SHIPWRECK COINS WEREN'T ALWAYS SO DESIRABLE

 
1711 Philip V gold cob 2 Escudos salvaged from the 1715 Fleet

Twenty of the ships managed to ride out the storm that day and the next, but eight were lost, including the Atocha and her sister ship, the Santa Margarita. Those two were swept into the Florida Keys, where the Santa Margarita ran aground and wrecked on the reefs. The Atocha was overcome by waves and sunk in deeper water. Of the 265 lives onboard, only five survived.

Spanish salvage efforts recovered most of the Santa Margarita's treasure over the next decade by sending enslaved people down in brass diving bells, killing many of them in the process and writing off their lives as business expenses. But the vast treasures in the Atocha remained out of reach, 55 feet below the surface, for the next 350 years.

It wasn't until 1973 that any of the Atocha's cargo was recovered, when a small crew led by Mel Fisher and his company, Treasure Salvors, pulled up three silver bars that were unmistakably matched to the Atocha's manifest. His company continued searching for years, recovering scattered artifacts and gold bars until finally discovering the mother lode in 1985: piles of silver bars and chests full of coins, emeralds, and more worth an estimated $450 million, making it the most valuable shipwreck in history — at least for the next 30 years. Its worth would be dwarfed by the 2015 discovery off the coast of Colombia of the Spanish galleon San José, which sank in 1708 with cargo valued today at $17 billion or more — almost all of which remains on the ocean floor as Indigenous groups, Spain, Colombia, and American treasure hunters fight over it in courts.

Today, coins from the Atocha and other shipwrecks can command premium prices from collectors intrigued by the history of these recovered treasures. On February 23, Heritage presents an auction dedicated entirely to coins and other treasures recovered from the sea. In Spotlight: Shipwreck & Treasure Featuring Selections from the Salvager Collection World Coins Showcase Auction, lots range from a 3.22-carat emerald salvaged from the Atocha to a silver ingot weighing more than 74 pounds to coins recovered from the Golden Fleece, which sank in the northern Caribbean. Aside from gems and precious metals, salvage operations often find fascinating items of historic interest, such as an astrolabe from the Golden Fleece and ceramic cups and saucers from a 1752 wreck in South China.

 
c1550 Charles & Johanna gold splash recovered from the ‘Golden Fleece' shipwreck

But shipwreck coins weren't always so desirable. In fact, until fairly recently, the opposite was the case, says Heritage Auctions Numismatist Thomas Ribeiro. "Until about a decade ago, a shipwreck coin was a damaged coin," he says. "No one wanted to collect them because they were considered to be diminished in value just like if they had a hole or a scratch on them. Around 2010, people started to understand their historical importance."

Historically significant treasures from shipwrecks include coins and bullion from Spanish, British, French, Dutch, and other fleets stretching back hundreds of years. The 1715 Treasure Fleet, which comprises 11 Spanish ships and some 1,500 sailors lost in a hurricane along the east coast of Florida on July 31 of that year after setting off from Havana for Spain, is also heavily represented in the shipwreck coin market. Common coins from the Atocha and the 1715 Fleet and other Spanish wrecks include 8 Reales, or "pieces of eight" in the lingo of pirate movies, some in the form of cobs, crude irregularly shaped coins that were hand-struck in the New World. Precious metals, coins, and other valuables are also recovered from more modern ships, such as silver from World War I and II cargo vessels sunk by German submarines.

Most shipwreck coins on the market today originate from salvage operations in the 1970s and '80s, Ribeiro says, as there were fewer regulations on keeping recovered artifacts. The legal ownership of salvaged cargo varies depending on relevant laws in the state, territory, or nation where it is found, and the matter becomes more complicated for valuables recovered in international waters or spread over multiple jurisdictions.

To read the complete article, see:
Deep Value (https://intelligentcollector.com/deep-value/)

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