Thoughts on getting Some El Cazador Shipwreck Coins Submitted and graded as Genuine 1 1

[Streetabar87]

Hi All,

I am fairly new to coin collecting and have really been fascinated by the El Cazador shipwreck coins.  So much so, that I have been able to collect  1/2 Reale, 1 Reale, 2 Reale, 4 Reale and an 8 Reale from the shipwreck.  The only two Reales that are not in the NGC Slab are the 1 Reale (1783) and the 4 Reale (1778).  Would it be worth it to have these two coins graded and slabbed by NGC?  I have a document of Authenticity for each coin.  Below are the front and back of the coins.  Thank you!

 

 

[RWB]

Monetarily, no, not worth the expense. But, you seem to want a denomination set in the same type of holder, so it might be reasonable on that basis.

[Streetabar87]

Thanks for the feedback!  Yea, I was considering sending both coins in so that I could have the whole set in slabs.  I figured it may be easier to sell the set if they were all in NGC graded slabs later on down the road.

[powermad5000]

I am curious as to the provenance of these coins that you own. I have an El Cazador shipwreck coin. As far as I was aware, the entire coin stash was put into holders and sold off by other coin companies. I was not aware they let any "loose" specimens out. Are you sure of the provenance of the coins other than your certificate of authenticity? Who created the certificate?

The following is the coin I was able to obtain at the time and came with a certificate of authenticity.

 

[Streetabar87]

Hi,

 

These two coins were actually bought through a company and comes with a document about the coin as well as specific serial numbers

[powermad5000]

Thank you. Interesting. Makes me wonder then how many fingers were "in the pot" when these were recovered. Well, as far as I know, NGC will require this document with your submission. If it were me, I would definitely submit these coins and have them certified as such. You should contact NGC and ask them if they return your original certificates you submit with the coins as if it were me, I would want those certificates back.

Cool coins! I have one other shipwreck provenance in my collection. While I am not a shipwreck collector, I like having the couple I have.

[powermad5000]

The following is what I read of what happened to the coins in the salvage. This was also the same information found on Wikipedia :

Treasure from the ship was originally housed in a safe at the old Grand Bay State Bank building located in Grand Bay, Alabama. It is now administered through the Franklin Mint. Interestingly, the first United States dollar was modelled off Spanish reales as it was seen as a regal and quality style of currency. The treasure of the El Cazador consisted of over four hundred thousand Spanish Eight reales or “pieces of eight” and was confirmed in the ship’s manifest. She also contained an equal amount of smaller denomination Spanish colonial coins from the Mexico City mint recovered in the El Cazador wreckage. Although the United States Mint was built in 1792, the government accepted Spanish reales as legal tender for decades until 1857. Over the years since its discovery, the Franklin Mint has sold off choice coins from the El Cazador to private owners with the modern “coin” to purchase these rare pieces of history.

[Sandon]

     NGC has a special system, NGC Shipwreck Certification, for grading coins recovered from shipwrecks.  See Shipwreck Coin Effect Designation Guide | NGC (ngccoin.com). I'm not sure that such coins can be submitted by anyone other than the company that salvaged the shipwreck and recommend that you contact NGC to determine whether and on what terms your coins could be submitted.

   I'm baffled as to why you would want to pay the cost of having these coins certified. You already have evidence of their origin and authenticity, and whether they are "details" graded or graded under the NGC "Shipwreck Effect" scale, the result is unlikely to be favorable. Both of the coins in your photos, especially the lower one, exhibit serious corrosion or encrustations. If your only purpose is to place them in holders that make them look like your certified pieces, you can buy holders that look very much like them from various coin supply dealers.

[Streetabar87]

Thank you for your input! 

Yea I was thinking of just having them all slabbed by NGC and labeled "Genuine", but I guess I could just have them in an off the shelf plastic case for display purposes and not spend the money on the grading.  I think it would really just depend on the total cost of having both coins graded as El Cazador Shipwreck "Genuine" if it would really be worth it.

[The Neophyte Numismatist]

I also have an El Cazador Shipwreck coin.  This coin was purchased at my LCS by my mother, who gave it to me.  The coin was not overly expensive, but it is fun. It's raw and came with a certificate.  I will have to dig it up and post some pics.  I have no intention of having it graded.

Edited September 12, 2023 by The Neophyte Numismatist

[Streetabar87]

On 9/11/2023 at 9:14 PM, The Neophyte Numismatist said:

I also have an El Cazador Shipwreck coin.  This coin was purchased at my LCS by my mother, who gave it to me.  The coin was not overly expensive, but it is fun. It's raw and came with a certificate.  I will have to dig it up and post some pics.  I have no intention of having it graded.

I agree, these coins are pretty fun, especially with their backstory, and a fairly inexpensive shipwreck coin to own. 

I plan on setting up a small display with all of these coins and a little backstory about the El Cazador with some cert of Auth there as well.

[Just Bob]

The certificate is signed by the president of "Grumpy, Inc." Interesting name for a coin dealer, to be sure.

[Streetabar87]

I agree, very strange name for a company, but this is what I have found online in multiple source locations.

"Jim and Myrna Reahard of Grand Bay, Alabama, and four partners purchased three trawlers in 1989, including the Mistake, and formed the Grumpy Company. Sailing out of Pascagoula, Mississippi, fishermen sought butterfish feeding on the bottom in deep waters of the Gulf. On more than one occasion, the Reahards daydreamed of what they would do if one of their boats found a treasure ship. When their dream came true in August, 1993, they agreed the first step would be to hire a good maritime law attorney. They soon found one when David Horan, who won a case in the Supreme Court for treasure salvor Mel Fisher, took the case. He promptly suggested the Reahards form a salvage partnership and file an Admiralty claim on the site. Located 50 miles south of New Orleans, the ship was in international waters where federal maritime law supersedes state law. This was a major break for the company they named Grumpy Partnership. Otherwise, it would have faced the state bureaucracy if the wreck had been found closer to the shoreline. There were permit applications and other delays, but after the Grumpy group appeared in U.S. District Court and won ownership, the door to major salvage was opened."

[powermad5000]

This is what I have read about this and parts of it corroborate in Wikipedia. There is no mention of the Grumpy Group.

El Cazador sat at the bottom of the drink for over two centuries, then on August 2nd, 1993, the fishing trawler Mistake; whose home port is Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Captained by Jerry Murphy, was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico fifty miles south of New Orleans. As it fished, Mistake's net hung on a snag. Once hoisted on deck, the fishing net appeared weighted down with rock and debris. Upon closer inspection, some of those rocks were actually piles of silver coins, which had fused together while underwater. When the crew hoisted the net and dumped the contents on the deck, they found the net was filled with silver coins. The coins bore markings from the Spanish mint in Mexico, along with the date 1783, revealing it to be a rare and highly valuable “mint” shipment of uncirculated currency. Realizing that he may have stumbled onto a deep-sea treasure trove, the fishing vessel's owner, Jim Reahard of Grand Bay, Alabama, approached an admiralty lawyer in Key West, Florida, named David Paul Horan, who then filed a claim on the wreck for Mr. Reahard. An oil rig service company called Oceaneering initially had the job of salvaging it but was replaced by Marex International Incorporated of Memphis, Tennessee, when Oceaneering experienced too many equipment failures; although, Oceaneering did bring to the surface several of El Cazador’s bronze cannons and hundreds of coins.

In September, Marex International used sonar and a small underwater robot to find the wreck. It took roughly an hour to locate the target and then three days to properly photograph it with underwater video and still cameras; coins could be seen covering the entire wreck site. In October and November of 1993, the company used divers and robots to begin recovery operations. The recovery and salvage operation was suspended in late November, however, due to rough weather. Robert Stenuit was hired to confirm the origin of the wrecked ship. He is a naval historian based in Brussels, Belgium, with great expertise in 17^th-19^th century Spanish and French shipwrecks. Stenuit used the Archives of the Indies- a historical record cache kept in Seville, Spain, which catalogued Spain’s conquest of the ‘New World”- to make an identification based on the evidence pulled from the ocean depths. His investigation showed that no other large hordes of cash from Mexico were lost by shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico between 1783 and 1785. In 1994, it was firmly concluded that Murphy's discovery ...which ironically occurred on a vessel named Mistake, was indeed the ruins of the Spanish Brig of War El Cazador, or "The Hunter," that disappeared at sea in 1784 over 200 years earlier. Maritime salvage laws were never breached as El Cazador was found in international waters, was far too old for the Spanish government to lay claim, and was legally a marine archaeological find.

The following excerpt is from Wikipedia :

 

The El Cazador (meaning The Hunter in English) was a Spanish brig that sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 1784. In the 1770s the Spanish Louisiana Territory’s economy was faltering due to paper money that was not backed by silver or gold. Carlos III, King of Spain, decided to replace the worthless currency with valuable Spanish silver coins.^[1] On 20 October 1783 Charles III of Spain sent her on a mission to bring much-needed hard currency to the Spanish colony of Louisiana in order to stabilize the currency. The ship sailed to Veracruz, Mexico, where she was loaded with approximately 450,000 Spanish reales.^[2] To be more precise, she was loaded with silver Spanish coins, mostly 8 reales, “Pieces of Eight,” It carried 400,000 silver pesos and another 50,000 pesos worth of smaller change, of various dates. At one ounce to the peso, and 12 troy ounces to the pound, that's 37,500 pounds of silver.^[1] King Carlos III enlisted his most trusted captain, Gabriel de Campos y Pineda, to command the ship.^[3] On 11 January 1784, she sailed for New Orleans, and was never heard from again.^[4][5] Spain’s attempts to locate the ship were unsuccessful and in June 1784, El Cazador was officially listed as missing at sea.^[3]

Then on 2 August 1993, the trawler Mistake, Captain Jerry Murphy and home port Pascagoula, Mississippi, was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico fifty miles south of New Orleans. As it fished, Mistake's net hung on a snag. When the crew hoisted the net and dumped the contents on the deck, they found the net was filled with silver coins. The coins bore markings from the Spanish mint in Mexico, along with the date 1783.^[6][7]

Treasure from the ship was originally housed in a safe at the old Grand Bay State Bank building in Grand Bay, Alabama. In December 2004 the Executors of the Reahard estate hired Jonathan Lerner of Scarsdale Coin to appraise the coins. This appraisal was completed in February 2005.

It is now administered through the Franklin Mint.

 

 

Thus, maybe you are being tasked to bring together the entire and complete story all in one place and then submit the correct version to Wikipedia for all to read.

Edited September 12, 2023 by powermad5000

[Streetabar87]

I Think you are right, I may have to be tasked to complete this story and get it corrected on Wikipedia.  Below is a link to the New York Times calling out the Grumpy Company published in 1993.

 

"Mr. Horan, the lawyer, said in a presentation in New Orleans on Dec. 6 that the overall salvage group, known as the Grumpy partnership, was "vitally interested in proper conservation of the artifacts and the educational aspects of this adventure." In the partnership, Myrna Reahard, the wife of the fishing vessel's owner, is in charge of counting the coins and keeping track of all the artifacts and recoveries from the wreck site."

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/19/us/1784-spanish-ship-is-found-in-gulf.html

[The Neophyte Numismatist]

On 9/11/2023 at 11:16 PM, Just Bob said:

The certificate is signed by the president of "Grumpy, Inc." Interesting name for a coin dealer, to be sure.

I just checked my certificate and it is also signed by "Jim Reahard, President, Grumpy Inc.".  I also find this amusing

A second look shows a second signature that looks like "Craig R Boyd".  A little research found that Craig Boyd was the treasure hunter that found the Cazador treasure.

 @Streetabar87 Thanks for piquing my interest in a way that has me researching items of my own collection!!!!

Edited September 12, 2023 by The Neophyte Numismatist

[Streetabar87]

Absolutely! Having a background and history of shipwreck coins always makes the collection more interesting and building the collection more fun!

[powermad5000]

I am unable to read the story in the link without paying for a subscription to the NY Times, which I refuse to pay for, so I take your word on it. 

[Conder101]

You should probably talk to NGC customer service before you send them in.  You can probably get them slabbed as GENUINE,  but probably not with the El Cazador provenance.  They MIGHT accept the COA but you need to confirm that with them first..  And you probably won't get the COA back.