S.S. Connaught may rival R.M.S. Douro recovery.....Blog
post from 2015. Interesting read for coin nerds about the bank shipment and it's potential value.
En route to Boston, the Connaught put in at St. Johns, Newfoundland, where she “was quietly loaded with £10,000 in gold coins, possibly bound for a visiting member of the royal family.”
The upshot is that many of the gold coins that went down on the S.S. Connaught may have been minted not long before she sank, and are almost certainly Victoria shield sovereigns and half sovereigns. The years involved, 1838 to 1860, include some of the most rare and sought-after sovereign variants: the 1838 and 1843 Narrow Shield variants, the 1841 low mintage key date year, the 1848 First Young Head, and the 1859 Ansell, to name a few. Finding more examples of these would be welcome to collectors, of course, but in the instance of the narrow shield varieties, if a significant number of them is found, it may cause some revision in thought about whether they were patterns; or were a design in general use, most of the examples of which were destroyed during normal recoinage.
https://lifewithjohn.net/2015/05/29/a-ship-an...-treasure/
More on RMS Douro recovery.
Excavation work began on the stowage position by Deepsea Worker LTD, an international deep-water, heavy-lift salvage company. The exact location of the bullion room had not been found, but a combination of luck and patient analysis paid dividends. In the course of the carefully targeted recovery operations from the bullion room in the aft section of the ship, 28,000 gold and silver coins — featuring an unprecedented range and variety of gold sovereigns — were brought to the surface.
https://gmic.co.uk/topic/418-the-true-story-o...rms-douro/
post from 2015. Interesting read for coin nerds about the bank shipment and it's potential value.
En route to Boston, the Connaught put in at St. Johns, Newfoundland, where she “was quietly loaded with £10,000 in gold coins, possibly bound for a visiting member of the royal family.”
The upshot is that many of the gold coins that went down on the S.S. Connaught may have been minted not long before she sank, and are almost certainly Victoria shield sovereigns and half sovereigns. The years involved, 1838 to 1860, include some of the most rare and sought-after sovereign variants: the 1838 and 1843 Narrow Shield variants, the 1841 low mintage key date year, the 1848 First Young Head, and the 1859 Ansell, to name a few. Finding more examples of these would be welcome to collectors, of course, but in the instance of the narrow shield varieties, if a significant number of them is found, it may cause some revision in thought about whether they were patterns; or were a design in general use, most of the examples of which were destroyed during normal recoinage.
https://lifewithjohn.net/2015/05/29/a-ship-an...-treasure/
More on RMS Douro recovery.
Excavation work began on the stowage position by Deepsea Worker LTD, an international deep-water, heavy-lift salvage company. The exact location of the bullion room had not been found, but a combination of luck and patient analysis paid dividends. In the course of the carefully targeted recovery operations from the bullion room in the aft section of the ship, 28,000 gold and silver coins — featuring an unprecedented range and variety of gold sovereigns — were brought to the surface.
https://gmic.co.uk/topic/418-the-true-story-o...rms-douro/
