure
was stored, is still to be found.
Colossus,
sunk in 1798 off the Isles of Scilly, southwest of England
The Colossus is not famous for coins but for Greek vases! On
board the Colossus, which was one of Lord Nelson’s warships
returning from a Mediterranean campaign, was a significant collection of
ancient Greek vases owned by Lord Hamilton, whose wife (Nelson’s mistress)
had used them as props in her mini-dramas known as “Attitudes.” The ship
had made it back from the Mediterranean and was anchored at St. Marys in the
Scilly Isles when a strong gale caused her anchor cable to break and she
wrecked with the loss of one life on December 10, 1798. The wreck was
rediscovered by Roland Morris in the late 1960s and many of the broken vases
were reassembled for the British Museum, with many other artifacts displayed
in Morris’ own museum until its liquidation in 2002. Another salvager
found a new portion of the wreck in 1999, and since 2001 the wreck has been
under the protection of the government.
Athenienne,
sunk in 1806 off Sicily
The
British Naval ship Athenienne was traveling from Gibraltar to Malta
when she suddenly struck the fabled “Esquerques” reef some 80 miles from
Sicily (Italy) and sank on October 20, 1806. Over a hundred survivors made
it to Sicily in longboats, but many more hundreds perished in the wreck.
Modern salvage of the Athenienne in the 1970s produced about 4,000
Spanish colonial silver bust-type 8 reales (about 10% of the total believed
to be on board), of which only about 500 were more than just featureless
slivers.
Admiral
Gardner, sunk in 1809
off the southeast coast of England
As mentioned above for the Rooswijk wreck of 1739, the Goodwin
Sands is a treacherous moving shoal off the southeast coast of England that
swallows ships without a trace! Such was the fate of the Admiral Gardner,
which was driven by winds onto the Sands on January 25, 1809, along with her
sister-ship Britannia. Only one man was
lost in the disaster, but the ship was a total loss, taking with her some 54
tons of freshly minted copper coins for the East India trade. It took 175
years for the Sands to shift in such a way that the wreck of the Admiral
Gardner began to snag fishing nets and prompted divers to find her in the
mid-1980s. Soon barrels of the copper coins were recovered (even an intact
barrel, which contained 28,000 coins), and ever since the numismatic market
has been awash in these inexpensive and abundant coins.
Fame,
sunk in 1822 off South Africa
An English wooden merchant vessel en route to England from Madras,
India, the Fame succumbed to a heavy swell and found herself driven
onto the rocks at Sea Point, near Table Bay, off South Africa, in June of
1822. All but four lives were saved as the ship broke in two and sank. The
wreck was rediscovered in 1965 and yielded a wide variety (but not a big
quantity) of coinage, not a cargo but most likely from among the personal
belongings of the passengers and crew.
Elingamite,
sunk in 1902 off New Zealand
A casualty of heavy fog, the steamer Elingamite was traveling
from Sydney (Australia) to Auckland (New Zealand) when she struck West
Island of the “Three Kings Islands” off the northern tip of New Zealand
and sank in 150 feet of water on November 9, 1902. Forty-five lives were
lost in all. Nearly a quarter of the precious silver cargo on board the Elingamite
was salvaged in her own time, leaving most of it for divers to find in the
mid- to late 1960s.
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