I've always been a treasure hunter at heart. Maybe the idea got stuck in my head after watching Raiders of the Ark when I was kid, Indiana Jones was a great character. One of my favorite hobbies has always been searching for sunken treasure or prospecting for gold nuggets. I've had a lot of luck with the nuggets over the years, but the sunken treasures are still evading me.
In 1985 the British Virgin Islands released a series of collectible coins that celebrated the Sunken Treasures of the Caribbean. I've got most of the coins from the series, but I'm still missing one or two. This is one I picked up a long time ago, I don't recall exactly when. It was part of the series so I bought it to fill in a missing coin.
This coin commemorates the gold doubloons lost to the sea as sunken treasure over the centuries. There were a lot of them!
About the coin:
From numista.com
This isn't one of my better pictures I've taken over the years, it was earlier in my coin photography project days. I love this coin series though, it was produced by the Franklin Mint in Wawa, Pennsylvania for the islands. It's not a horribly valuable coin with a melt value of around $26.64 as of today, and might sell for ten dollars more if I were lucky. Still, much more than I paid for it!
I've collected a lot of coins from the British Virgin Islands over the years, they are among my favorite islands in the Caribbean as I've mentioned countless times before...
Now for the interesting part, gold treasure and pirate booty!
Gold Doubloon
forums.collectors.com
A gold doubloon is a Spanish coin produced in the age or pirates that had a value of two Escudos. Since they were double the value of the escudo they became coins called doubloons. These were coins highly sought after by pirates and the wealthy alike. Over the centuries there were millions of these coins lost to the Caribbean Sea from shipwrecks. Thus the appearance on the coin commemorating the Sunken Treasures of the Caribbean.
The one pictured above was minted in Seville, Spain, but was not a shipwreck treasure. It is a great example of what a true doubloon really looks like!
Nuestra Señora de Atocha
pirategoldcoins.com
Some of the treasures recovered from the wreck
Now onto my favorite shipwreck of them all! The Nuestra Señora de Atocha was a Spanish galleon built in 1621 to help haul the treasures plundered from the Americas back to Spain. It met a grim fate one year later, unfortunately. While sailing to Spain loaded down with heavy treasures the fleet ran into an unexpected hurricane. The last two ships in the fleet were smashed against the reefs of the Dry Tortugas and sank depositing a fortune in gold, silver, and gem stones all over the sea floor. Those ill fated ships lost on Sept. 6, 1622 were the Atocha and the Santa Margarita.
The wreck was discovered by Mel Fisher in 1973 and is continuing to be recovered until this day. After an extensive legal battle Fisher was able to keep the fortune. As a result, it is not cheap as it not only had to cover recovery costs but huge legal bills. I've always wanted to own some of the treasure for myself, but it has always been too expensive.
Today I found this Atocha lot for sale on eBay, it's amazing!
eBay.com
A dealer in rare coins out of La Jolla, California (just north of San Diego) is selling this lot of off the shipwreck for $299,000. As much as I would love to buy it, I'm just very short of that much cash at the moment!
If you don't have the cash to buy that stack of sunken treasure, don't lose all hope. Along Florida's treasure coast there is plenty of them buried under the sand along the beaches. Another fleet laden with treasure was lost in 1715 along the reefs of Florida in another hurricane. The treasure was strewn all over the reefs, the sea floor, and much was washed up to the beach and beyond into mangrove swamps. After a strong storm passes through and erodes away the right part of the beach it can expose the sand from 1715 and the priceless gold and silver coins.
I've tried my luck before to no avail along the beaches there. I wouldn't mind heading out with my metal detector again in the future. It's a lot of fun to search for sunken treasure, even if you come up empty handed! If you want to search for sunken treasure it's about the easiest way to do it, and thousands of gold and silver coins have been found there already!
That will wrap up this Monday's post continuing on the Sunken Treasures of the Caribbean series from the British Virgin Island in 1985. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below, and I want to thank you all for all of your support! Have a great week everyone!
References:
https://en.numista.com/32505
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubloon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuestra_Se%C3%B1ora_de_Atocha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1715_Treasure_Fleet
Disclaimer
I am not a financial planner and this isn't financial advice. Please always do your own research before investing your money. You worked hard enough to earn it!
Pictures are mine unless otherwise stated.
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