Watch List notes:

Zacatecas, Mexico, cap-and-rays 8 reales, 1835 OM, NGC shipwreck effect / SB Pulaski, very rare provenance. DP-Zs15; KM-377.13. This is the first item we have ever offered from this wreck, discovered and salvaged in 2018. The steam packet Pulaski, carrying 187 passengers and crew, left the port of Charleston, South Carolina on June 14, 1838, bound for Baltimore, Maryland. Around 11 PM that night, off the coast of North Carolina, the starboard boiler exploded. Some were killed in the blast, others were lost as the ship quickly went down; around 59 survivors were saved. Unlike the other larger US shipwreck recoveries, where big quantities of coins from commercial shipments were recovered, coins from the Steamboat Pulaski were wholly passenger and crew "pocket change." The find uncovered Mint State US gold coins, a number of US silver coins (mostly half dollars), and many foreign coins that were US legal tender at the time, like this one. Although no census has been published for the total recovery, the scarcity of Pulaski coins on the market suggests that it ranks among the top in terms of rarity of US shipwreck coin finds and is also one of the earliest US wrecks to be salvaged. This is apparently the only Zacatecas-mint cap-and-rays 8 reales recovered from the wreck. Though minor saltwater corrosion precludes any adjectival grade by NGC, the sharpness of details and significant luster on the reverse suggest an About Uncirculated grade in our opinion. Recovered from: S.B. Pulaski, sunk in 1838 off North Carolina


Estimate: 1000 - 1500 USD