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Message:: [QUOTE="Dafydd, post: 26389203, member: 86815"][ATTACH=full]1683606[/ATTACH] Great coin [USER=10461]@lordmarcovan[/USER] nice write up and picture of the vessel.The tale of the RMS Douro is one of obsession, a father's quest passed down to his son, and a treasure that lay hidden in the depths of the Bay of Biscay for over a century. It all began in 1949 when Thomas Pickford, a man consumed by a mystery, jotted down a cryptic note: "Douro, 1882, £53,000, Bay of Biscay." This simple line was a breadcrumb leading to a lost fortune, but for decades, it was nothing more than a forgotten piece of paper. Thirty years later, his son, Nigel Pickford, stumbled upon his father's note. The cryptic message resonated with him, and a new obsession was born. Nigel calculated the modern value in relation to the gold value at the time and appreciated that £53,000 was worth in nearly $5 million in 1996. This is based on the sovereign being worth one pound sterling as Britain was still on the Gold Standard and in the USA in 1882 gold was worth $20.67 a troy ounce. On bullion value alone 53,000 coins would weigh 12,476.2 troy ounces (53,000 x 0.2354) and in 1996 was $388 a troy ounce. Based on the gold's intrinsic value alone, the treasure would have been worth approximately $4,841,765 (12,476.2 x $388).  Nigel knew he had to finish what his father had started. For ten painstaking years, he delved into the past, piecing together the ship's final moments from logs, old newspaper articles, and personal records. He was a detective of the deep, meticulously charting the ship's course and studying survivor accounts to narrow down the search area from a daunting 500 square miles to a more manageable 150. Nigel’s research was so thorough that it convinced Sverker Hallstrom, a marine salvage specialist, to join the hunt. The odds were stacked against them. No one had ever successfully recovered a cargo of gold from a collapsed iron hull at a depth of 1,500 feet. The two-year search was a test of endurance and patience. They used an ROV, a robot armed with sonar and a camera, but time and again, they were led astray by the ghosts of other wrecks. Then, a stroke of incredible luck. As the ROV glided over the seabed, its camera caught a glimpse of a porcelain plate wedged in the mud. It was a single, unremarkable dish, but it held the key to the mystery. The plate bore the name of the RMS Company. The Douro had been found. With the location confirmed, the drill ship Deep Sea Worker was brought in. They began to bring up items from the wreck, a treasure trove of everyday life frozen in time: crockery stamped with the ship’s name, bottles of wine, and other artifacts. The real jackpot, however, was yet to come. The salvage team came across thousands of gleaming gold coins, along with several numbered and un-numbered gold bars. It was an astonishing find, a 93% recovery of the estimated treasure. The treasure, valued at over a million pounds, was taken to Jersey and officially declared to the authorities. After a required waiting period of one year and a day, the gold was released, and four months later, it was auctioned at Spink & Son but only realised $2.34 million. This low figure was possibly because so many became available which contributes to another post on the forum in respect to the value of hoards. The ship was also reputed to be carrying extremely high calibre Brazilian diamonds. While the story of the gold is well-documented, the quest for Brazilian diamonds remains a mystery. The historical record suggests the ship was i carrying these precious stones. However, the search reports from the salvage operation make no mention of finding any diamonds. It's a tantalizing detail that adds another layer of intrigue to the Douro's story. The gold was recovered, but the fate of the Brazilian diamonds remains a secret kept by the deep, leaving open the question of whether they were ever on board, or if they too are waiting to be found. I could not find out if there was ever a value placed on the diamonds and I can imagine that these would be far more difficult to find unless they were in a safe. Although Nigel didn’t publish a specific book that I can find on the recovery of the Douro treasure he authored The Atlas of Shipwrecks & Treasure, Lost Treasure Ships of the Twentieth Century and Lost Treasure Ships of the Northern Seas. Here are my Douro sovereigns. One is a Shield back similar to [USER=10461]@lordmarcovan[/USER] and the other is the classic George and the Dragon reverse engraved by the brilliant Benedetto Pistrucci. I believe your Shieldback [USER=10461]@lordmarcovan[/USER] is much better than mine.[ATTACH=full]1683608[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1683609[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1683614[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1683615[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]

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