Silver from the Beautiful British Virgin Islands, The Sunken Treasure Series Continues

Welcome to the new week everyone! It's been a busy morning for me so far trying to catch some work that piled up over the weekend. But I suppose it's something to be grateful, much better to have your services in demand than not. Always best to be thankful for what you do have, because there are always people much worse off in my experience.

Moving onto the real purpose of today's post. I started writing this a coupe days back and finally decided to finish it up. Over the past year I've been sharing a series of silver coins produced by the British Virgin Islands in 1985. I started collecting them years ago and have all but one now I believe, and have shared most of the series. The coins celebrate the Sunken Ship Treasures of the Caribbean, a beautiful set of coins!

Today's coin from the series is the Bells. Ships back in the the 1500's through the 1900's would almost always have a bell with the ship's name engraved on it. Many still do today. On old shipwrecks these are priceless artifacts and not a common find. Here's my coin of the day:

About the coin:

From numista.com

This coin was produced by the Franklin Mint in Wawa, Pennsylvania. Their coins were always produced in sterling silver (92.5% silver) which is kind of odd, but it's just what they did. As a result they tend to oxidize easily, but they are very cool silver coins. The melt value of this silver is $29.48, but worth much more to collectors. Although not horribly valuable, it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask around $40 for one of these.

Silver prices continue to climb, so investing in silver is always a great idea in my non professional opinion! Now onto more information about some sunken treasures, the true fun part of these posts!

Lost 1715 Treasure Fleet

livescience.com

1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels, LLC, silver found off the Florida coast

About a week ago it was announced that divers off of Florida's Treasure Coast had recovered over one million dollars in silver coins. As exciting as this find is, it's a mere drop in the bucket compared to the vast amounts of treasure still waiting to be found along the ocean floor and beaches in central Florida.

After the Spanish conquistadors had successfully taken control of much of Central and South America they began to plunder it's treasures for the Spanish Monarchy. Each year a fleet of treasure laden ships would sail from Havana, Cuba to Spain loaded with all sorts of treasures. Most arrived without incident, but some met an entirely different fate. One such fleet was that of 1715 that set sail for Spain in July of that year. At two in the morning of July 31st they ran straight into a hurricane along the eastern Florida coat line. Eleven of the twelve ships were smashed against the reefs and sank into the Atlantic Ocean killing more than 1,000 men and losing countless amounts of silver and gold.

The Florida coast line along the wreck sites is now known as the treasure coast. Gold and silver coins are buried deep in the sand along the beaches and some periodically wash up onshore during strong storms. Anything you find above the high tide line is usually considered fair game to claim as your own. A metal detector is a very handy item in this type of search. I've tried my luck several times there but always walked away empty handed. But at least the search was fun!

Offshore treasure belongs to the state of Florida, however, 80% of finds are owned by Queens Jewels, LLC out of New York. If you want to dive the sites and recover treasure you have to subcontract with the company and self fund your dives and equipment. Don't forget that most of the treasure is buried under twenty or thirty feet of sand from hurricanes over the years, so getting down to it isn't cheap. Personally I would stick to the shoreline!

Henrietta Marie

transgriot.blogspot.com

Not may ship's bells have been found in older shipwrecks, but when found they immediately tell you the name of the lost ship. The one featured on the coin is the Henrietta Marie with a bell from 1699. It wasn't a treasure ship but was something used for much darker purpose, exploitation of human beings as slaves.

Built most likely in France sometime in the 1600's, the Henrietta Marie was taken by the British at some point although when it unclear. It was likely during the Seven Years War. It was then bought by slavers who turned to ship into a slave ship to carry unfortunate souls sold into slavery in Africa to the English slavers who took them to the Caribbean as laborers. After it's second journey to the Caribbean it set sail from Port Royal, Jamaica after delivering it's human cargo in May 1700. Now loaded with sugar, cotton, dyewoods and ginger, it set sail for England.

Along the way the ship met with disaster sinking the vessel as it struck New Ground Reef in Marquesas Keys, approximately 35 miles (56 km) west of Key West, Florida. Seventeen crew were killed and the vessel never heard from again being lost to the Caribbean until 1972. The Mel Fisher Company located it with a magnetometer while searching for sunken treasure ships. Initial investigation found some of the ship intact but as soon it was realized it was a slave vessel, it was reburied in the sand to be later investigated by archeologists.

In 1982 a team reinvestigated the site and found the ship's bell confirming it's identity. It's one of the few slave ship wrecks ever found. It provided thousands of artifacts that have been shared with museums around the world and are currently on display at the Mel Fisher Museum.

Slavery was a horrendous chapter in human history that has existed since the dawn of human kind. Although technically illegal in all nations, slavery still exists today under different names as forced labor, sexual exploitation, forced marriages, and child labor. Greed, lust and power are a major driver and have been a plague on mankind throughout recorded history, and sadly probably always will be. However, I do hope that slavery in all it's forms can be eradicated from our planet in the near future once at for all no matter what name is used to justify it.

That will warp up my post for today, I do hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments below. And as always thank you so much for your friendship and support, it's greatly appreciated! Have a great week everyone!

References:

https://en.numista.com/43932

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1715_Treasure_Fleet

https://allthatsinteresting.com/florida-1715-treasure-fleet-coins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Marie

Disclaimer

I am not a financial planner and this isn't financial advice. Please always do your own research before investing your money. You worked hard enough to earn it!

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