Guaranteed genuine silver 8 real coin dated 1783 which was recovered from the El Cazador shipwreck of 1784, conserved, and slabbed in a Numismatic Guarantee Corporation case.
This rare coin is one of only about 500 coins that were stuck together in a cannonball like cluster within the shipwreck that weighed over 35 pounds, famously deamed the Whale Cluster.
This spectacular coin is unique in that the front, obverse side, remained almost fully intact while entombed at the bottom of the ocean for over two hundred years, while the back, reverse side, was artfully shaped by the ocean The historic parallel is uncanny. King Carlos the III watches over his kingdom painfully unaware that his dreams of an American empire on the other side of the world are quickly vanishing at the hands of the sea - because these coins never arrived in New Orleans.
El Cazador is called the shipwreck that changed the world due to it's key role in the events leading up to a young United States having the opportunity to double it's size through the Louisiana purchase. Spain had to sell the Louisiana territory to France after these coins failed to arrive to shore up the provinces finances. Napoleon, who was focused on Europe, then re-sold the territory to the United States.
The Spanish eight real coin is considered America's first silver dollar as it was legal tender in the United States. The phrase 'piece of eight' referred to this type of coin. For historical context, the famed pirate Jean Lafitte was born in 1780, three years before this coin was minted.
Case Dimensions: Length 3 and 3/8 inches, Width 2 and 3/8 inches, Height 3/8 inch