Owner Comments:
DESCRIPTION
MONARCH: Philip V
MINT: Mexico
ASSAYER: (J) Jose Eustaquio de Leon
WEIGHT: 24.6g.
This is an 8 Reales Spanish cob coin minted in Mexico with some of the identification visible.
OBVERSE: The "o" and the top of an "M" are visible on the left side of the shield that are part of the "oMJ" mint/assayer mark. To the left of the crown (above the shield) the bottom halves of the last two digits of the date the-"1" and "4" of a "1714" date-the year before the sinking.
REVERSE: A centered cross with castles and lions.
THE 1715 WRECK OF THE SPANISH TREASURE FLEET
The coin shown above was recovered from the most spectacular shipwreck along the Atlantic coast of Florida with reports of a loss of 14 million pesos (plus an equal or greater amount in contraband) and as many as 1,000 or more lives.
It occurred in the late summer of the year 1715 when all 12 ships of a richly laden Spanish treasure fleet under command of Captain-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla fell victim to a violent hurricane.
The fleet had suffered many delays, and had been sitting idle for nearly two years. Pressure had been mounting for the fleet to sail. The Spanish crown was in dire need of money: so were merchants who had been unable to make their exotic goods available for sale on the European market. Under this tremendous pressure, Ubilla made the decision to start the long and perilous voyage back to the Old World, even though the hurricane season had long begun. This decision would prove to be fatal, for unknown to the Spaniards a tremendous and exceptionally powerful hurricane was brewing to the southeast of Cuba.
The great treasure fleet of 1715 sailed from Havana harbor in the early morning of July 24th, a beautiful and calm day, with a gentle breeze to help the ships find the Florida Current which ran north and up the Straits of Florida. For the first 5 days the voyage was uneventful with the weather remaining good and giving no indication whatsoever of the rapidly approaching killer storm. But on July 29th, long swells started to appear, coming from the southeast. The atmosphere became heavy with moisture with the sun shinning brightly through the haze. A gentle breeze still blew and the sea was smooth, but the swells started to make the ship gently dip and roll. Experienced navigators, pilots, and old hands started to be concerned. They knew that these were the early signs do an impending tropical storm.
On the morning of July 30th, just south of Cape Canaveral, winds had begun to pick up and by late afternoon had increased to over 30 knots and the waves reaching 20 feet. The velocity of the wind kept increasing, and by midnight, the ships were barely under control. Around 4 a.m. on July 31st, the hurricane struck the doomed ships with all it's might, driving one ship after another on the jagged reefs. The ships broke up like wooden toys. Ubilla's Capitana disintegrated, crushed on the reef like matchsticks. Almost all aboard were killed, including Captain General Ubilla. The entire fleet was lost, and of the some twenty five hundred persons aboard various ships, over one thousand perished.