Pirate Treasure

Discussion in 'World Coins' started by John Conduitt, Mar 13, 2021.

  1. John Conduitt

    John Conduitt Well-Known Member

    Along with Wild West outlaws and Georgian highwaymen, pirates are the violent criminals we love. Influenced by fictional characters like Long John Silver and Captain Hook, we imagine them with long beards, parrots, eye patches and treasure chests buried under Xs. The beards and, surprisingly, the parrots are historically accurate. Parrots were widely available in Caribbean ports and made for low-maintenance pets that could be sold in Europe. Even the eye patches might be genuine, either to cover wounds or to help the eye adjust to fighting in the darkness below deck. But what about their treasure?

    Anne Sixpence, 1703
    upload_2021-3-13_13-43-36.png
    London. Sliver, 21mm, 3g. ANNA DEI GRATIA, VIGO. MAGnae BRitanniae FRAnciae ET HIBerniae REGina (S 3590). During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Anglo-Dutch fleet heard the Spanish Treasure Fleet was unloading in Vigo Bay and destroyed it. The silver was taken to the Royal Mint and coins like this ‘Vigo’ sixpence were struck. There was a fine line between the Royal Navy and privateers, and privateers and pirates.

    The Golden Age of Piracy, if you can call murder and robbery golden, ran from the mid-1600s to the 1720s. Pirates were active in the Americas and the Indian Ocean, where high-value items were transported by colonial powers back to their homelands. Ironically, piracy was fuelled by the governments of the time. The world’s superpowers were perpetually at war and in the habit of hiring privateers to attack enemy ships. They never thought forward to what would happen when the war ended, or when the privateers realised they could make twice as much by robbing both sides.

    upload_2021-3-13_13-45-37.png
    Pirate Thomas Tew shares a joke with the Governor of New York. Not exactly an outcast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Tew). Captain William Kidd was also friendly with several New York governors and was hired by one to attack Thomas Tew in a voyage that ultimately resulted in his turning to piracy. Pirate Henry Morgan even became Governor of Jamaica, from where he funded privateers, and was knighted by Charles II for attacking the Spanish.

    Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Calico Jack Rackham and Christopher Condent all rose to fame during the Golden Age, as did Black Bart Roberts, the most successful of the era (taking 400 ships). Pirates enjoyed a good, short life. Most were very charismatic and often had connections in government. Blackbeard had 14 wives, each in a different port, who could act as character witnesses if he ever faced trial. Thomas Tew was said to have had relations with a Malagasy queen, and their son became a king in Madagascar.

    A pirate’s modus operandi was to sail near to their target flying a friendly flag, and when they were too close for any sort of escape, they’d hoist the Jolly Roger to frighten their prey into submission. It worked and they grew rich. If it didn’t work, and they were still alive, they were taken for trial and hung.

    upload_2021-3-13_13-47-15.png
    Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in action for the last time in 1718. He was said to light tapers and put them in his beard to intimidate his victims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard).

    The Golden Age of Piracy ended when governments stopped encouraging it. The British offered a pardon to all who would dob in their colleagues. Blackbeard took up the offer while in Virginia, believing his ship too recognisable in any case. He got the crew drunk and shopped them to the Governor. But he couldn’t resist the pirate’s life. He took his best men and set off in a new ship. The Royal Navy caught up with him and they fought an on-ship battle in which he was decapitated. His head was stuck to the front of the ship and paraded up the US coast. It was rumoured to have been filled with silver and used as a drinking vessel.

    So, what of their treasure? Can we get our hands on it? Despite the plethora of coins described as ‘pirate treasure’, it’s not that simple. No buried pirate treasure has ever been found and only one pirate shipwreck has been recovered: Black Sam’s Whydah Galley. It’s not impossible to get a coin from the Whydah Galley. The captain captured 400,000 coins in the weeks before his ship was wrecked and 15,000 were recovered when it was found. But the few that were sold to the public change hands for USD7,000 and many times more.

    Dutch Republic Leeuwendaalder (Lion Dollar), 1643
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    Gelderland. Silver, 40mm, 26.61g. Type IIa. Knight, MOneta ARGentea PROvinciarum CONFOEdearatum BELGicarum, GELderland. Lion, CONFIDENS DomiNO NON MOVETUR (Those who trust in God are immovable) (Delmonte 825). The leeuwendaalder was used in Dutch and English colonies including several US states. It was known as the ‘dog dollar’ on account of its unimpressive lion. Several currencies were named after it: the US ‘dollar’, Romanian and Moldovan leu, Albanian lek and Bulgarian lev (leu, lek and lev all mean ‘lion’).

    There are, though, plenty of coins from the ‘Piracy Era’. These were the first international currencies: the English shilling, French ecu, Dutch leeuwendaalder and, of course, Spanish 8 reales, also known as a ‘cob’, ‘peso’, ‘dollar’ or, rather rarely, ‘piece of eight’. No-one’s entirely sure what a ‘doubloon’ was, and since few at the time would’ve handled gold coins, perhaps it wasn’t any one coin. It could be any Spanish gold coin (Escudo) that was ‘double’ another denomination.

    Neither do you have to pay a ‘piracy premium’ for them. If Black Sam captured 400,000 coins in a few weeks, imagine how many he captured in a year. During the Golden Age, there were more than 5,000 pirates. How many coins could they have taken? There’s a good chance any international coin of the era was once the plunder of pirates. Maybe even twice.

    Charles II 8 Reales (Piece of Eight), 1676
    upload_2021-3-13_13-50-46.png
    Potosí, Peru (now Bolivia). Silver, 40mm, 17.93g. Assayer E (Antonio de Ergueta). Pillars and waves, PLV/S VL/TRA (‘More beyond’, the motto of the Spanish Kingdom), POTOSI ANO 1676 EL PERV, mintmark P. Quarterly of Lions and Castles, CAROLUS II Dei Gratia HISPANiarum (KM 26). The US and Canadian dollars, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan were all based on versions of the 8 reales.

    These international coins are often found in shipwrecks from the time, placing them in a pirate-ravaged region and prompting sellers to enthuse that they are ‘pirate treasure’. But with the exception of the Whydah Galley, these wrecks were not pirate ships and invariably sank in bad weather or after hitting rocks. Even so, it’s easy to imagine they were hunted by pirates. The crews thought so.

    The 8 reales above was recovered from the Santa Maria de la Consolación, a Spanish South Sea Armada galleon, lost in 1681. There was a delay in getting their 100,000-dollar cargo to them at Callao, Chile (which came from central Bolivia by llama and mule) so the rest of the Armada went on without them. They knew pirates were in the area, under the command of the notorious Bartholomew Sharp, which may be why they decided to hastily ground on Santa Clara Island, Ecuador, nicknamed ‘Island of the Dead’. They hit a reef in the process and set the ship on fire to prevent it being plundered.

    George I Shilling, 1723
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    London. Silver, first bust, SS C. GEORGIVS Dei Gratia Magnae BRitanniae FRanciae ET HIBerniae REX Fidii Defensor. BRVNswicii ET Lunenburgi DVX Sacri Romani Imperii Archi-THresaurarius ET ELector (Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Arch Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire) (S 3647). This shilling was minted from Indonesian silver provided by the South Sea Company (SS C), who were responsible for the 'South Sea Bubble' three years prior and the subsequent economic disaster. The uneven fields suggest it spent some time in the sea. The South Sea?

    Might a pirate’s buried treasure yet be found? It’s unlikely. Pirates didn’t even bury treasure. It’s not inconceivable a pirate buried something – that’s been the way to hide wealth in haste since wealth existed. But they didn’t store their gold in the ground. Moreover, pirates didn’t even target gold or silver, let alone coins. Metal is heavy – not much good when you’re at sea. Of course, they gladly took precious metals, but they also took wine and slaves, and they didn’t really want those either. What they wanted were spices. A cargo of saffron was very light, very valuable, easy to look after and easy to sell.
    upload_2021-3-13_13-54-32.png
    The Llandoger Trow, Bristol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandoger_Trow). Haunted haunt of pirates, and allegedly Robert Louis Stevenson’s inspiration for the Admiral Benbow in Treasure Island.

    The pirate tag is often hijacked. But there are plenty of coins that were used at the time of pirates, highwaymen and other romantic anti-heroes that aren’t labelled as such. The vast bulk of pirate treasure ended up not in the ground or under the sea, but in circulation. Who knows, perhaps Blackbeard bought a pint in the Llandoger Trow with my Vigo sixpence.

    Sources:
    The Pirate Empire, Pieces of Eight http://thepirateempire.blogspot.com/2016/08/pieces-of-eight.html
    Coinweek, Pirate Coins for Me https://coinweek.com/coins/treasure-2/pirate-coins-for-me-a-true-tale-of-pirates-from-300-years-ago/
    Pirate Money, Pieces of Eight and Doubloons http://pirates.hegewisch.net/money.html
     
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  3. Robert Ransom

    Robert Ransom Well-Known Member

    An interesting treatise on Piracy. I am familiar with the Whydah and Captain Samuel Bellamy.
     
    John Conduitt likes this.
  4. jgenn

    jgenn World Crown Collector

    Regarding Vigo Bay and the silver taken from the Spanish being used for the coins, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry. Coin catalogers have a bad habit of repeating sensational details without checking the history. My other pet peeve is the repetition of the story that Anson's captured silver was used to make the "Lima" coinage of 1745/1746.
     
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