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| Big and Bold. Spanish Colonial cobs are wonderful coins that are heavy in the hand and rich with history. |
Coins from shipwrecks are very popular these days.
They have always been on the Necromancer's List.
Whereas most collectors chase after mint state and
high-condition coins, the shipwreck collectors are willing to make trade-offs:
provenance is prized at the expense of condition. This phenomenon represents
the nexus where necromancers meet set collectors.
It is small patch of common ground. But, it is a place that represents the best that relic collecting has to offer.
The necromancers revel in spirits that are contained (have
contaminated) the coin. Like in a conch shell, the sounds of the sea and the
ship splintering apart are present.
But even the set collectors cannot escape the kratophany
that characterizes a shipwrecked coin. After all, the allure of these relics
goes beyond condition grades. Despite best efforts, no amount of
rationalization can reduce the mystique of a shipwrecked coin.
Pictured here is an unusual survivor: An 8 Reales from
Potosi. It was struck high in the Andes from a mountain of silver (Cerro Rico)
in the 1630s. The cob was carried by pack animals to Lima, shipped via galleon
to Panama, where it was packed across the isthmus, and loaded on the San
Estevan y Los Angeles, a merchant ship.
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| It is essential that you have a certificate for a shipwreck cob like this one |
On the 11th of August 1639, the San Estevan was
in a convoy comprised of the Armada de la Guardia de la Carreera de Indias. The
San Estevan was carrying 324,000 pesos in silver, plus gold ingots. The ship
was separated in a storm off Bermuda, so it made its way towards Spain alone.
Captain Juan Ortado de Solier decided to head to Cadiz Bay
to avoid pirates, but his luck ran out when the ship ran into a squadron of
Barbary Corsairs just off the southern tip of Portugal. The San Estevan took
evasive action and sailed north towards Lisbon. But the Corsairs were closing
in.
The Captain defiantly ran the ship aground right under the
guns of the Portuguese fort at Paredes. Conflicting stories say that the ship
was set afire, others say the ship simply broke apart.
Soon afterwards, salvors recovered all of her cannon, three
anchors, but only three chests of silver specie. The rest was buried under the
sand.
All of this action was witnessed by this Piece-of-Eight.
This cob is a direct link to this history. It was there -- center stage. It was part of a small group of
fifteen coins discovered by divers in the 1970s and held by a Portuguese family
until the 1990s. I purchased it from Dan Sedwick several years later. This cob has been a delight to own.
If you want to conjure up spirits from the past, then hold a
shipwrecked coin in your palm. The darker emotions born of loss and
destruction are potent and imbue shipwreck coins – like this one – with an energy that can be felt every time you hold it.
