I bet EXPL salvages the Connaught before SFRX finds a wreck, let alone treasure.
The bank ship alone could bring $40-60MM, and the owner isn’t around to claim it.
Is it 10,000 sovereigns, 20,000 half-sovereigns, or a combination of both?
Keep pumping those share Crusty.
What sort of coins might be in the S.S. Connaught’s cargo? I imagine gold American eagles and half-eagles were exchanged pretty freely over the Canadian border for sovereigns and half-sovereigns, at least before the Civil War, but I am of the opinion that most of the coins are likely the latter. The contemporary story by The New York Times, an American newspaper, reported that the Connaught “had £10,000 in gold on board, Government money,”8 which suggests the coins were British pounds rather than American dollars. The British pound (£1) equaled one gold sovereign (or two half-sovereigns) in 1860, so £10,000 in gold coins adds up to quite a lot of gold sovereigns! In U.S. dollars, the 1860 exchange rate was $4.77 to £1, so the coins were worth $47,700 then. Five years later, at the end of the U.S. Civil War, war debt and the printing of so many greenbacks would debase the U.S. dollar to $7.90 to £1! And as long as we’re discussing debasement and changes in value, it’s worth noting that £10,000 in 1860 would have the same relative value as about £840,000 today, in terms of purchasing power.
From a numismatic standpoint, an important consideration in the potential value of what might be recovered is the fact that the Royal Mint conducted a very large recoinage during 1842-1845. The recoinage withdrew £14,000,000 of light gold (i.e., older gold coins that were worn to the point that they were too light), which amounted to about one-third of the total gold in British circulation at the time. Another £500,000 of light gold per year was removed after 1845.
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.
The bank ship alone could bring $40-60MM, and the owner isn’t around to claim it.
Is it 10,000 sovereigns, 20,000 half-sovereigns, or a combination of both?
Keep pumping those share Crusty.
What sort of coins might be in the S.S. Connaught’s cargo? I imagine gold American eagles and half-eagles were exchanged pretty freely over the Canadian border for sovereigns and half-sovereigns, at least before the Civil War, but I am of the opinion that most of the coins are likely the latter. The contemporary story by The New York Times, an American newspaper, reported that the Connaught “had £10,000 in gold on board, Government money,”8 which suggests the coins were British pounds rather than American dollars. The British pound (£1) equaled one gold sovereign (or two half-sovereigns) in 1860, so £10,000 in gold coins adds up to quite a lot of gold sovereigns! In U.S. dollars, the 1860 exchange rate was $4.77 to £1, so the coins were worth $47,700 then. Five years later, at the end of the U.S. Civil War, war debt and the printing of so many greenbacks would debase the U.S. dollar to $7.90 to £1! And as long as we’re discussing debasement and changes in value, it’s worth noting that £10,000 in 1860 would have the same relative value as about £840,000 today, in terms of purchasing power.
From a numismatic standpoint, an important consideration in the potential value of what might be recovered is the fact that the Royal Mint conducted a very large recoinage during 1842-1845. The recoinage withdrew £14,000,000 of light gold (i.e., older gold coins that were worn to the point that they were too light), which amounted to about one-third of the total gold in British circulation at the time. Another £500,000 of light gold per year was removed after 1845.
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.
