Owner Comments:
DESCRIPTION
DATE: 1730
RULER: Philip V
ASSAYER: MF - Manuel de Leon and Francisco Antonio de la Pena y Flores
WEIGHT: 26.6g.
THE 1739 SHIPWRECK OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIAMAN ROOSWIJK
The coin shown above was recovered from the wreck of the Dutch East Indiaman (VOC) Rooswijk, which sank off the English coast on the treacherous Goodwin Sands with the loss of all hands during the month of December 1739. The Rooswijk sailed from the Dutch coastal island of Texel in December of 1739 bound for Batavia, modern Jakarta. She was carrying a fortune in silver, mainly in 1.9 kilogram bars that had been mined in Spanish ruled Mexico and shipped by Spanish vessels from Mexico to Cadiz and then sold to the Dutch and melted down into bars.
The ship disappeared just a day after leaving port with 250 crew and soldiers. There were no survivors and the world learned of the disaster when English fishermen found a wooden chest full of letters that identified the ship. More wreckage was found on Britain's South coast but nobody knew precisely where it had sunk.
In 2005 a British sports diver, Ken Welling found the wreckage. Underwater excavations have recovered all the silver bullion and more than a thousand artifacts. Other cargo included substantial quantities of sheet copper, saber blades and masonry.
Evidence of life onboard was found in layers that reflected the vessel's social and architectural stratification. When some time after the disaster the floor timbers collapsed the contents of each deck had simply fallen on top of one another deck.
The discovery of so many silver bars complete with "packaging" is unique and is helping archaeologists understand the scale and nature of the 18th century international bullion trade, which financially underpinned most of the European colonial ventures of that time.
The Rooswijk was carrying cargo which included silver specie and silver ingots for trading in the East Indies. The ship was heavily armed with 30 guns, her displacement was approximately 850 tons, and she was 145 feet in length.
The Rooswijk belonged to the Regional Chamber of Amsterdam, the largest and most powerful of the chambers of the VOC. The remains of the vessel were found during a significant movement of the sands which had covered it for centuries. A survey and controlled excavation was carried out by a professional archaeological team in 2005.