An Australian gold sovereign from the 1882 RMS Douro shipwreck

This recent purchase is my first Young Head Victoria sovereign and also my first Shield type sovereign. It also fulfills another item I’ve been wanting: a piece of gold with a shipwreck pedigree. The nice thing about gold is that it can survive seawater immersion for centuries without corrosion, so this coin has a straight Mint State grade with no “shipwreck effect” qualifiers.

The coin was struck at the Sydney mint in 1877 and was part of the cargo of the British Royal Mail steamship Douro, which sank in a nighttime collision with the Spanish ship Yrurac Bat off Cape Finisterre near the Spanish and Portuguese coast, on the evening of April 1, 1882.

All of Duoro’s passengers and 32 of her crew were saved, but the captain and five of his officers- and the ship’s treasure of gold coins and bullion- sank with Douro in 1,500 feet of water. 53 people aboard the Spanish ship also perished when it too sank.

The wreck was found in 1993 and salvage operations were completed by 1996. There were some 28,000 gold coins brought up from the Douro wreck. Most were gold sovereigns, but there were also some rare Brazilian and Portuguese coins.

I find shipwreck coins fascinating. I guess there’s the natural appeal of a historical gold coin here, but also some touches of romance, tragedy, and adventure. To me, it would have been a lovely enough coin anyway, but the added history behind the shipwreck pedigree made it irresistible, so I threw caution to the wind and did what I had to do to beat the competition and win the auction.



https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49106726

 

True, some sea-salvaged gold does get encrusted as a result of the seawater interacting with the base metals the coins were alloyed with.

One of the dealers who handled the RMS Douro sovereigns did mention that a number of them had “rust spots”. Not technically accurate (since neither gold nor the copper in the alloy will rust, both being nonferrous metals), but it seems those probably did suffer some deposits:

Apparently most of the Australian coins like mine were nice, though, and in higher grade.

 

You’ve got a piece of one of the truly legendary shipwrecks there. And no doubt you didn’t have to pay the eye watering price an SS Central America coin would’ve set you back!

PS- it is remarkable to me how they remotely salvaged such tiny nuggets from so deep in the ocean, with ROVs and such.

 

I’d totally pay 80 bucks for one of those slabbed nuggets.