On 23rd of December 1940, two German Heinkel bombers attacked a convoy of British ships awaiting in Ardmucknish Bay, Benderloch, near Oban in Scotland. Among the damaged vessels was a Dutch ship, the S.S. Breda. Built in 1921, Breda was 400 feet long and weighed about 7,000 tons. Bound for India to help build an air strip, her manifest included Tiger Moth motorcycles,cement, leather and a Rolls Royce. As they tried to tow her to safety, she listed and sank, with her masts still well above water. For years, divers practiced on her, as she was a well known shipwreck. Later, the masts had to be cut off to alleviate the obstruction to shipping. The S.S. Breda lay there, dived on, but in many ways undiscovered because of the darkness of the loch. Then the Tralee Bay Diving and Watersports Club made a most amazing discovery. In one of the long hidden cargo holds was found the remains of paper, but not just any paper can survive 50 years under water. This was fine quality paper used for the printing of banknotes! Portals, who was owned by the Bank of England, had manufactured special paper for the printing of Indian banknotes, watermarked with the portrait of King George VI. The wooden boxes had been eaten away and the edges of the uncut sheets were a little ragged, but this treasure was still intact! In order to keep the find secret, the divers refilled their air tanks at three different locations some ten miles apart. That part of Scotland is close knit and they wanted to protect their treasure find for as long as possible. Over the years, salvage rights to the hull had been obtained but no one had thought to get the rights for the contents. This was quickly rectified and on the 11th September , 1992, when the Deputy Receiver of Wrecks, Oban, gave those rights to the diving crew. This banknote paper is an authentic relic of that shipwreck. It was originally destined to become an India ten rupee banknote. The water mark shows a likeness of King George VI, the denomination and the words, “RESERVE BANK OF INDIA” Below are pictures of the watermarked paper money recovered from the wreck...
very educational! im suprised the paper lasted soo long in the water! thank you for posting. i enjoyed reading it. cody
brokencompass: I see you posted this story at Coin Community also, but you haven't told us why you are sharing the story. Do you have any special connection with this story? Or are you just sharing an interesting read about history and numismatics? Do you collect/own any examples of these unprinted notes? It's quite an interesting story for sure. A rare find, for paper to survive so long in water, though it sounds like it was shielded by layers of heavier materials and the cold waters probably helped keep bacteria and other creatures from destroying it totally. If the pulp is held firmly in place, even when totally submerged the interlocking fibers of the paper should stay put and not come undone, even after all these years in such conditions, and especially since they'd been created under significant pressure then bound into whatever crates and containers kept them safe. Pretty neat! It appears someone who had these sheets in their possession trimmed out notes created collectibles from the paper stock. I read about this through some information available online, probably the same info where you borrowed some of the text of this story. Here is the link so that others who might be interested in the same information and seeing an image of the collector item, plus the source for the unquoted words can also read about it: 'WORLD WAR II TREASURE NOTES' [PDF] Thanks for sharing the story. I enjoyed it. :thumb:
Very interesting, thanks for posting this! What's the typical price this banknote paper is selling for these days? Dave
They used to appear on Ebay quite frequently. I bought a set of single notes 5-6 years ago for $20.00. There are a couple pieces up now. The answer to Krispy's question as to why Brokencompass posted this is because he is selling a sheet and some pieces on Ebay.
They used to appear on Ebay quite frequently. I bought a set of single notes 5-6 years ago for $20.00. There are a couple pieces up now. The answer to Krispy's question as to why Brokencompass posted this is because he is selling a sheet and some pieces on Ebay.
@Krispy/ @Lettow : A friend gave these to me a year ago and it has been collecting dust. A few weeks ago, I was consolidating my collection and decided to only collect coins. I started looking for more information about these notes and started researching them so that I knew what I was having (and eventually sell it). This is probably the second best thing that happenned to Indian numismatics/ paper money after Admiral Gardner. I posted the story here because I felt it was very interesting and figured others might find it interesting too. If I wanted to sell it, I would have posted the same in the Advertising section along with a link to my auction There is also a new shipwreck called the S.S. Gairsoppa that is scheduled to be salvaged for the silver coins it was supposed to be carrying at the time. This shipwreck might have many coins from British India since it was a British Merchant ship containing tons of silver. This might even be more numismatically enriching than Gardner shipwreck. More Information here http://abcnews.go.com/Business/240-million-silver-salvaged-wwii-ship-sunk-nazi/story?id=14607820#.Tyhpl1wS2Ag
I feel that the paper might have been packed very securely, water resistant/ water proof to protect it from moisture that was sure to fill the ship while the ship travelled from the United Kingdom to India. May be this and the fact that the ship sank in relatively shallow water might have prevented it from becoming wood pulp. I found the following in another article about these notes. I will write to the salvage company and ask for more information. Will post here if I hear back from them.
BTW portals was never owned by the bank, they were papermakers to the Box for 250 years, but the were a family owned private firm in Hampshire
