Tek Sing, sunk in 1822 in the South China Sea
Inasmuch as she was not a treasure ship, the Lady Burgess was not salvaged in her own time and was therefore untouched when the salvage company Arqueonautas located her remains in 1999 and recovered a modicum of Spanish silver bust-type 8 reales and British gold guineas that had been among private specie on board the ship.
The huge Chinese junk Tek Sing (“true star”), laden with porcelain, was on her way to Java when she hit a reef and sank, to the demise of all but 198 of the approximately 1800 souls on board. In 1999 the famous salvager Michael Hatcher and his team found the Tek Sing and recovered more than 350,000 pieces of porcelain from the site. The majority of these pieces were sold in a massive auction by Nagel (Germany) on November 17-25, 2000.
HMS Athenienne, sunk in 1806 off Sicily The British Naval ship Athenienne was traveling from Gibraltar to Malta when she suddenly struck the fabled “Esquerques” reef some 80 miles from Sicily (Italy) and sank on October 20, 1806. Over a hundred survivors made it to Sicily in longboats, but many more hundreds perished in the wreck. Modern salvage of the Athenienne in the 1970s produced about 4,000 Spanish colonial silver bust-type 8 reales (about 10 per cent of the total believed to be on board), of which only about 500 were more than just featureless slivers.
Sabina, sunk in 1842 off South Africa A Spanish vessel returning to Spain from Manila with the retired governor and his wealth, the Sabina wrecked off Cape Recife on August 8, 1842. She was located in our time by the salvage company Sealit, who recovered thousands of coins and donated them to the Port Elizabeth museum in South Africa.
Admiral Gardner, sunk in 1809 off the southeast coast of England
Santo Andre, sunk in 1856 off the Cape Verde Islands, west of Africa
Along with her sister-ship Britannia, the English East Indiaman Admiral Gardner was outbound with an immense cargo (48 tons!) of copper coins for circulation in India when both ships sank in a storm on the Goodwin Sands on January 24, 1809. Ten lives were lost, as was all the cargo. The coins were recovered in modern times, literally a million of them packed in wax inside wooden barrels.
The Santo Andre was a Spanish galera that sank on July 25, 1856, on Rifona Reef off Boavista Island in the Cape Verde Islands. The wrecksite was salvaged in our time by different companies beginning in 1993 and ending in 1996, yielding thousands of Spanish and French silver coins and small artifacts.
“Coconut wreck,” sunk ca. 1810 in deep water off Bermuda
“Fort Capron treasure” (Gordy-Ashley gold), sunk in 1857 off Ft. Pierce, Florida
This fascinating find has been touted as the deepest treasure wreck ever found, and it should hold that title for a long time! While searching in 1999 for Gus Grissom’s space capsule Liberty Bell 7 (lost in a test at sea, in which Grissom nearly died) from the Mercury program of 1961, underwater explorer Curt Newport (supported by the Discovery Channel) noticed an unidentified anomaly at a depth of 16,300 feet—not the space capsule (which was eventually found and recovered), but something interesting to be investigated later. That day came in 2001 when Michael McDowell used a pair of Russian submarines to view the wreck, whereupon they discovered the remains of a wooden trading vessel loaded with coconuts! A chest full of over 1300 silver coins was soon recovered, along with a small, ornate gold box containing 13 gold coins wrapped in a newspaper dated August 6, 1809. These gold coins were sold at auction in 2008 by Stack’s in New York, who dubbed this the “Coconut wreck,” despite its earlier names (given by divers and promoters) of “Piña Colada wreck” and “Atlantic Target Expedition wreck”. The silver coins were first offered at auction by us in 2008 and 2009.
See article by John Kleeberg in our Auction #9.
Douro, sunk in 1882 off Cape Finisterre, Spain The British Royal Mail Steamer Douro was en route to England from Portugal when she collided with the Spanish steamship Yrurac Bat and sank in the early morning hours of April 2, 1882, in deep water off the northwest coast of Spain. All but six people on board survived, but the ship and its cargo of tens of thousands of gold coins were a total loss. The wreck was found and salvaged in 1995 by Sverker Hallstrom and Nigel Pickford using a remoteoperated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of 1,500 feet. The cargo of gold coins, mostly British sovereigns was sold at auction by Spink (London) in 1996.
“Manila Bay Treasure,” dumped in 1942 off the Philippines The Philippine Islands, along with Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico, became US territories after the Spanish-American War in 1898. In 1903 the US began to strike coins for the Philippines, including a set of commemorative coins in 1936 featuring US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Philippines Governor General Frank Murphy and Philippines President Manuel Quezon. There was also a “dollar” medal made for the Philippines in 1920 featuring US President Woodrow Wilson. In World War II the Japanese invaded the Philippines. Fearful of looting, US General MacArthur and the retreating Philippine government dumped millions of dollars of silver coins into Manila Bay in 1942. After the US liberated the Philippines in 1945, Manila Bay became a popular site for salvage and thousands of coins were recovered.
Cabalva, sunk in 1818 near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean A 1200-ton British East Indiaman on her way to India, the Cabalva struck on a reef in the Cargados Carajos (also known as the Shoals of St. Brandon) and quickly broke apart. After hauling themselves up on the dry reefs and islets, the officers and crew of the ship began plundering the cargo and even established a temporary “Beer Island,” where the ample rations of rescued alcohol were being consumed at a great rate over the course of three weeks, much to the horror of the other survivors. Upon their eventual rescue, the crew expressed regret in having to leave Beer Island, where plenty of stockpiled booze had to be left behind. In 1985 divers located the site of the Cabalva and recovered many Spanish bust-type 8 reales.
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