The 1715 Fleet: 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 . . ." The treasure rested for almost 250 years until its discovery in the 1960's by the Real Eight Co. INC, the original and first company dedicated to "Treasure Hunting" in The U.S.
 

COB COINS FROM THE 1715 WRECKS

Lou Ullian is a surviving, original member of the Real Eight Co., the divers who first found and worked the several Spanish shipwrecks of 1715 along Florida's east coast. He is also a well-known authority on the numismatics of those fated vessels. He was recently asked by a PLVS VLTRA subscriber if he could provide a statistical accounting of the silver coins which have been retrieved from the ships' wreckage. The following is Lou's response to that challenge.

"The majority of the silver coins recovered from the 1715 fleet wrecks were minted in Mexico. They were hand made and called "cob" coins. The largest number of these coins were found on General Ubilla's Almiranta the so-called "Cabin Wreck" by the Real Eight Co. during the early 1960s. The company recovered over 150,000, mostly Mexico City mint, eight- and four-real cobs, an equivalent of 22 chests in bags of coins, and 40,000 to 50,000 loose coins. Three intact chests were found. Based on the intact chests, it was determined that a typical chest would contain three bags of coins, with each bag holding 1,500 coins a mixture of 8-reales and four-reales. A total of 57 individual bags* were found. A few chests had Potosí and Lima coins, but by far most (over 95%) of the coins were Mexican."

"Dated coins were rare; about 10% showed any part of a date, and fully dated coins were very rare about less than 2%. The reasons for the lack of dated coins were the way they were made and the design used on the Mexican coins during the late 1600s and early 1700s. The design on the coins had a shield on the obverse, with the date on the upper left-hand edge of the coin. The coin planchets were cut from a bar weighing 68 reales; eight coins of 8-reales were cut from the bar, leaving four Reales for the mint. The planchets were hot before being struck with the dies, and they were hammered on the edges to flatten the planchet and make it larger in area. This would dish out the area where the date should appear, making it unlikely that the die would make a date imprint on the coin. Potosí and Lima coins during this time period had the date located near the center of the coin, so most of them showed a date." *[Equivalent amount of coins.]
Written by Lou Ullian copyright Real Eight Co.


TWO MINT ASSAYERS IMMORTALIZED BY THE SPANISH PLATE FLEET OF 1715

When in 1535 the Spanish crown authorized their first coining house in the Americas, the appointment went to the New Spain capital of Mexico City. The New World's first Casa de Moneda began its production of coins of silver and copper in 1536 under extremely strict guidelines. The rulers of Spain, Carlos and Juana, had dictated the denominations, weights, fineness, and appearance of the new mintage, and the various duties in operating a mint were precisely detailed. The responsibility for the exactness of each piece of silver struck was on the head of the mint's chief assayer, whose position was sold to the highest qualified bidder. His initial was to appear on each coin as a testament to the weight and purity of the piece under penalties too drastic to mention here.

The first man up to this challenge (for a good salary) was Francisco del Rincon, assayer "R". For a period of nearly forty years preceding the tragic loss of the Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Florida in 1715, two initials appeared on the lion's share of Mexican coins being recovered even today from the sites of that disaster. Martín Lopez, initial "L", served as chief assayer from 1677 until 1705, his mark appearing on all silver and the first gold coins emanating from the famed "House of Money" in Mexico City. His coinage, and that of his successor, had been in storage here in the Americas for over a decade due to the risk of transporting these riches during a war in Europe which ended in 1713. A large shipment of this critical wealth was ordered by King Philip V in 1714, resulting in the assembly of the fleet of 1715.

A new assayer won the coveted office of chief assayer at the mint in Mexico in 1705; José Eustaquio de León y Losa assumed those duties upon the departure of Lopez. To differentiate his mark from that of his predecessor, de León y Losa used his first initial, the "J" as seen on the vast majority of Mexican coins recovered from the fated treasure galleons of 1715. He served the crown well until 1724. It was during his term in office that the design of Mexico's coinage, gold and silver, became the beautiful pattern first seen on the output of 1714, then 1715. To us divers of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet, the initial "J" became as familiar as a family member, perhaps a best friend. Written by Ernie Richards copyright ENRADA Publications.

Sources: Lou Ullian - Ernie Richards.