XF-Details 1855-O Half Dollar (Shipwreck Effects), NGC Blue Core, SS Republic wreck

Well, I have been meaning to add a shipwreck coin at some point to my collection. I figured if I was ever going to have a details coin, might as well be something from the bottom of the ocean versus something Billy Bob inherited from grandpa and cleaned in his trailer with spit shine.

I kind of figured that it would be a Mexican or Spanish coin, but then this one crossed my path and I said.....well, why not an American one then? Paid $270, though I remember when these first hit the market back in 2004 or so, and the asking price being $800 to $1,000. I couldn't afford anywhere near that back then, and what a good thing that was in retrospect.



Feel free to share any seated liberty halves you want, or your own shipwreck coins from wherever they may be.

 

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1855 O/0

 

Your's the O/o variety pup die chip neck

 

Cool, I didn't even notice that until you mentioned it. Good to know

 

https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plu...ollars/seated-liberty-half-dollars-1839-1891/

 

I had no idea that this was probably the beginning of "shipwrecked coins" as a thing until I started to read old threads from 2004.

What a blast. People declaring that they would never accept that term, that these coins should have been body bagged or tossed away, had no one in their right mind would ever buy a coin that was corroded, or how NGC was trying to con the community by selling environmentally damaged coins with a fake label.

And then you pass forward to today, shipwrecked coins are popular, there is a market for them, the term is accepted, and no one launches into an essay-long rant about them.

Don't get me wrong, I would never pay problem-free prices for a salt water corroded coin from a wreck, but at the right price they can be kind of cool. And enough people seem to think so because there is a market for encapsulated coins from old ship wrecks.

 

I've shown this many times before but it's cool so....

 

I have looked at a lot of the El Cazador coins at shows, and many look cleaned up or severely corroded. I found this one at the last local coin show in the fall, and decided to take it.

 

Try finding a 1 peso Philippian that doesn't have that shipped wreck damage on it.
Just about every one were crated before the Japanese invasion and dumped in the Manila bay. Even at war time price of silver an oz. wasn't going to be captured by the invaders .

 

Mel Fisher and company ..... the day the Atocha was found.

 

That one has probably retoned since it was pulled out and cleaned, but they are all cleaned because you obviously can't just simply pull a coin out of the ocean and put it straight into a slab with all the salts and minerals from ocean water.

 

TIBERIUS & DIVUS AUGUSTUS AR tetradrachm. Alexandria, Egypt. TIBEPIOY KAISAR SEBASTOS, laureate head right. Reverse - QEOS SEBASTOS, radiate head of Divus Augustus right. Milne 38, Koln 48. 24mm, 8.3g.

Likely a sea-find, this coin is lighter than its contemporaries due to leaching of the baser metals.

I like sea finds. My final sea find (although I think it was a river shipwreck, in this case) is an unphotographed small cob, which I bought at a coin show about 15 years ago.