Shipwrecks
SimonW
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Post your shipwreck coins, artifacts, stories and facts here.
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SimonW
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The Reigersdaal was a Dutch East India Company ship that sank off the coast of South Africa near Dassen Island in 1747. After a storm snapped its anchor line, the ship ran aground on a reef, leading to the loss of most of its crew and cargo of silver and lead. Discovered in 1979, the wreck has been successfully salvaged, yielding thousands of Mexican silver pillar dollars and other artifacts.
The sinking
Date: October 25, 1747.
Cause: The ship was anchored near Robben and Dassen Islands to take on fresh supplies, but a gale snapped its anchor cable. The crew tried to sail north, but the ship was unable to handle the wind properly and ran aground on a reef.
Location: Near Springfontein Point, off the West Coast of South Africa.
Loss of life: The ship had 297 souls on board, but by the time it reached Dassen Island, 125 had already died from scurvy. Another 157 died in the wreck, with only 20 survivors in total.
The salvage:
Discovery: The wreck was discovered in 1979 by a salvage team led by Brian Clark and Tubby Gericke.
Salvaged items: The initial salvage recovered cannons and lead ingots. Later salvages recovered a significant treasure, primarily silver coins.
Treasure recovered: Thousands of Mexican silver 8 reales coins, also known as "pillar dollars," were found, many in pristine condition.
Historical significance: The coins are significant as they represent a tangible link to the global trade and economic impact of Spanish silver during the Age of Exploration.
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My son’s first treasure find from the 1733 fleet disaster off Florida. Very few “El Lerri” coins with certs exist.
From my visit to Mel Fisher's Museum , Key West, 2017:
Large, green-glazed stoneware hanging pot with small handles in rim, ex-pirate ship Golden Fleece (1686). 1024 grams. 6½" in diameter at top, 5" tall . Thick-walled, flat-bottomed piece with round-holed handles on either side of top, unglazed on the outside, dark green glaze on the inside, some wormy encrustation, intact but with two large vertical cracks. From the pirate ship Golden Fleece (1686), with original certificate from Captain Tracy Bowden through his contract with the Dominican Republic
The "Golden Fleece" was the pirate ship of Captain Joseph Bannister, wreck site located in Samana Bay, Dominican Republic found by divers John Chatterton and John Mattera in 2008.
The ship's final moments involved a fierce two-day battle with two British frigates, which led Bannister to scuttle and destroy the ship after a cannon explosion, rather than letting it be captured. The search for the wreck was the subject of the book Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson.
Ship's history and destruction:
Joseph Bannister was a captain who turned to piracy, commandeering the ship Golden Fleece around 1684.
The chase: Two British Royal Navy ships pursued Bannister to what is now the Dominican Republic.
Bannister set up cannon batteries on land and fought the navy for two days, eventually forcing them to retreat.
Scuttling the ship: After the battle, Bannister scuttled the Golden Fleece in Samana Bay, possibly due to severe damage from an explosion, and escaped on a smaller captured ship.
The wreck remained lost for over 350 years, with the historical record pointing to the wrong location.
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Ya gotta love the knowledge here ☝️👍
Spanish galleon Santa Maria de la The Consolación was held up in port in 1681 after failing to receive its silver coins from the Potosi mint, causing it to miss sailing with the rest of the Armada del Sur.
Upon sailing north to the rally point the lone ship was spotted by pirates, reported to be the infamous pirate Bartholomew Sharp an English pirate, the pirates gave chase.
In order to escape, the captain tried to ground the ship on the nearby Santa Clara Island, nicknamed "Isla de Muerto" (Island of the Dead), but it struck a reef in the process.
Scuttling the ship: The crew was evacuated, and the ship was deliberately set on fire by the crew to keep the treasure from falling into the pirates' hands. The enraged pirates could not recover the treasure, and local legend states they retaliated against the crew. The wreck was forgotten for centuries until its discovery in 1997.
Modern discovery: The shipwreck was discovered in 1997, and subsequent marine archeological work, guided by manifests found in Spanish archives, identified the wreck. Modern salvage has recovered much of the treasure, including silver cob coins from the Potosi mint.
There is some valid concerns as to whether this story is true. There’s strong evidence that Baortholemew Sharp wasn’t even on the west coast of South America at this time. This might very well be a coverup for deceitful and/or negligent activities. The ship was overloaded with silver, as evidenced by the fact that much more silver was recovered than was on the original manifest. The truth may never be known, but the official story is so good, maybe nobody really wants to! 😂
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Australia: 1877-S gold “Shield” sovereign of Queen Victoria, from the RMS Duoro shipwreck
This Australian sovereign was struck at the Sydney mint in 1877 and was part of the cargo of the British Royal Mail steamship Douro, which sank in a nighttime collision with the Spanish ship Yrurac Bat off Cape Finisterre near the Spanish and Portuguese coast, on the evening of April 1, 1882.
All of Duoro’s passengers and 32 of her crew were saved, but the captain and five of his officers- and the ship’s treasure of gold coins and bullion- sank with Douro in 1,500 feet of water. 53 people aboard the Spanish ship also perished when it too sank.
The wreck was found in 1993 and salvage operations were completed by 1996. There were some 28,000 gold coins brought up from the Douro wreck. Most were gold sovereigns, but there were also some rare Brazilian and Portuguese coins.
I find shipwreck coins fascinating. I guess there’s the natural appeal of a historical gold coin here, but also some touches of romance, tragedy, and adventure. To me, it would have been a lovely enough coin anyway, but the added history behind the shipwreck pedigree made it irresistible, so I threw caution to the wind and did what I had to do to beat the competition and win it at auction.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
@lordmarcovan that’s particularly cool shipwreck coin! Very pretty too
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Concepcion,
sank in 1641 off 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 Potosi and rare Colombian cobs (including more from the Cartagena mint than had been found on any other shipwreck).
BTW, if you want one of these, Sedwick is selling a bunch of lesser quality ones (like this) for CHEEEEEEAP on eBay. Run, they won’t be available very long.
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Ptolemy tetradrachm found on shipwreck off Ashkelon
Underwater surveys at Ashkelon during 1998 exposed a Hellenistic/Roman shipwreck. The ship, c.15–25m long, sank in the 1st or 2nd century BC, and its remains include iron anchors, lead sheathing, copper nails, assorted metal artefacts, and shipwright's unused nails. Bronze vessels found—oil-lamp, shovel and ladles—could have functioned in cult rites. Weights and balance-scale parts demonstrate commercial activity. Fishing-net sinkers indicate involvement in fishing. This paper raises important points regarding the risk to shipwrecks on the Israeli coast from environmental and human interference, and suggests that Ashkelon never had a built-up port. [International Journal of Nautical Archaeology - A Hellenistic/Early Roman Shipwreck Assemblage off Ashkelon, Israel; Volume 39, Issue1, March 2010, Pages 125-145]
That’s genuinely incredible @atom , I would certainly try to get something like that, I didn’t even know something like this existed as a shipwreck artifact. I guess I assumed that after a few thousand years nothing would exist anymore.
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