A new category

[Mike Klee 11]

Hi!

 

I do not know about the other BoB'ers, but I am passionate about shipwreck coins. Trouble is, this category is married to "ancient coins" - which coins do not interest me in the least. Now....if I want to see if there are any exciting shipwreck coins for sale I have to wade through masses of ancient coins.

 

How about BoB splitting these two categories so prospective buyers can see at a glance if there are any coins in their particular field of interest for sale?

 

Mike Klee

[geejay50 10]

Hi Mike,

 

I aggree with you. Most Shipwreck Coins are not Ancient although usually from the 16th to 19th Century , they are much younger than Byzantine, Roman or Greek coins usually and surely deserve their own category on Bob.

 

They are also very interesting in that they often have a human drama attached to them which relates to the actual reason for the wrecking in the first place and the story behind the discovery of that shipwreck. In some cases it was not the storm that drove the ship on the rocks as everyone often thinks, it was navigational error of the Captain on a flat sea (VOC Visch- Green point- Cape Town 1739, Santiago 1585 Bassos da India, Birkenhead Qoin Point) or in another Scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency - Heart failure) had so weakened the crew that there were just no capable hands to man the ship's sails and the ship ran aground. The story behind who discovered the wreck and how can also be very interesting although often not told because of secrecy surrounding what happened to the find.

 

South Africa has close to 1000 shipwrecks around its coast with the majority in the Cape area. They have been carefully documented by Malcolm Turner in his book 'Shipwrecks and Salvage in south Africa 1505 to the Present' along with many photographs,newspaper extracts,GPS co-ordinates,coin inventories and other relevant facts. This book which took the author 8 years to compile is vital for anyone interested in this field. I picked up a good copy in the book section of Bob recently.

 

From these shipwrecks there have been many coins and artifacts recovered and for those of us privileged enough to have found these bits of history and felt the thrill of discovery, it has become an enduring interest.Some pics attached - note the diver's chisel mark on the Ducatoon because the only decent quality coins could be found in the conglomerate formed by the wreckage and had to be chopped open.

 

Welcome aboard !!

 

Geejay

[Mike Klee 11]

Hi Georg,

Lovely photos of wonderful shipwreck coins! My feeling is that shipwreck coins should form a category in themselves. At present, the format on BoB is not user-friendly to coin collectors - such as myself - with respect to viewing shipwreck coins.

 

Quite honestly, I do not bother with the category shipwreck coins are incorporated in at present, due to my having to sift through lots of Roman and Greek coins which are of no particular interest to coin collectors such as myself.

I had expected more debate on this matter, so - unfortunately - it would appear as if the lack of debate on the matter will result in the continuance of the status quo.....

This is a pity as I am sure that collectors of ancient coins would, equally, prefer not to have to sift through shipwreck coins!

Mike Klee

[qball 12]

Hi All

 

Unfortunately as there are low numbers of coins listed in this category, we will not implement separate categories for this until there is a demand. Currently there are only 20 coins in this category. There is not sufficient demand for us to create categories for a handful of items only. If we did this for every request to add a category for a specific item or product, we would have 10's of thousands of categories accross all products, which is simply not practical or user friendly.

 

Kind regards

Cuan

[jwither 11]

Hi!

 

I do not know about the other BoB'ers, but I am passionate about shipwreck coins. Trouble is, this category is married to "ancient coins" - which coins do not interest me in the least. Now....if I want to see if there are any exciting shipwreck coins for sale I have to wade through masses of ancient coins.

 

How about BoB splitting these two categories so prospective buyers can see at a glance if there are any coins in their particular field of interest for sale?

 

Mike Klee

 

You probably already know this but these are readily available in the United States where I live. You can buy them at auctions such as Heritage and from dealers like Daniel Sedwick. If the certificate is important to you, I'm not sure that these are always available though.

 

Personally, I am a collector of Spanish colonial coinage though not the Cobs which are the bulk of the shipwreck coinage. What I would say is, it is fine to buy these but from a financial standpoint, only if they are bought generally at a discount to one that is not salvaged. The reason for this is that most of these coins have salt water corrosion.

[HR_COINS 10]

Hi All

 

Unfortunately as there are low numbers of coins listed in this category, we will not implement separate categories for this until there is a demand. Currently there are only 20 coins in this category. There is not sufficient demand for us to create categories for a handful of items only. If we did this for every request to add a category for a specific item or product, we would have 10's of thousands of categories accross all products, which is simply not practical or user friendly.

 

Kind regards

Cuan

 

What about a category for Silver Proteas?

There is one for the gold but nothing for the silver.

There are 100's if not more listed.

[qball 12]

I will look into this.

 

Thanks

Cuan