SUNKEN SHIPS- COINS AND TREASURE FROM
THE DEEP
By: Xavier Pique
Sunken Treasure• 3/4 ths of Earth is covered by water
• Sunken Ships Found in every Ocean, Lake and River
•Over 100,000 documented shipwrecks in the World
• Provide Glimpse into History of maritime trade routes
• Valuable items found
• Gold and Silver bars
• Artifacts- Pots, Dishes, Amphorae
• Navigation Instruments
• Wooden Ships preserved in deep cold waters
• Cargo is often salvaged by Salvage outfits
Presentation will cover:
• Overview of 3 principal trade routes and maps
• Ancient and modern Shipwrecks
•Phoenician- 500 BC
•Seleukid Empire- 300 BC
•Spanish New World 1500-1820’s
•American Civil War- 1865
• Types of ships
• Types of coins and treasure found in each
• Cleaning and Preservation of Shipwreck coins
Chart of Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea- By Location, Number, and Age
Phoenician Trade Routes- Commerce by Sea as early as 750 BC
Phoenician Ship- 450 BC “Cambridge” –
Joint Venture- Odyssey Marine/ British Navy Museum
Phoenician Ship 800 BC Stone Carving
Phoenecian Ship- Stone Carving 1st
•Phoenician Ship- 750 BC – Coast of Israel 1000 Ft deep
•By Robert Ballard/ National Geographic
• Cargo of Wine- No Coins
The scientists believe the ships were lost in a violent storm while
traveling from Phoenicia (now Lebanon) to Egypt or Carthage in
about 750 BC laden with a cargo of wine stored in ceramic
amphorae.
Phoenician Ship- 450 BC “Cambridge” –
Joint Venture- Odyssey Marine/ British Navy Museum
Phoenicia- Sidon 4th Cent BC BC. AR 1/2 Shekel
(0.73 gm). Galley to left over waves / Deity on
chariot
Phoenicia- Sidon 372-358 BC. AR 1/16 Shekel (0.73 gm). Galley
to left over waves / Persian king slaying lion; Phoenician AB
between.
Phoenicia One-eighth Shekel ca. 4th century b.c.
Phoenician Silver Didrachm of Tyre, circa 360 BC era
Phoenicia, Arados (c.350-332 BC), AR Stater, 10.02g, VF/VF, $220
Phoenicia, Byblos, 400-330 BC, AR 1/8th shekel - sea monster (hippocamp)
Hispania, Gades
(Cadiz) AE Quadrans, 100-20 BC
Ob: Head of Herakles/Melqart in lionskin left, club behind
Rv: Dolphin with trident swimming left, Phoenician/Punic script
Bronze- 1st Century BC, Phoenicia-Tyre
Carthage Gold Coin- 341 BCCity in the Phoenician Trade route
Ancient Map or Die Crud?
November 1996 issue of The Numismatist
Mark McMenamin
http://phoenicia.org/america.html
Ancient Greece- Seleucid Kingdom 300 BC
Slave-powered galley for transporting armies
Ancient Greece – Seleucid Kingdom
330 BC
Ancient Greece – Seleucid Kingdom 312- 64 BC
Ancient plate depicting Greek Merchant ship
Seleukid Kingdom- Antiochos VII (138-129 B.C.) IsraelSilver Tetradrachms- Shipwreck
SELEUKID KINGDOM, Antiochos VIII. 121-114/3 BC (Struck 116/5 BC). AR
Tetradrachm (27mm, 10.1g) Shipwreck Coin. This is one of the nicer
examples known to exist.
SELEUKID KINGDOM, Antiochos VIII. 121-114/3 BC (Struck 116/5 BC). AR
Tetradrachm
All known examples are shipwreck finds and have similar porosity and low
weight.
SELEUKID KINGS - ALEXANDER I (BALAS) (c. 150-145 BC), AR Drachm,
VF+/VF+, $155
(Not from Shipwreck)
Seleucid Kingdom, Antiochos VIII Bronze
SELEUKID KINGDOM, Antiochus VIII. 121-96 BC Bronze
Athens, Attica New Style AR Tetradrachm (RARE- 3 Graces, shipwreck find)
Obverse: Athena Parthenos
Reverse: Owl on amphora; above AΘΣ; third magistrates name
ΦAVO KPI ; on amphora, month-letter I; beneath, initials of the
Laurium silver mines 9ΔI; to right of owl three graces, the whole
within olive leaf.
Detail from Athens Tetradrachm and actual amphorae on sea bottom
at shipwreck
Shape of amphora is used to determine time of shipwreck
Nuestra Senora de Atocha-Florida 1622
+
THE KINGDOM OF SPAIN• Dominated the seas
•Colonized the New World- Columbus Voyage 1492
• From 1500 until 1820’s- Ran 2 fleets a year
• 300 YEARS of removing wealth from Americas
• Finance the expansion, wars, and the royal way of life
• Established a system of sea routes and commerce
The Atocha Treasure
• Found by Mel Fischer in 1985 off Florida Keys
• 40 tons of gold and silver bars
• 100,000 Spanish silver coins known as "Pieces of Eight”
• Gold Coins
• Emeralds
• 8 Bronze Cannons
• Only half of the cargo found so far
• Most of Emeralds on board not found
2 escudos gold- seville mint- Atocha
8 Reales- Silver- From the Atocha
8 Reales Philip III- Silver. From Atocha
8 reales silver- Potosi mint 1619 Atocha
Silver Bar- Atocha Shipwreck
Gold bars from the Atocha
Gold Bar Detail- From Atocha
http://www.atochatreasures.com/RareAtochaCoins.htm
Museum key west- Silver Bars from Spanish Wreck
Silver Artifacts and coins from Spanish Shipwrecks
Coin die – From Spanish Shipwreck
http://www.mexp.biz/photos.html
Emeralds and Jewelry
from the Atocha
Rosary Cross with 9 Emeralds- From Atocha
The SS Republic- Georgia 1865
• Steel- Hulled Steam Ship 59 passengers
• Decommissioned Warship “Tennessee”
• Sank in Hurricane Oct. 25, 1865 off Savannah, GA
• Carried Cargo From New York headed to New Orleans
• $400,000 in Gold and Silver Coins
• Reconstruction Funds
• Recovered by Odyssey Marine 2003
Route of SS Republic- 1865
New York to New Orleans
1852 Coronet Head 20 Dollar Double Eagle- Before Conservation
1865 Coronet Head 20 Dollar Double Eagle
Numismatic Conservation Services (NCS) and
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC)
have been awarded an exclusive contract to perform conservation,
grading and encapsulation of these coins for the numismatic market
1854 Coronet Head 20 Dollar Double Eagle
1860
Half Dollar- Silver
1861-O Half Dollar- From SS Republic
1854-O $20 Coronet Gold - shipwreck of the S.S. Republic,
NGC graded AU-58. Highest known
sold by private treaty in late 2004 for $675,000.
THE END
The “Black Swan”- Nuestra Senora de la Mercedes-
The S.S. Republic also carried 59 passenger, thousands of bottles of everything from
pickled fruit to stomach bitters, and various other cargo from New York to New Orlea
when it sank in a hurricane off Savannah, Georgia, on October. 25, 1865, according
newspaper accounts and other historical records.
Lucky all 62 passengers aboard the four life boats and 2 out of the 18 passengers on
makeshift raft were rescued by passing ships, but the coins that was intended to hel
pay for reconstruction of the South after the Civil War went to the bottom of the Atlan
Ocean with the Republic. The ship was initially name the SS Tennessee, and was late
changed to the SS Republic in 1865.
Odyssey's last big haul was in 2003, when it salvaged more than 50,000
coins and other artifacts worth $75 million from the SS Republic off
Savannah, Ga. "That was only a tenth of the material that's been
brought up here." Bruyer continued.
Novy Svet, Ukraine Shipwreck- Black Sea -1078 AD
the thirteenth-century shipwreck is not the only shipwreck found there. Partly underlying th
Byzantine Nicephorus III Anonymous AE Follis
Byzantine Nicephorus III (AD 1078-1081) Anonymous AE Follis
Obverse: Christ facing, wearing nimbus cross, pallium and colobium, raising right hand in benediction; scroll in left
hand, IC to left, XC to right
Reverse: Latin cross with X at centre, and globule and two pellets at each extremity, floral ornament in lower field on
either side, crescent in upper field on either side
Catalog: Sear 1889, Class: 1, Size: 24mm
Full name: Nikephoros III Botaneiates or Nicephorus III Botaniates
Black Sea -Bulgaria Ancient Greek Shipwreck- 4th Cent BC
ry of the shipwrecked remains of an ancient trading vessel over 2,300 years old that sank in
Lake Erie- USA
•Mostly Commercial Cargo (Coal, Iron,
City Of Concord: Wooden steamer of 144 ft sank in a gale 9/27/1906 near Point Pelee
1904 Morgan $1 Silver- (Not from shipwreck)
1904 Liberty Head $20 Gold (Not from Shipwreck)
NJ Nessen- Lake Erie 1929
1928 St Gaudens $20 Gold
1928 $1 Silver
e an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including about 500 on Lake
___
Greek- 4th Cent BC- Aegean
ed in two days what it would take divers years to do in studying the 4th-Century B.C. ship a
ows us to learn about the past in ways that we couldn’t achieve otherwise,” said Brendan Fo
dded, will let many researchers stop looking for mere “footnotes” in history and focus on big
t in a new collaboration between U.S. and Greek researchers, who discovered the wreck in
k off Chios and Oinoussia islands in the eastern Aegean Sea in 60 meters (about 200 feet) o
Nuestra Senora de Atocha-Florida 1622
nish Galleon
in hurricane 35 miles West of Key West, FL
ed copper, Silver, Gold, Tobacco, Gems and Jewelry
o from Colombia, Porto Bello, and Havana
of 28-ship convoy headed to Spain
had been
the of
Spanish
galleon
Ships
(at end
convoy)
sank Nuestra
in same Senora
storm de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the
cha
Nuestra Señora de Atocha ("Our Lady of Atocha") was the most famous of a fleet of
ta Margarita
Spanish ships that sank in 1622 off the Florida Keys while carrying copper, silver, gold,
tobacco,
gems, jewels,
ario
& 2 smaller
ships jewelry and indigo from Spanish ports at Cartagena, Colombia, Port
Bello in New Granada and Havana bound for Spain. The ship was named for the parish of
5-6, 1622
Atocha in Madrid.
An unfortunate
of and
complications
kept the Atocha in Veracruz before she could
ha carried
all the richseries
people
Jewels
rendezvous in Havana with the vessels of the Tierra Firme (Mainland) Fleet. After still more
shed
against
a reefwhat was ultimately a 28-ship convoy did not manage to depart for Spai
delays
in Havana,
from weight of golduntil
and September
cannons 4, 1622, six weeks behind schedule.
On September 6, the Atocha was driven by a severe hurricane onto the coral reefs near th
sure Dry
Salvors
and began
searching
earnest west of Key West. With her hull badly
Tortugas,
about 35
miles (56 in
kilometers)
Spanish expansion in the New World was rapid and by
the late 1500's Mexico City, Lima and Potosi had
populations that exceeded the largest cities in Spain. It
would be another half a century or more before the
chief cities of colonial North America; Boston,
Philadelphia, and New York, were to be founded.
Colonists were granted huge tracts of land to grow
tobacco, coffee and other products for export to the
mainland. More important to the throne however, was
the continent's mineral wealth of silver and gold, which
were vital to Spain's continued growth.
Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion-Mariana Islands 1638
Keys while carrying copper, silver, gold, tobacco, and indigo from Spanish ports at Cartagen
With her hull savagely ripped open, the vessel quickly sank, drowning every one aboard ex
Nuestra Senora de la Pura y Limpia Concepcion Ambrosia Banks- Dom. Republic 1641
the divers recovered 50,000 silver Spanish coins. The total take of coins recovered from
60,000. They also found gold chains and artifacts.
Burt Webber and his organization, Hispaniola Ventures LLC,
ORANJEMUND, Namibia (AFP) - Archaeologists are racing against the
little time left to salvage a fortune in coins and items from a 500-year-old
Portuguese shipwreck found recently off 's rough southern coast.
SUNKEN TREASURE- Coins from Famous Shipwrecks
On September 20, 1638, the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, a
Spanish galleon plying the lucrative trade route between Manila in the
Philippines and Acapulco, foundered in bad weather and was hurled
onto a reef. Most of the 400 people on board perished, and her
precious cargo from the Orient spilled into the sea.
At the southernmost point of Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands
{200 miles north of Guam}, one of the grand Spanish merchant ships - loaded with Chinese silks/rugs, porcelain, ivory, cotton from India,
ivory from Cambodia, camphor from Borneo, cinnamon and pepper
and clove from the Spice Islands,and precious jewels from Burma,
Ceylon, and Siam -- that plied the Pacific between the Philippine and
Mexico for 250 years was wrecked through mishandling. Not long into
its voyage, a mutiny arose on the Concepcion over the inexperience of
her commander, the young nephew of Manila's governor. Refusing to
obey orders, several officers each tried to gain control of the ship.
Amid the confusion, the galleon broached in severe weather. With
sails caught aback, high winds snapped the masts, sending them
overboard in a tangle of rigging. Wind and currents drove the
crippled ship off course and onto a reef off Saipan, the second largest
island in the Marianas.
• Coins salvaged from the wreck of the
Spanish galleon Concepcion, which sank
off the Ambrosia Banks in 1641. (Tom
Abend
Silver pieces found on the ocean floor. From the 1978 discovery of the Spanish Galleon
“Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion”, located off the coast of the Dominican Republic
“Silver Banks”.
Museum key
west