The loss and recovery of the SS Egypt treasure. On 19 May 1922, the P&O ocean liner SS Egypt departed Tilbury, Essex, bound for Bombay. She was carrying 338 passengers and crew, alongside a massive, closely guarded state treasure destined for India: 5.5 tonnes of gold bars, 43 tonnes of silver bullion, and 165,979 gold sovereigns. The entire cargo was valued at over £1 million at the time. In modern value this is the equivalent of £73 million today ( $98 million ) however convert the gold and silver and we have a value of over £200 million ($300 million). The next day, as the liner entered the Celtic Sea near the French island of Ushant, a thick, impenetrable fog rolled in. Captain Collyer slowed the engines to a crawl, but the precaution was not enough. Out of the mist emerged the French steamship Seine, fitted with a reinforced bow built for ice-breaking. The Seine rammed directly into the Egypt's side. Just twenty minutes later, the grand liner slipped beneath the waves, taking 87 souls and her immense fortune down to a depth of 70 fathoms (roughly 420 feet or 128 metres). Because of the extreme depth—far beyond the reach of standard diving capabilities of the era—the wreck became known across the maritime world as "the impossible salvage". High Tech at Depth: The Sorima Salvage and Diving Physiology It took until 1930 for the pioneering Italian salvage company Sorima (Società Ricuperi Marittimi), led by the eccentric Commander Giovanni Quaglia, to finally locate the upright hull of the Egypt. To conquer the crushing pressure of 70 fathoms, Sorima's chief diver, Alberto Gianni, had to tear up the traditional diving rulebook and think outside of the box. The Atmospheric Breakthrough Traditional "hard-hat" rubber diving suits were entirely useless at this depth; the water pressure would instantly crush a diver's joints or render them completely immobile. Instead, Sorima utilised Gianni’s revolutionary invention: a rigid, steel atmospheric observation shell. There were some diving suits available that had been designed in Germany (Atmospheric Diving Suit ADS), like the famous Neufeldt and Kuhnke armoured suits or the Galeazzi suit. While the salvage company initially tried using these multi-jointed, armoured diving suits on the SS Egypt wreck in 1930, they found them virtually useless at 400 feet (120-130 meters). The immense water pressure locked the ball-bearing joints solid, meaning the diver couldn’t move their arms or legs to do any physical labour. What They Actually Used: The Torricelli Observation Chamber To successfully conquer the SS Egypt, Sorima pioneered a much simpler, highly effective approach: they stripped away the useless armoured arms and legs entirely. They produced an observation chamber in which the diver was bolted in and could communicate by telephone. The Physiology From a medical perspective, this capsule changed everything. Because the steel hull was entirely rigid, the interior remained at a constant, unpressurised 1 atmosphere (1 atm)—exactly like the air at sea level. Because the diver was not breathing compressed air under ambient deep-sea pressure, their body did not absorb excess nitrogen. The diver did wear a rudimentary oxygen rebreathing apparatus similar to that used in mines rescue which scrubbed the Carbon Dioxide which extended his bottom time because without it, he would gradually asphyxiate in his steel sealed coffin. No Decompression Sickness: The diver was entirely immune to "the bends" and nitrogen narcosis. They could be winched directly to the surface in minutes without needing hours of tedious, staged decompression. The Ultimate Trade-off: The diver had no mechanical arms or physical contact with the wreck. They were purely the "eyes" of the operation. Suspended in the pitch-black, murky depths, the diver relied entirely on a hardwired telephone headset to verbally direct the surface crew. He dictated precisely where to place heavy explosive charges to blast open the Egypt's multiple decks and guided the massive, mechanical clamshell grabs down into the exposed bullion room. Because of the poor visibility the capsule was suspended close to the wreck and the crane grabs which was a highly dangerous proposition as it could be entangled or damaged by falling debris. We can see how this system operated in the image below. Life Aboard the Artiglio The definitive contemporary accounts of this arduous, multi-season operation come from British journalist David Scott, who lived alongside the crew and published two classic books: 70 Fathoms Deep and The Egypt’s Gold. All of my shipboard images are taken out of these books which are now out of copyright. Scott originally sailed on the salvage ship Artiglio, which successfully found the wreck but at that time didn’t salvage it. This was an achievement in itself with the technology of the day and the chapter in Scott's book describing this is aptly called "needle in a haystack". Tragically, the original vessel was destroyed and 12 crew members were killed during a separate 1930 operation when a sunken munitions ship they were clearing unexpectedly detonated. A new salvage ship was immediately commissioned. Scott described life on board both vessels accurately, the duties of the crew and their different personalities and wrote about everyone from the steward to the Captain. As a consequence of his work 70 Fathoms Deep, the memory of these brave men is perpetuated. If you search Wikipedia today, it inaccurately labels the replacement ship as the Artiglio II. In reality, the highly superstitious Italian mariners absolutely refused to sail on a vessel bearing the suffix "II", viewing it as an invitation for a second disaster. The new ship was simply christened Artiglio. The salvage began in earnest but the dangers of diving and using high explosives were exacerbated by the very thing that sunk the SS Egypt – Fog! That area of the Celtic Sea is renowned for bad weather and fog and the Atriglio was anchored in the middle of a main trade route so the dangers below the water were amplified by the dangers above the water! As well as describing the voyages and the technology, Scott's writings provide a rare, human glimpse into the crew's daily life under the dark shadow of Mussolini’s fascist regime. Despite speaking no Italian initially (and the crew speaking no English), they bonded deeply through shared danger, humour, and a makeshift mix of French. Scott’s records reveal the stark realities the crew faced back home, including capped low minimum wages and a bizarre "bachelor tax" imposed by a narcissistic Italian government desperate to engineer population growth. Eventually the team broke into the bullion room in 1932 and the salvage began. Caught in the Act: Collecting the Coin, Not the Grade By 1935, Sorima’s crews had successfully recovered 98% of the bullion inside the strongroom. In addition to the bullion, hundreds of thousands of Indian Rupee banknotes were salvaged which was still legal tender and these were sorted and dried. Among the very first treasures hauled up in the mechanical grabs were thousands of gold sovereigns. This is one of them that I was fortunate to acquire recently. 1915 Great Britain Sovereign - SS Egypt Recovery Obverse: King George V Left-Facing Portrait Reverse: St. George Slays the Dragon (B.P. Mintmark) Grade: NGC XF Details (Cleaned) Pedigree: Official Board of Trade Presentation Issue 1 of 1000. Many coin collectors shy away from specimens slabbed by third-party grading services that carry a details; "Cleaned" label. For condition purists, it is a detractor. But for a history collector, it is a badge of authenticity. Through research compiled from period magazines and contemporary newspaper accounts, an extraordinary archival photograph from David Scott's The Egypt's Gold reveals the ultimate truth. The photograph shows the salvage leaders—the Capo, Quaglia, and Carli—huddled on the deck of the Artiglio, actively washing and cleaning the freshly recovered gold sovereigns in a basin of water straight out of the mechanical grab. The "cleaned" state of these coins isn’t the result of modern tampering by a coin dealer or collector; it is a literal step of the 1932 salvage process itself. It is history caught in the act, and there is a very high probability that this specific coin was sitting in that basin on the deck of the Artiglio. A Tale of Two Shipwrecks: Egypt vs. Central America To put the scale of the SS Egypt recovery into context, I’ve compared its treasure against the most famous American treasure wreck, the SS Central America (the "Ship of Gold"), which sank in a hurricane in 1857. Feature SS Egypt (Sunk 1922) SS Central America (Sunk 1857) Primary Cargo SS Egypt : Mixed: ~5.5 tonnes Gold, 43 tonnes Silver, 165,979 Sovereigns SS Central America ;Pure Gold: ~30,000 lbs (13.6 tonnes) of California Rush Bullion Depth of Wreck SS Egypt :70 Fathoms (128 metres / 420 feet) SS Central America: 1,200 Fathoms (2,200 metres / 7,200 feet) Salvage Era & Tech SS Egypt :1930s: Atmospheric Bell, Explosives, & Mechanical Grabs SS Central America: 1980s–2010s: Deep-sea Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) Value at Sinking SS Egypt: Over £1,054,000 sterling SS Central America: Approximately $8,000,000 USD Modern Bullion / Asset Value SS Egypt :Approx. £200+ million /$270 million (metal content) SS Central America: Estimated $100–$150 million recovered numismatic value While the SS Central America remains an unmitigated titan in terms of raw gold volume driven by the height of the California Gold Rush, the SS Egypt stands as a monumental testament to human grit—a successful commercial salvage executed manually at a depth never before attempted by mankind. The Board of Trade and the Final Chapter Following the loss of the liner in 1922, the British Board of Trade (BOT) launched an immediate, highly public formal inquiry in London. The investigation fiercely scrutinised navigation protocols in the fog, the layout of the lifeboats, and the conduct of the crew. When Sorima defied the sceptics and raised the treasure in the early 1930s, the Board of Trade stepped in to mark the historical triumph. The first 1,000 gold sovereigns pulled from the deep were officially selected to be preserved as commemorative historical pieces. It was considered that the treasure would be assimilated back into the global economy and a decision was made to preserve the history of the salvage. The Board of Trade commissioned a limited run of custom, dark leather presentation boxes embossed with the majestic gold foil BOT coat of arms, accompanied by a formal Certificate of Authenticity. The remaining bullion was divided between the insurers at Lloyd's and Sorima, who took a hard-earned 50% split to cover their massive operating risks. I know collectors who collect type sets and year sets of coins but the beauty of a shipwreck coin with provenance is that it is more than a coin in a grading slab, we know where it has been, how it was recovered and the history surrounding the coin, the people and the event. This one is a tangible piece of deep-sea engineering history, maritime law, and the sheer defiance of the divers of the Artiglio.
Great coin @Dafydd. I am looking forward to reading this in more depth later today when I have more time.
You’ve really got the makings of a book with all the excellent, detailed posts in this thread, y’know…
I was pleased to pick this coin up at a South African coin auction recently. It is a gold 1/3 Mohur (5 Rupees) of the Madras Presidency, minted in 1820. It was recovered by divers from the East India Company ship, the Fame. The Mohur was first introduced between 1540 and 1545 by Sher Shah Suri, the founder of the Sur Empire. The name derives from the Persian word muhr, meaning "seal" or "signet ring," which relates to its function as an official, stamped unit of currency. Its introduction was intended to stabilse the post-conquest economy by uniting different regions and tribes under a single, standardised form of currency. This uniformity was designed to encourage trade, ensure consistent valuation, and foster administrative unity across the empire. Following its success in the Mughal economy, the Mohur was adopted by the East India Company to facilitate its vast trading operations. By the mid-18th century, the East India Company began minting Mohurs—notably in Bengal in 1766—to address a shortage of silver currency. For much of their history under British administration, Mohurs were treated as bullion rather than general legal tender. They were primarily intended for large-scale commerce between merchants and banks rather than for daily circulation. In 1835, following the Coinage Act, the British introduced a more uniform currency system. While attempts were made to establish the Mohur as a 15-rupee gold piece, it struggled to achieve widespread circulation, eventually serving more as a prestige coin or a store of value. When British rule formally commenced in 1858, the design was updated to include the portrait of the British Monarch to reflect imperial authority. The portraits of four monarchs—William IV, Queen Victoria, Edward VII, and George V—appeared on these coins before they were eventually discontinued in British India in 1918. The obverse of this coin features the Company’s coat of arms, complete with a lion holding a crown. The reverse bears the Persian legend Panj Rupiya Kampany Angrez Bahadur. This translates as, "Five Rupees [of the] Brave English Company." Bahadur also translates as Gallant or Honourable. These coins were minted to facilitate trade and reflect the complex administrative and commercial influence of the East India Company in South Asia during the early 19th century. The vessel Fame was a cargo ship built in 1816 in Calcutta. On 5 March 1822, she departed Madras, carrying a general cargo and several wealthy passengers bound for London. The journey took a turn for the worse after the ship stopped in Cape Town to resupply. On 14 April 1822, while attempting to depart Table Bay, the Fame encountered strong north-westerly winds and heavy swells. Despite the efforts of Captain William Clark to maintain control, the vessel "missed stays" and was driven onto the rocky points of Sea Point. The ship tragically broke in two, resulting in the loss of ten lives. For well over a century, the wreck of the Fame remained lost to time and the elements, effectively falling into oblivion. It was not until 1965 that the wreck site was finally rediscovered by the Bell brothers George and James who were diving in a thick Kelp forest looking for perlemoen (Abalone). They came across the scattered remains of an old sailing ship and recovered numerous British and Indian gold and silver coins and Spanish Colonial coins. Other artefacts included silver spoons and a broken ships bell. One of the passengers, Francis Farewell an ex Royal Navy officer, who survived the shipwreck, was a prominent person returning from service in India. He decided to stay on the Cape after the shipwreck and he set up a trading post in the Bay of Natal that later became the city of Durban. He was given a land grant by Shaka the King of the Zulus but was later killed during an inland expedition in 1829. The Fame was not large enough or ironically with its name, famous enough to have a great deal published about it and this is one of those shipwrecks where more is known about the salvaged coins than the ship itself. This coin is a typical example. Unfortunately, I could not find an image of the ship or Francis Farewell and no specific reference book. My information is taken from Malcolm Turner’s Shipwrecks and Salvage in South Africa. Published in 1987 the book references the “reputed” chest of gold coins lost by Clive of India when the Dodington was shipwrecked which was eventually found in 1999.
Both of these came out of a Heritage "Shipwreck" auction without either being attributed on the label. I picked them both up for a reasonable price. Don't know if they were in the auction because of additional information they had and didn't share or just because they have the look, especially the Bolivian piece. In retrospect I would rather have paid a little more and gotten a coin with provenance. Philip III - Philip IV Cob 8 Reales ND (1618-1628)-P XF Details (Cleaned) PCGS, Potosi mint. Lions and castles. 26.95gm. Sharp but doubled detail, partially due to being a flip-over double strike. Philip III Cob 8 Reales ND (1608-1609) Mo-A XF Details (Environmental Damage) PCGS, Mexico City mint, KM44, Cal-Type 162. 27.41gm.
Coins are likely shipwreck coins @Chris B . If they have been cleaned and show environmental damage they likely to have never reached Spain. If you join the 1715 Fleet Society their provenance expert Charlie Winn will run a search for you on his 25,000 coin database. Coins become separated in estate sales from COA's and provenance and if your coins are Atocha coins they are worth thousands. Had you bought them from Sedwick Auctions I would say you bought some nice cobs and you have what you have but Heritage are based on throughput and wouldn't have checked. An "A" mark on a Potosí coin corresponds to Juan Alvarez Reinaltes, who served as the assayer at the Potosí mint from 1586 to 1590. Because Juan Alvarez Reinaltes was an active assayer during the late 16th century, coins bearing his "A" mark are frequently found among the coins recovered from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sank in 1622. If this coin is on the Mel Fisher database you are into big bucks! You may be able to discover your own provenance.
On page 2 of this forum you will read about the sinking of the SS Tilawa. See https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-shipwreck-corner.417027/page-2 I picked up an interesting artefact at a coin show on the weekend relating to the Tilawa and it is a PCGS slab of one ounce of silver grains. The fact that the grains are .992 silver grain is historically interesting because it indicates this specific batch of grain retains the original raw purity profile of the wartime bullion recovered directly from the ocean floor. When the Tilawa’s bars were cast in India in 1942, they weren't modern refined .999 investment-grade silver—they were intended for standard Indian coinage. These grains were produced from a Tilawa bar without further refinement. This was a limited edition of 942 slabs. The main reason I am posting this is because I was really interested in the slab. When the dealer handed it to me I thought he had passed me two slabs to compare but it is two slabs welded together. I soon realised that one ounce of silver grains which is the same weight of a one ounce coin would be volumetrically larger than a coin and wouldn't easily fit in a standard slab. Here are some images of the artefact and I show a standard slab for comparison , including an edge view. I have a slab of SS Central America gold grains but of course the contents are not a full ounce but a fraction and are easily contained in a standard slab. Any coin or artefact produced to commemorate this vessel keeps the lost and the survivors in our memories.
This is an interesting coin that turned up recently which was recovered from the SS Central America. It is an 1854 Chilean One Peso mintmark SO which stands for Santiago mint. It is in a Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) holder with a specialised pedigree label: "SS Central America Shipwreck / Pascual Esquerra Hoard." It is not that usual to be able to trace a coin that had belonged to a single individual recovered from a shipwreck and this is only my second one I own, the first being the Portuguese Brazilian 1753 gold 6200 Reis from the Dodington owned by Robert Clive of India I posted previously. While the 1857 tragedy of the S.S. Central America is legendary for its massive commercial shipments of California gold which flooded the market with previously very rare great condition gold $20 Gold Double Eagles, one of the most interesting numismatic discoveries from the wreck is a specialised, privately owned treasure: The Pascual Esquerra Hoard. Unlike the vast bulk of the ship's cargo, this hoard consists entirely of Chilean silver coins that have been definitively traced to a specific historical passenger. Pascual Esquerra. Who Was Pascual Esquerra? Esquerra was a wealthy Chilean and Spanish merchant based out of Valparaíso, Chile, and Zaragoza, Spain. In late summer 1857, he began a journey to return his personal fortune to Spain. In Panama, he joined an elite group of international travellers—including José Seguín (the Peruvian Minister to the U.S.) and Ange Richon (the Belgian Consul at Lima)—and boarded the S.S. Central America bound for New York. Esquerra, along with 425 others, tragically lost his life when the ship sank in a Category 2 hurricane on September 12, 1857. Because the ship's structure collapsed over 131 years underwater, the silver was found concentrated near the primary treasure hold, though it remains debated whether it was originally held in a first-class cabin or secured in the purser's safe. The hoard was recovered in two distinct archaeological chapters: 1988–1991: The initial salvage expeditions uncovered roughly half of Esquerra's silver mixed among the commercial gold ingots. 2014: The follow-up expedition cleared the exact area of the original deposit down to the bare timbers of the hull, recovering the remaining balance of the silver. The hoard consists almost entirely of mid-19th-century silver minted at the Santiago Mint (S° mintmark). The main composition includes: Chilean 50 Centavos (Half Pesos): Predominantly dated 1853–1856. The obverse features a sharp heraldic eagle, with the reverse displaying the shield, wreath, and "50 C." denomination (0.3617 oz ASW). Chilean 1 Pesos: Highly prized by world silver collectors, including the 1855 issue and the exceptionally rare 1856/5 overdate—which is the only known overdate among the Chilean pesos recovered from the site. Until recently I had no idea of the significance of these Chilean coins from a global perspective. Due to 135+ years at 7,200 feet under the sea, most specimens exhibit "Shipwreck Effect" surfaces like this one and are detailed as such. Interestingly, every single Chilean Peso including this one would have been handled and conserved by the recovery expeditions chief scientist Bob Evans. Because they were tightly packed in chests or canvas bags, many pieces were protected from severe saltwater moving across the faces, retaining remarkable mint lustre and crisp design details. For collectors of shipwreck pedigree coins, the Esquerra silver represents a rare opportunity to own a piece of the "Ship of Gold" linked directly to a single passenger's personal story at a reasonable cost. I am happy with this coin but know I can improve on it in due course. There is some good literature available regarding the SS Central America and plenty of controversy too. I also recently acquired a copy of Q. David Bowers’ massive tome, “A Californian Gold Rush History”. The focal point of the book is the history surrounding the Central America both before and after the disaster. It is a phenomenal work and profusely illustrated, and accompanies Bowers’ other work, “America’s Greatest Treasure Ship: The SS Central America”, perfectly. For interest here are the two books. What makes Bowers’ exhaustive research so compelling is the way it demonstrates how a single tragic maritime event can act as a historical lens, refocusing disparate global narratives onto a single wooden deck in September 1857. For the modern numismatist, holding an artifact recovered from the "Ship of Gold" is not merely about possessing a tangible piece of bullion history; it is an invitation to fall down an endless sequence of fascinating historical rabbit holes. A prime example of this phenomenon is the sudden appearance of 1850s Chilean silver within an archive predominantly celebrated for its mountain of Californian gold. When looking up this particular coin on the NGC register, to make this post, I encountered a modern database quirk. Due to the unique chemical etching caused by over 130 years on the Atlantic floor, these silver pieces are classified under the "Shipwreck Effect" tier rather than receiving traditional numeric grades. Because they were bulk-processed as genuine specimens, they frequently bypass standard online certificate verification registers and weren’t photographed. I was disappointed that there was no image of my coin, in fact the coin is not recorded or at least I couldn’t find it because there is no “Shipwreck Effect” tier in the NGC drop down menu and the “details” tier doesn’t bring it up either. Although the number doesn’t work, the label opens up a direct historical channel to the tragic story of Pascual Esquerra—the prominent merchant who boarded the ill-fated steamer with trunks packed with thousands of freshly minted Chilean silver pieces, intending to trade them in New York. As I explain above, he perished in the historic hurricane, leaving his wealth to settle in the deep ocean until the Columbus-America Discovery Group raised it. Following the thread of these interesting coins pulls the collector straight into the geopolitical landscape of mid-nineteenth-century South America. The design itself—featuring a powerful Andean Condor Eagle breaking its chains—speaks volumes of a confident, newly independent Chile capitalising on the immense silver booms of the Chañarcillo mines. However, the true surprise within the Chilean naval and economic narrative is its deeply rooted connection to British naval aristocracy, specifically through the Dundas Cochrane lineage which I read about many years ago. To understand how Chile established the maritime security necessary to become a global trading powerhouse, one must look back to the origins of its navy and the audacious exploits of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, the 10th Earl of Dundonald. Born into the Scottish Cochrane-Dundas clan, this brilliant but controversial naval strategist—famed for inspiring classic literary heroes like Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower—was hired by the Republic of Chile in 1818. As Vice Admiral, Cochrane organised the First Chilean Navy Squadron from scratch, instilling rigid Royal Navy traditions and masterfully driving the Spanish fleet from the Pacific coast. It was the maritime stability forged by the Dundas-Cochrane legacy that allowed the Santiago Mint to flourish, ultimately producing the stable trade currency that filled Esquerra’s luggage decades later. These coins were well regarded globally because of their .900 purity. Yet, perhaps the most alluring aspect of collecting shipwreck coins is how one discovery branches out into completely unexpected formats of collecting. The SS Central America cargo was not uniform; it was an extraordinary cross-section of raw wealth moving east. Beyond the standardised circulating coinage, the debris field preserved the physical reality of the California Gold Rush in its purest forms. Collectors can acquire certified holders containing actual raw gold dust and gold nuggets recovered directly from the seabed floor—the very dust panned by the 49'ers in the Sierra Nevada foothills, frozen in time inside protective capsules. The numismatic legacy of the wreck extends into the modern era through spectacular bullion bars and commemorative issues struck from the recovered gold and silver. For others there are artefacts such as pottery and any amount of personal items that would have been carried by travellers of the time. Here are a couple of items I've posted before in Global holders, a pinch of gold dust and a one ounce round made from SS Central America silver that also contains a fragment of gold. This is precisely why I am interested in shipwreck numismatics. You begin with a slabbed coin you cannot find on a database and you end up diving into modern grading methodology, cross-referencing economic history, revisiting a discredited British Earl, and you now have an intersection of global economics, naval warfare, and drama. You buy the coin, you buy the book, and suddenly you are tracking a maritime narrative across countries and continents. For a generalist collector this is great as you will never stop finding items from every era and every price level.
