Flor do Mar,
sunk in 1511 off Sumatra, Indonesia
In 1511 the Portuguese Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque was sent to the
strategic town of Malacca (in modern-day Malaysia) to claim it for
Portugal, which he did; but on the return voyage to India, his ship
Flor do Mar was wrecked in a storm, sending spoils from the victory
(including a reported 60 tons of gold) to the seabed. Modern searches
for the wreck (which sank to a depth of over 100 feet) have been
unsuccessful, although Robert Marx claimed to have found some jade
artifacts from it, including the lot in this sale.
“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 were called "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).
Espadarte,
sunk in 1558 off Mozambique
This wreck is also known as the “Fort San Sebastian
Wreck”.
The site was found during the systematic survey around Ilha
de Moçambique on May 30, 2001, and the only visible remains
were a huge stone ballast pile at 9 meters of depth falling
abruptly into the channel until 32.5 m depth, where four
intact Martaban jars were found. In two sondages practised
in different parts of the stone ballast pile, wood timbers
were observed, along with lead sheathing, fragments of
coarse ceramics, two old anchors and blue and white Chinese
porcelain objects, most of them intact and in very good
condition. A complete survey of the wreck was done, every
possible measurement was taken and a sketch to scale of the
site was produced, including the depth isoclines. In order
to evaluate the site two test sondages were done, one of 6m2 (3m
x 2m) and the other of 1m2 (1m
x 1m), both plotted in the site sketch.
Gold artifacts were found in the surrounding area of the
ballast pile, all buried inside cylindrical chimneys known
as “blow holes,” vents from where gases escaped the magma in
previous eras. The first two were a small hemispherical bowl
and a bun-ingot. While the first, possibly a salt container,
had been cast, hammered and filed into an object of
exquisite beauty, the second was a solid, amorphous lump,
the result of the gold having been smelted in a crucible and
then poured into a simple, crudely formed receptacle that
gave the ingot its irregular shape. Most of the gold from
this site was totally unmarked, with no signs of fineness or
ownership, possibly indicating that they were smuggled to
avoid the Crown’s tax. A total of 12.4 kg of small ingots
and fragments were recovered.
“Cidade Velha wrecks,” sunk in the 1500s off the Cape Verde Islands,
west of Africa
The coastal town of Cidade Velha, or Ribeira Grande as it
was formerly known, is where the history of Cape Verde
began. In the 17th century Cidade Velha grew and prospered. Located
at the crossroads of the Atlantic it became an important
stop for ships in need of water, fresh food and repair. In
addition it became a large slaving center where slaves were
transhipped to destinations in the New World.
As with any popular anchorage the seabed around Cidade Velha
is rich in material that was lost or discarded by visiting
ships. The Arqueonautas team have recovered a series of
artifacts from the “Cidade Velha” shipwrecks that include
manilas, crucifixes, a range of pottery and a superb bronze
cannon, most of them from Portuguese shipwrecks which were
sunk at anchor in the harbor of Cidade Velha by Francis
Drake on his second attack of this town in 1586.
“Rill
Cove wreck,” sunk ca. 1618 off Cornwall, England
The
name and nationality of the ship are unknown and even the date of
sinking is not certain—all we 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 suspiciously absent. The bulk of the treasure was
eventually sold to a 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.
“Lucayan Beach wreck,” sunk ca. 1628 off Grand Bahama Island
Since the accidental discovery in 1964 of around 10,000 silver cobs
(dated up to and including 1628) in 10 feet of water just 1300 yards
from the Lucayan Beach Hotel, the mystery of identifying the lost vessel
has never been solved. Because of the date, popular opinion
associates the wreck with the taking of the Spanish 1628 Fleet in
Mantanzas Bay, Cuba, by the Dutch pirate, Piet Heyn, who reported losing
two vessels on the way back to Europe.
Three names were proposed for the ship(s) by various sellers over the years were the
Van Lynden, the Santa Gertrude (or Gertrudis) and the
Romario, with scant evidence to support any of the
attributions. Spanish archival research uncovered a new name—Nuestra
Señora de los Remedios, sunk in that general area in 1624, but a
quick check of auction catalogs confirms that some of the recovered
coins were clearly dated later than that. A more recent (1990s) recovery
off the Lucayan Beach turned up similar material—but no further clues as
to the ship’s (or ships’) identity. Practically all of the coins have
been Mexican 8 and 4 reales of the assayer-D period, some in quite nice
condition and a few with clear dates, which of course are rare. Expect
to pay a modest premium for specimens in white clamshell boxes produced
by Spink & Son (London) in the 1960s for a promotion that capped off
years of disagreements between the salvagers, their backers and the
Bahamian government.
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.
“São Francisco wreck,” sunk ca. 1650 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of
Africa
The identity of this
wreck is unknown, its nickname simply corresponding to the nearest
land-area to the wreck (São Francisco) on the island of Santiago. The
salvage firm Arqueonautas worked the wrecksite in the mid- to late 1990s
but was not able to identify the vessel any further than a “Spanish ship
with a Portuguese Captain with money to buy slaves.” The first finds
from the “San Francisco wreck,” including an extremely rare
silver-plated astrolabe dated 1645, were sold by Sotheby’s (London) in
December 2000, buried in a clocks and watches auction that got little
publicity in the shipwreck-collecting field. The relatively few coins
from this wreck, all silver cobs from Mexico and Potosí in the mid- to
late 1640s, are generally rare and appear to date just before the
massive recall and melting in 1649 at Potosí that so significantly
altered worldwide usage of Spanish colonial cobs.
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!
Vergulde Draeck
(“Gilt Dragon”), sunk in 1656 off Western Australia
Much has been written about
the loss and salvage of this Dutch East India Company trading vessel
(known as an East Indiaman), which some consider to be Australia’s
counterpart to Florida’s 1715 Fleet in terms of availability of
reasonably priced cobs for collectors. In contrast to the Spanish
treasure wrecks, however, the Vergulde Draeck carried only a
modest amount of just silver cobs (eight chests totaling 45,950 coins),
mostly Mexican but also some cobs from Potosí and Spain as well as some
Colombian rarities. The ship was on its way from the Netherlands to
Batavia (modern-day Jakarta, Indonesia) when suddenly it found itself
wrecked on a reef some three miles from land in the early morning hours
of April 28, 1656. Only 75 of the 193 people on board were able to reach
the shore, and seven of them soon left in the ship’s pinnace to seek
help in Batavia. When authorities there learned of the wreck, several
attempts were made to rescue the other survivors and, more importantly,
the eight chests of treasure, but no sign of the wreck or survivors was
ever found. The wreck remained undiscovered until 1963, when
spear-fishermen stumbled upon it and began to recover coins and
artifacts. Salvage efforts to date, mostly under the supervision of the
Western Australian Museum, whose certificates often accompany the coins
(and carry a small premium), have yielded only about half of the total
coins officially recorded to be on board this ship.
Sacramento,
sunk in 1668 off Brazil
The Sacramento was the lead vessel of a 50-ship annual convoy
between Lisbon, Portugal, and Bahia, Brazil, and hit a sandbar on the
night of May 5, 1668 during a squall, sending 400 people to their grave.
Official Brazilian government salvage on the wreck took place in 1976,
at some point involving Robert Marx. Very little information can
be found about the wreck and its salvage, and very little material from
the wreck has come to market. A few Portuguese silver coins with
Brazilian countermarks from 1663 have reached collectors, as well as a
few Spanish colonial cobs (also countermarked).
Nuestra Señora Santa María de Quintanpalla,
sunk ca. 1680 off Seville Harbor?, Spain
We still do not have any
evidence for, or information about, this shipwreck, but the consignor is
honorable and swears this is a legitimate wreck in the river harbor of
Seville, Spain. From evidence at the wrecksite, it is believed the
ship was a medium-sized galleon of approximately 600 tons, 50 meters in
length, with more than 250 men, 68 cannons and a cargo of mostly
textiles and other goods. It sank sometime in the period of
1678-1680. It is reported that the wrecksite lies in about 1000
feet of water...but Seville harbor is not that deep. As such, it
most likely sank off Cadiz.
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.
“Porto
Bello wreck,” sunk in 1681 or 1682 off Porto Bello, Panama
According to Robert Marx, a storm in
1681 sank three ships of the Spanish Caribbean Fleet: Chaperón
(sunk in the mouth of the Chagres River), Boticaria (sunk off
Isla de Naranjas), and an unidentified galleon (sunk off Punta de Brujas). More
recent articles, however, give the date of the disaster as 1682. There
is also confusion about which wrecksite belongs to which ship of the
Fleet; for example, the sword blades in this current auction supposedly
came from Chaperon, but our records indicate that the source was
probably the Boticaria. Most often the artifacts are attributed
to simply the 1681 Fleet or the “Porto Bello wreck.”
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.
Merestein
(or Meeresteijn),
sunk in 1702 off South Africa
This Dutch East
Indiaman was outbound when she tried to put into Saldanha Bay to
alleviate rampant scurvy on board the ship. On April 3, 1702, she hit
reefs on the southwest point of Jutten Island and within hours was
smashed to pieces. Only 99 of the 200 people aboard the Merestein
survived.
On board the
Merestein were several chests of silver coins for trade in the East
Indies, for which immediate salvage plans were undertaken. But Jutten
Island is no easy dive, and all attempts were abandoned until modern
times.
The wreck was
re-found and salvaged in the early 1970s, yielding almost exclusively
Dutch silver ducatoons from the 1600s. The number of coins found in the
1970s was around 15,000 and is believed to be nowhere near all of the
treasure that was lost.
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-Tolosa,
sunk in 1724 in Samaná Bay, 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. More
than 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 13 cobs from the mints of Bogotá, Cuzco, Lima and Mexico),
which were auctioned that same year.
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 (or tVliegent Hart),
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.
Princess Louisa,
sunk in 1743 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
Laden with 20 chests (69,760
ounces) of Spanish silver, the East Indiaman Princess Louisa fell
victim to surprise currents and inaccurate charts and struck a reef and
sank off Isla de Maio in the early morning hours of April 18. 42 of the
116 people aboard floated to safety on the nearby island, but nothing on
the ship could be saved. Contemporaneous salvage never came to fruition.
In 1998 and 1999 the
wrecksite was located and salvaged by the Arqueonautas firm, whose finds
from this wreck have been largely marketed by a Houston coin and jewelry
dealer ever since, but some coins were also sold at auction in
2000-2001. Most of the coins were New World silver cobs from all the
mints that were operating in the early 1700s (including rare Bogotá
cobs), predominantly minors (smaller than 8 reales), in average
condition, with quite a few preserved in as-found multiple-coin
clusters.
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.
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
four-and-a-half 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 the
rocks. Only 20 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 (in
excellent condition), but it also yielded a few hundred New World silver
cobs, including Guatemala cobs, which are rarely seen from shipwrecks.
Nuestra Señora de la Luz,
sunk in 1752 off Montevideo, Uruguay
Like the Capitana
(1654) and 1733 Fleet, this wreck is a case for modern salvage of
Spanish wrecks where all or most of the registered cargo was found in
its own time, for contraband was always a factor and was
generally abandoned if the ship did not make its destination. The
Luz left Buenos Aires in the summer of 1752 with a load of money
bound for Spain, and had just stopped in Montevideo for provisioning
when a strong storm swept her into the coastline, spreading wreckage
over a wide area and killing all on board. While over 90% of the
treasure on board was recovered soon afterward, the powder-hold was
never found, and as it turns out, that is where some 200,000 pesos
(according to later reports) of contraband had been stored.
In April of 1992,
divers working under Rubén Collado began to recover gold coins on a
wrecksite in the Río de la Plata, and soon it became clear the wreck in
question had to be from 1751 or 1752, as none of the coins was dated
later than 1751. The finds, which were split with the Uruguayan
government and then sold at auction in New York and Montevideo,
consisted of mostly milled (bust-type) 8 escudos from the new mint at
Santiago, Chile. Also in these auctions were 95 gold cobs and 353
silver cobs, the former mostly Lima 8 and 4 escudos (but also some
Bogotá 2 escudos), and the latter mostly 8 and 4 reales from Potosí
(with several more gold and silver cob sold privately). The gold, of
course, is pristine, but the silver coins all show at least moderate
corrosion.
Bredenhof,
sunk in 1753 off Mozambique
The Bredenhof
was a Dutch East Indiaman headed to India with 14 barrels of copper
“duits” (penny-like coins), 29 chests of silver bars, and one chest of
gold ducats. On June 6, 1753, about 13 miles from the eastern coast of
Africa and 120 miles south of the Portuguese settlement of Mozambique,
the Bredenhof found herself in difficult currents and struck a
reef. Amazingly, among the first items jettisoned to try to raise the
ship off the reef were some of the chests of silver bars! The gold was
taken by the ship’s officers, some of whom survived the trip to
Mozambique, but the silver bars and copper coins were lost until modern
times, despite salvage attempts in the 1750s.
In 1986, divers found
the wreck, which yielded hundreds of silver ingots and thousands of
copper coins, all sold at auction by Christie’s Amsterdam that same
year.
“Cape Haitien wreck,” sunk ca. 1750-1760 off Haiti
Nothing is known so far about this mysterious wreck located at the
entrance of the bay of Cape Haitien on the north coast of Haiti. All we
know is that it was a large sailing vessel, almost certainly French,
sunk between 1750 and 1760.
Nuestra Señora del Rosario,
sunk in 1753 off Montevideo, Uruguay
The Rosario was reportedly
carrying over 800,000 pesos of treasure on her way to Buenos Aires when
she sank close to shore at the mouth of the Río de la Plata on June 30,
1753. All hands were saved, but the fate of the cargo is unknown. Recent
finds of utilitarian items like spoons and buckles have trickled onto
the market, but no high-value treasure so far.
Auguste,
sunk in 1761 off Nova Scotia, Canada
After the end of the
Seven Years’ War between England and France in 1759, French officers and
aristocrats in Canada were sent from Quebec back to France in ships such
as the Auguste. In stormy conditions and damaged by fire, the
Auguste struck a sand bar on November 15 and subsequently sank in
Aspy Bay off Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Only 7 of the 121 on board
survived, and the wealth of the passengers was lost until our time. To
date, well over a thousand coins of various nationalities have been
found, along with many important artifacts.
Dromadaire,
sunk in 1762 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
Le Dromadaire belonged to the French East India Company and
was built in Nantes in 1758. Under the command of Captain
Joseph Le Houx, she departed from the Port of Lorient in the
company of Le Berryer and Le Massiac on February 6th 1762,
with a total of 154 people on board. She was a ship of 520
tons, carrying 20 guns, 1000 cannon balls and a chest of
silver.
Due to a political rupture between Spain and
Britain, Le Dromadaire was asked to take a different course
than normal in order to avoid possible interceptions. After
passing the Tropic of Cancer captain Le Houx changed Le
Dromadaire’s course to pass to the west of the Cape Verde
Islands, separating from Le Massiac, which stayed on her
original course. Due to bad weather conditions the two ships
soon lost sight of each other. As the weather worsened,
navigational instruments were of no use and the ship’s
position was based on estimates. Even though night watches
and lookout duties were intensified, by the morning of
February 19th Le Dromadaire was so close to land that the
breakers could be heard. As panic spread among the crew,
orders were not followed and maneuvers to save Le Dromadaire
could not be executed. Within 7 minutes she was carried
against the dangerous reef off the Island of São Vicente by
the violent currents and broke into two. A Dutch ship nearby
was able to save 77 people.
Le Dromadaire
wreck site was found on the 22nd of
January of 1996 during a survey of San Vicente Island.
The salvors counted 19 cannons and recovered a semi precious
stone that has clearly been cut from a ring, copper
sheathing and a gold coin dated 1760.
Colebrooke,
sunk in 1778 off South Africa
The
Colebrooke was an English East Indiaman on her way to Bombay when
she hit a reef known today as Anvil Rock and sank in Kogel Bay near Cape
Town on August 24, 1778. Seven people drowned and none of the trading
cargo was saved. The wreck was discovered in 1984 and salvaged in the
1980s and 1990s.
Scipion,
sunk in 1782 in Samaná Bay, Dominican Republic
A valiant fighter
against the English in the American Revolutionary War, the French ship
Scipion was engaged in battle when she inadvertently maneuvered
onto a reef and sank in thirty feet of water on October 18, 1782.
Discovered in our time by Tracy Bowden, the Scipion site is still
being salvaged for its important artifacts.
El
Cazador,
sunk in 1784 off New Orleans, Louisiana
The Cazador
was a Spanish brig of war headed from Vera Cruz, Mexico, to New Orleans
under the direction of Captain Gabriel de Campos y Piñeda. Her cargo of
some 450,000 pesos of newly minted silver coins was meant to stabilize
the fragile economy in the Spanish possession of Louisiana, which had
suffered from the use of French paper currency. The fact that the coins
never arrived probably hastened the decision to cede the colony to
Napoleon in 1800, soon after which Louisiana was sold to the fledgling
United States of America for $15 million.
Nobody knows how the
Cazador was lost, and no evidence of the ship was found until
1993, when a fishing crew led by Captain Jerry Murphy snagged their net
on something about 50 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.
When the net was brought up, it spilled out hundreds of silver coins
onto the deck of Jerry’s boat, aptly named Mistake. Shortly
thereafter, the fishermen obtained the rights to the find and began
recoveries under the name of Grumpy Inc.
Hartwell,
sunk in 1787 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
Launched amid much celebration, the Hartwell began its
maiden voyage to China in February of 1787. It set out with
an immensely rich cargo, which included 209,280 oz of fine
silver. According to the ship’s owner, John Fiott, the
Hartwell was the biggest ship of its kind in the service of
the British East India Company. John Fiott’s brother was the
captain and other family members were shareholders.
The Hartwell soon ran into trouble. Gales put the ship
behind schedule and, on May 20, a mutiny broke out. The
cause of the rebellion was a refusal to extinguish lights. A
survivor later reported that “knives were drawn, abusive
language used and, after a struggle, three men were secured
and clapped in irons.” Disorders continued to spread and
before long 50 crewmembers were defying all orders from the
officers. After three days the mutiny collapsed and the
captain changed course for the Cape Verde Islands, his
intention being to hand over the mutineers to the Governor.
After three sleepless nights because of disturbances, the
ship’s officers accidentally ran the ship onto a reef
northeast of the Island of Boa Vista, in the Cape Verde
islands off West Africa. It broke up quickly and although
all the crew was saved, the entire cargo was lost.
The site of the Hartwell wreck off Boavista Island was made
known to Arqueonautas by the Capeverdian Government in 1996
and was subsequently surveyed and partly excavated during
the following operational seasons.
Earlier salvage attempts by the English East India Company,
who employed the Braithwaite brothers, took place between
1788 and 1791, and 97,650 silver dollars were reportedly
recovered. Furthermore, over 40,000 coins were salvaged by
pirate divers during Braithwaite’s periodic absence from the
site. Despite this early salvage success a large quantity of
dollars remained near the wreck and from 1994 to 1996 the
South African company Afrimar recovered further coins and
artifacts before Arqueonautas was asked to survey the site.
The large debris field left behind by Afrimar was first
analysed in 1997 with the help of a magnetometer survey, to
allow for a structured documentation and recovery of the
remaining artefacts during the 1998 and 1999 seasons. It was
clear that there was no defined debris field that could be
related to the deposition of the wreck and its breakup in
the 18th century. However, during the following two seasons
the locations and context of all finds were recorded. It
seems clear that before the 20th century intrusions clusters
of concretion might have yielded evidence of cargo-stowage
and domestic and personal equipment used on board.
Piedmont
(“Lyme Bay wreck”), sunk in 1795 in Lyme Bay, south of England
One of a huge fleet
of 300 ships on their way to the West Indies to suppress a French
uprising, the Piedmont was forced into Lyme Bay during a
hurricane on November 18, 1795, that scattered and sank the ships of the
fleet all along the Dorset coast. The Piedmont and five other
ships (Aeolus, Catherine, Golden Grove, Thomas
and Venus) broke apart on Chesil Beach and came to be known
collectively as the “Lyme Bay wrecks.” An estimated 1,000 men lost their
lives in the disaster, including well over a hundred from the
Piedmont alone.
In the early 1980s, the wrecks were
salvaged by divers Selwyn Williams and Les and Julia C. Kent, who
discovered many silver cobs of the late 1600s on the wrecksite of the
Piedmont. It is presumed that the coins had been captured or
recovered from a 17th-century
wreck and stored in the vaults of the Bank of England for about a
century before being transported and subsequently lost again. These
coins are usually recognizable by their uniformly dark-gray coloration,
a bit sea-worn but not overly corroded. A significant group of extremely
rare Colombian silver cobs from the Piedmont (but not identified
as such) was offered at auction in 1995.
Leocadia,
sunk in 1800 off Punta Santa Elena, Ecuador
This wreck, salvaged periodically in
the late 20th century,
typically yielded portrait (bust) 8 reales from Lima, Peru, but more
recent work in 2001 brought up a handful of small silver cobs of the
mid- to late 1700s mostly from the Potosí mint. These were probably from
a small, private purse and not part of the more than 2 million pesos of
registered silver and gold cargo aboard the Leocadia when she
departed Paita, Peru, bound for Panama in a convoy of merchant vessels.
On November 16, 1800, the Leocadia struck a shoal and broke apart
100 yards from the beach at Punta Santa Elena, with a loss of over 140
lives in the disaster. Within the next year the Spanish salvaged about
90% of the registered treasure, leaving more than 200,000 pesos (not to
mention the expected contraband) behind to tempt divers in our time.
Judging from the paucity of coins from this ship on the open market, it
is reasonable to assume that many more are still to be found.
Lady Burgess,
sunk in 1806 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
The Lady Burgess belonged to the English East India Company
and set sail for India at beginning of April, 1806. She
weighed 820 tons, carried 30 guns and a crew of 100 men.
In the early hours of the 20th of April 1806 the Lady
Burgess
found itself in shallow water off the Cape Verde Islands and
could not escape the breakers.
There is no
indication in the Commerce Journal of the East India Company
that the Lady Burgess was carrying bullion. Her cargo
consisted of iron, lead and general merchandise. So far
there is also no knowledge of any earlier salvage attempts
for the Lady Burgess.
A pile of lead bars and several rudder pintles and gudgeons
surrounding it were the first spotted objects that clearly
defined the site a shipwreck. After a more careful inspection, four concreted areas of iron bars and
scattered iron blocks were located. Later, another section of the wreck
was located consisting of
several cannons and anchors.
Admiral Gardner,
sunk in 1809 off the southeast coast of England
Along with her
sister-ship Britannia, the English East Indiaman Admiral
Gardner was outbound with an immense cargo (48 tons!) of copper
coins for circulation in India when both ships sank in a storm on the
Goodwin Sands on January 24, 1809. Ten lives were lost, as was all the
cargo. The coins were recovered in modern times, literally a million of
them packed in wax inside wooden barrels.
“Coconut wreck,” sunk ca. 1810 in deep water off Bermuda
This fascinating find
has been touted as the deepest treasure wreck ever found, and it should
hold that title for a long time! While searching in 1999 for Gus
Grissom’s space capsule Liberty Bell 7 (lost in a test at sea, in which
Grissom nearly died) from the Mercury program of 1961, underwater
explorer Curt Newport (supported by the Discovery Channel) noticed an
unidentified anomaly at a depth of 16,300 feet—not the space capsule
(which was eventually found and recovered), but something interesting to
be investigated later. That day came in 2001 when Michael McDowell used
a pair of Russian submarines to view the wreck, whereupon they
discovered the remains of a wooden trading vessel loaded with coconuts!
A chest filled with more than 1300 silver coins was soon recovered,
along with a small, ornate gold box containing 13 gold coins wrapped in
a newspaper dated August 6, 1809. These gold coins were sold at auction
in 2008 by Stack’s in New York, who dubbed this the “Coconut wreck,”
despite its earlier names (given by divers and promoters) of “Piña
Colada wreck” and “Atlantic Target Expedition wreck”.
Our Treasure Auction
#3 marks the first time the silver coins from this wreck have ever been
offered at auction. Each coin is accompanied by a numbered
photo-certificate from archeologist James Sinclair and has been given a
Grade (1 to 4, 1 being the best) to reflect the coin’s state of
preservation.
“1810 wreck,” sunk off Ft. Pierce, Florida
A hurricane in 1810
sank several ships along the east coast of Florida, particularly in the
vicinity of Ft. Pierce. Several ship names have been proposed for the
site in question here including a Roberts, not to be confused
with a ship of similar name (without the s) sunk off Vero Beach 11 years
later.
Robert,
sunk in 1821 off Vero Beach, Florida
Very little is
documented about this vessel sunk in 1821 in the same area as the 1618
San Martín and a 1715 site known as “Cannon wreck,” with the 1715
“Corrigans wreck” and 1824 Spring of Whitby sites nearby as well,
all within view of Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, where artifacts from
these wrecks are on display in their oceanview lounge.
Spring of Whitby,
sunk in 1824 off Wabasso, Florida
This wreck has been
and probably will always be shrouded in mystery, as we have definite
proof of her sinking near Vero Beach (the evidence being a bronze bell
with her name and 1801 date of manufacture recovered in 1965), yet
admiralty records show she plied the Baltic trade in the extreme
northern Atlantic at least until 1826! The material from the
wrecksite, on the other hand, being Spanish silver bust-type coins,
indicates a date of sinking of 1824. Could piracy have been involved?
Britannia,
sunk in 1826 off South Africa
On an outbound run to
India, the 460-ton Britannia hit an uncharted reef (now known as
Britannia reef) and sank on October 22, 1826, in a part of St. Helena
Bay that is now known (appropriately enough) as Britannia Bay. The site
was found and salvaged in 1997-1998, its artifacts remarkably well
preserved by sand burial, some of its bottles still containing their
original liquids and foodstuffs.
Thetis,
sunk in 1830 off Cabo Frio, Brazil
The English Navy
vessel H.M.S. Thetis was on a trading trip, returning from Rio de
Janeiro with 800,000 dollars on board, when her bowsprit struck a cliff
off Cabo Frio and she was dismasted, after which she drifted along the
coast and finally foundered in a small cove. All hands were rescued, and
three-quarters of the treasure was soon salvaged, followed by another
nearly 150,000 coins by the summer of 1832. What little remained was
recovered in modern times.
Duoro,
sunk in 1843 off the Scilly Isles, southwest of England
A schooner plying the
illegal slave trade from Africa to the West Indies, the Duoro
sank under unspecified conditions with a large cargo of bronze
bracelets, known as “manillas,” which were meant to be traded for human
lives in Africa, but are now inexpensive collectibles today.
“Rombos wreck,” sunk in the early 1800s off the Cape Verde Islands, west
of Africa
The “Rombos Wreck” is an unidentified
19th century trader that sank off the Cape Verde Islands.
No historical information has been located about this ship.ons.
The Arqueonautas team found the wreck site in
February of 2001 and named the site “Rombos Wreck”. In
September of the same year a survey was performed,
locating a cargo of tin ingots, cutlery, and wine bottles,
as well as two cannons, two anchors and a pile of ballast
iron bars.
“Cognac wreck,” sunk ca. 1830-1850 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of
Africa
Arqueonautas located this French or British
trader in October of 1999
during a survey around the area of Pta. Lobos where local
fishermen reported some wrecks. The wreck is near Punta Bomba, east coast of Santiago Island, lying on the reef
shoal, beside a deep channel that goes inside a little bay.
The only heavy objects from the wreck located on the first
inspection were an anchor and an iron box, both sitting on
the surface of the seabed. Working on a large scattering
area, the divers recovered some glass objects (small bottles
and stoppers) for identification purposes. The more
interesting objects found were two intact bottles of French
cognac and one intact stoneware bottle of whisky.
Also found was an iron box full of slates. The slates were
only the superficial layer, because under them was a layer
of firebricks. The team also found and iron concretion with
needles and pewter spoons (which were recovered). There were
also small cannon balls. What was particularly curious about
this wreck was the absence of other big heavy objects such
as cannons or more anchors, but the kind of sediment of the
place made it possible that these objects were buried deep
down. Another possibility is that they were salvaged
earlier.
Santo
Andre,
sunk in 1856 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
The Santo Andre was a Spanish “Galera” with a cargo of
bottles and coins. It sank on the 25th of
July, 1856, off the Island of Boavista in the Cape Verde
Islands.
S.S. Central America,
sunk in 1857 in deep water off North Carolina
Sunk in a hurricane
on September 12, 1857, the mail steamer Central America took with
her more than 400 lives and over three tons of gold. The wreck lay
undisturbed until 1986, when Tommy Thompson and his Columbus-America
Discovery Group located the ship in 8500 feet of water. After 10 years
of legal struggles, the salvagers were awarded about 92% of the
treasure, with most of the rest going to insurance companies who had
paid the claim when the ship sank. Widely touted as the greatest
treasure ever found, the gold from the Central America has been
very heavily promoted and cleverly marketed.
S.S. Republic,
sunk in 1865 in deep water off Savannah, Georgia
Originally christened
the Tennessee (which is how she was identified in our time), the
sidewheel steamer Republic was carrying some $400,000 in specie
from New York to New Orleans when she sank in a hurricane about 100
miles offshore on October 25, 1865. One of many deep targets located by
the salvage company Odyssey, the site of the Republic was
salvaged by submersible craft beginning in 2003. In addition to gold and
silver coins of the Civil War-era United States, Odyssey found the
ship’s bell with part of the name Tennessee, confirming the
ship’s identity and launching a massive, ongoing promotional campaign
for coins and artifacts from the wreck.
Douro,
sunk in 1882 in deep water off Cape Finisterre, Spain
The British Royal
Mail Steamer Douro was en route to England from Portugal when she
collided with the Spanish steamship Yrurac Bat and sank in the
early morning hours of April 2, 1882, in deep water off the northwest
coast of Spain. All but six people on board survived, but the ship and
its cargo of tens of thousands of gold coins were a total loss. The
wreck was found and salvaged in 1995 by Sverker Hallstrom and Nigel
Pickford using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of 1500 feet.
The cargo of gold coins, mostly British sovereigns was sold at auction
by Spink (London) in 1996.
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.
Egypt,
sunk in 1922 off Ushant, France
In
May of 1922, the Egypt encountered thick fog off the northwest
coast of France and was accidentally rammed by another ship, the French
cargo steamer Seine, sinking the British ship within twenty
minutes. The Egypt was carrying some 15 tons of silver and gold
bullion in addition to British gold sovereigns totaling £1,054,000 (1922
values). Nothing was salvaged until the early 1930s, when an Italian
company recovered an estimated 95% of the treasure from the ship’s depth
of 420 feet, an amazing success for its time.
Return to Top of Page
1553
Fleet
– see 1554 Fleet
Conception
– see Concepcion
DeBraak
– see De Braak
Die
Fraumetta Catharina von Flensburg
– see Fraumetta Catharina von Flensburg
Dollar
Ship
– see Rhossili Bay Wreck
Earl
of Abergavenny
– see Abergavenny
El
Cazador
– see Cazador
El
Faunte
– see Faunte
El
Gran Grifon
– see Gran Grifon
El
Matanceros
– see Matanceros Wreck
El Matanzero
-
see Matanceros Wreck
El
Nuevo Constante
– see Nuevo Constante
Elizabethville
– see Elisabethville
Flor
de la Mar
– see Flor do Mar
Fort
San Sebastian Wreck - see
Espadarte
Genovase
– see Genovesa
Golden
Hinde
– see Golden Hind
Gran
Grifon
– see Gran Griffon
Grifon
– see Gran Griffon
Jupiter Beach
Wreck – see San Miguel Archangel
Jesus
Maria de la Limpia Concepcion
– see Capitana
La
Perouse
– see Laperouse
Loo
– see Looe
Maravilla
– see Maravillas
Margarita
– see Santa Margarita
Meerestein
– see Meeresteijn
Meeresteyn
– see Meeresteijn
Meresteyn
– see Meeresteijn
Nanking
Cargo
– see Geldermalsen
Nuestra
Senora de los Milagros - see Matanceros Wreck
Nuestra
Senora de los Remedios – see Lucayan Beach
Wreck
Reigersdaal
– see Reijgersdaal
Reygersdahl
– see Reijgersdaal
Saint
Anthony
– see St. Anthony
Saint
Geran
– see St. Geran
Saint
Mounts Bay Wreck
– see St. Mounts Bay Wreck
Saint
Michael
– see St. Michael
San Miguel
Arcangel
– see San Miguel Archangel
Santa
Margharita
– see Santa Margarita
Talosa
– see Conde de Talosa
Tobermory
Galleon
– see Florencia
Trial
– see Tryall
Tryal
– see Tryall
Vergulde
Draeck
– see Gilt Dragon
Vliegent
Hart
– see tVliegent Hart
Vliegenthart
– see tVliegent Hart
Wasa
- see Vasa
Whidah
– see Whydah
Whidaw
– see Whydah
Zeewyck
– see Zeewijk
Zeewyk
– see Zeewijk
Return to Top of Page
© David S. Crooks 2008
Library of Congress: 2002511618
Contact:
dcrooks@dcrooks.com
or PO Box 166, Clarendon Hills, Illinois 60514, USA
All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the express prior
written permission of the author.