Featured Shipwreck and Ancient Coins: Historic Real Treasures

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Featured Shipwreck and Ancient Coins: The Rarest and Best

Welcome to our Gallery of the finest and rarest coins Historic Real Treasures has to offer. Every month we proudly select a small group of coins to educate and introduce our clients to numismatic rarities that they will not see elsewhere on-line. Take this opportunity to read about and study these numismatic treasures. Even if a coin of this rarity and quality sells quickly in the hot cob or ancient market, we will leave it posted so that you study and enjoy.

On July 31, 1715, a savage hurricane swept across the Bahamas Channel from the northeast, catching in its path the Spanish treasure fleet on its way from Havana to Spain. It was a disaster to the fleet and to the King of Spain Phillip V. His fortunes rose and fell with the arrival or loss of the fleet. He often faced bankruptcy.

This fleet was very important because it was the first fleet leaving the new world in four years. It carried an accumulation of gold & silver coins and bullion from the New World mints.

There were twelve vessels, five of these from General Ubilla's Nueva España fleet, six of General Echeverz and a French vessel. The French vessel accompanied the fleet back to Spain for protection and was the only one that survived. The rest of the fleet disintegrated on the jagged coral reefs of Florida between Fort Pierce and Sebastian Inlet.

Over seven hundred lives were lost, including General Ubilla, and millions in gold and silver was scattered over the beaches and reefs a few hundred yards offshore. There was a salvage effort by the Spanish, but when their work was done, a great quantity of treasure remained undiscovered. One of the survivors, Captain Sebastian Mendez, the pilot of Nuestra Senora del Carmen, spoke of "A hurricane that came on from the east-northeast so strongly that although he has sailed the seas for many years and suffered through many tempests he has never seen another like it for violence, and his ship and all the rest were lost . . ."
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Details: 2 Escudos under Carlos II - Assayer Buenaventure de Arce (1692-1722) Mint: Nuevo Reino (Santa Fe de Bogotá) This beautiful and sharply piece was struck between 1705-1710 ( based on the large dot at the bottom of Sicily & Naples ). Mounted in 18K Gold, this coin was part the treasure recovered from the 1715 Fleet.

( to give you a better idea this coin is about the size of a nickel to that you have to add the bezel, making a gorgeous 25mm piece (pendant diameter). It is a very nice piece either for men or women. The bail it has plenty of space with about 6mm clearance.
Reference: Lasser/ Restrepo TYPEM66 by Arce page 139

The piece comes with two hand singed certificates of authenticity, one by Joseph Karon and the other one by Augi Garcia from Historic Real Treasures both as shown.

FLE-9882 SOLD

"The Nemean Lion (Latin: Leonem Nemaeum) was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived in Nemea. It was eventually killed by Heracles. The lion was usually considered the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, but it was also said to have fallen from the moon, offspring of Zeus and Selene. A third origin has it being born of the Chimera.

The first of Heracles' twelve labours was to slay the Nemean Lion and bring back its skin. The lion had been terrorizing the area around Nemea, and had a skin so thick that it was impenetrable to weapons. When Heracles first tackled it, his weapons - bow and arrow, a club made from an olive tree (which he pulled out of the ground himself) and a bronze sword - were all ineffective. At last Heracles threw away his weapons and wrestled the lion to the ground, eventually killing it by thrusting his arm down its throat and choking it to death. (In some variants, Heracles actually strangled the beast.)

Heracles spent hours trying unsuccessfully to skin the lion, and gradually growing angrier as it appeared he would be unable to complete his first task. Eventually Athena, in the guise of an old crone, helped Heracles to realise that the best tools to cut the hide were the creature's own claws. Thus, with a little divine intervention, Heracles completed his first task. Thereafter, he wore the impenetrable hide as armour. King Eurystheus, Heracles' taskmaster for the labours, was so frightened by Heracles' fearsome guise that he hid in a large bronze jar, and from that moment forth communicated all his instructions to Heracles through a herald. In art the hero is usually depicted wearing the Nemean lion skin, its jaws forming the peak of the helmet while its great clawed paws are knotted at his chest forming a hooded cloak, and he is usually leaning on his club, or hanging it on his shoulder. We see this type of representation in the coins minted under Alexander the Great; However, this coin is representing the exact moment of Hercules killing the lion that later will be represented and mentioned before.

KINGS of PAEONIA. Lykkeios. Circa 359-335 BC. AR Tetradrachm 12.6 grams and 24x22mm. Laureate head of Apollo right with short hair and not bearded as usually found on these pieces / [LU]KK-EIOU, Herakles strangling the Nemean lion; bow and quiver to right. AMNG III/2, 6; Paeonian Hoard 72; SNG ANS 1021. Rare. EF.

CODE:HE-7800 SOLD

What makes this shipwreck and discovery so unique is that the coins that were recovered are from a transitional period in the history of the Mexico City Mint. In the early 1730's, the introduction of new minting equipment lead to the gradual phasing out of older coining methods, numerous different coinage types and varieties came together. In 1733 the mint produced more different types and varieties of 8 Reales than in any other single year. Four major different types of these were: cobs, cobs struck with "Klippe" dies, Klippes and the Milled "Pillar Dollar". 1733 marked the end of the "Cob" coinage production. One remarkable detail about the Spanish Colonial coinage is that 8 Reales or "pillar dollars", minted in Mexico City, circulated in The United States of America as legal tender until 1857.

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Ship: The Rooswijk 1739

Denomination: 8 Reales - VERY RARE

Type: Pillar
Details: total weight 26 grams

Approx Diameter : 40mm

Reign: Philip V - Date: 1733
Mint: Mexico City / Assayer: single letter assayer F

Code: RJM07-P33F

Superb First official year of this Pillar - Details: 1733 pillars are really scarce not to mention coming from a wreck. This piece is even more scarce as it is a the variety of single letter assayer "F" on the reverse. You barely will see a single letter F varietiy on 1733 pillars... the even more rare 1732 are the only ones that has been offered and have the single letter F on the reverse... A theory may be that they used the reverse dies of the 1732 thus the single F on a very few 1733 Pillars. This is a truly numismatic rarity.

CODE:RJW07-P33F SOLD

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