I found this coin in the water, north east of North Bimini in The Bahamas on the Great Bahama Bank. I work down here as an engineer on a boat which does week long scuba diving charters. I found it laying in the sand while lobstering a nearby small wreck we had never been to before. I have no idea what it is or where it came from, or if it is real or fake? The surrounding area has moderate boat traffic so there is a possibility it is fake. However, a tropical storm came through the area a week before I found the coin so it may have been uncovered then? The only thing I did after i found it was rinse it in fresh water. Thanks for any possible help Jon
David Sedwick coin site has some info: http://www.sedwickcoins.com/price_list.htm http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/shipwreck-pirate-coins.html
It looks a lot like the replicas I see for sale in gift shops in that part of the world. Any chance of getting a picture of the edge? Also any chance of getting a weight in grams?
Well for one thing it sure hasn't been in the water very long. Salt Water corrodes silver and that has few if any signs of corrosion. Kinda leads me to believe it's a replica.
I know absolutely nothing about this, but it looks Gold in the pictures, not silver. So salt water corrosion wouldn't really affect it, IMO.
It looks kind of similar to something like this: BUT, it could still be fake. It's hard to tell from the pictures. And, like I said, I know NOTHING about these kinds of coins.
I learned a long time ago not to trust the color of coins in pictures as gold can look like silver and silver can look like gold very easily. It all depends on the lighting, the background, and who took the picture. But if you look at the design legends of that "coin" it is very similar to that of the silver coins produced by the Panama mint in the late 1500's. Of course much of it is wrong, wrong locations, wrong this, wrong that. So until I have more information that leads me to believe it might somehow be genuine, I'm gonna lean towards it being a replica.
Hey thanks for all of the replies! I will attemp to get a mass measurement soon as well As a picture of the edge. I will be out at sea for the next few days but will be back in areas with Internet soon. I also stumbled across replicas that looked a lot like this. I guess the only way to tell what it's made out of is to find it's mass or better yet density.
Just take it to a jewelry store and get it weighed. You need to know the weight to xx.xx grams. Odds are that will settle it for sure.
