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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jimski, post: 2875459, member: 77373&quot;]India, Madras Presidency, East India Co., 10 cash – Salvage from the wreck of the Admiral Gardner, which sunk off the coast of England in 1809.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]688114[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]688115[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]688116[/ATTACH]</p><p>From: <a href="http://sohomint.info/gardner.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://sohomint.info/gardner.html" rel="nofollow"><i>http://sohomint.info/gardner.html</i></a></p><p><i>The Loss of the Admiral Gardner</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>The weather in January 1809 was cold and inclement. … Despite the weather, a small group of East India Company ships, the Admiral Gardner, named after a famous naval officer of the time, the Carnatic and the Britannia, set sail from Deptford, in the port of London, bound for the East Indies, via Madeira. Forming a significant part of the cargo on the Admiral Gardner were 46 tons of coins struck by <b>Matthew Boulton</b> at Soho Mint, comprising ten and twenty cash copper pieces, for use in the Company’s trade in their Madras Presidency.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i> Leaving the Thames estuary, and passing Margate, the weather subsided into a calm, and the flotilla was forced to anchor to save themselves from drifting on to the Goodwin Sands, just four miles off Ramsgate, a notorious area of sandbanks and uncharted hazards. Then, a west-north-westerly gale got up, increasing in strength, and the ships’ anchors failed to hold in the sandy conditions. The ships began dragging towards the sands despite heroic efforts by the crew to avoid a fate which was fast becoming inevitable, and in the early hours of the morning of 25th January, the Britannia and the Admiral Gardner ran aground off South Foreland, and began to sink into the sands.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>Captain William John Eastfield, the officers and crew, remained with the stricken Admiral Gardner until 3.35pm when, at the risk of their own lives, they were rescued by men from Deal.&nbsp; One crewman from the Admiral Gardner and seven from the Britannia were lost, together with both ships and all the cargo. </i></p><p><i><i><br /></i></i></p><p><i><i>And there it remained, with the exception of a few items salvaged in 1809, until 1984, when a local fisherman reported snagging his nets on some wreckage, which, as the story of the Admiral Gardner was well-known locally, was assumed to be the lost vessel. The divers who made the first dive on the wreck were amazed at what they saw. Exposed ribs, frames and decking outlined the shape of the ship. She was lying on a gently sloping sandy bottom at depths ranging between 45 and 60 feet of water. Along with her cargo of coins, some of which had spilled out from the barrels in which they were stowed, she had carried a quantity of cannon balls, anchors, iron bars and copper ingots being shipped out East.</i></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><i> In 1985, with the wreck having been declared a site of historic interest, a licence to dive was issued and, as a result, considerable numbers of coins were recovered, including one intact barrel, estimated to contain 28,000 pieces. Coins recovered from the wreck can be easily found for sale though, as might be expected, their condition can be somewhat variable after 175 years on the seabed!</i></i></p><p><i><i><br /></i></i></p><p>This coin was struck at Matthew Boulton’s Soho Mint on steam powered presses. It would be 2 years later when Britain’s Tower Hill Mint would be fitted with Boulton’s steam powered presses.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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