🥇 BANNER 1693 HAMMERED SILVER - A PIRATES COIN! (Updated Below)

Silver Tree Chaser

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Aug 12, 2012
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I found this small hammered silver coin two weeks ago at an early colonial-period site dating back to the mid-1600’s. Located near Newport, RI, this productive site has offered up an Oak Tree shilling, two Spanish cobs, numerous coppers, buttons, buckles, seal spoon fragments, etc. over the past several years. For finding early colonial-period finds, this site is like Disney World for detectorists.

I was using the new 11” coil on my XP Deus when I got a high-toned signal. It gave a slight but consistent tone, though my machine couldn’t put any numbers to it. I cut and flipped a deep plug. The signal was on the dirt side of the plug. Upon probing the plug, I could discern a silver-like color to something. I was skeptical, but my probe thought otherwise, as it gave a loud signal. I removed a clod of dirt and saw a small hammered silver coin. I could see a design on the coin. I thought it was possibly a Massachusetts Silver two-pence or three-pence coin, but I couldn’t see a tree design. Perhaps it was a Spanish cob? I avoided rubbing dirt off the coin, which can be damaging. I ran to my car for a bottle of water to clean the coin. I ran into the property owner and he came with me back to the hole. I doused the coin with water, and this is what we saw.

P5040043.JPG

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Here is the cut plug. The coin can be seen on the top of the plug.

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The coin is about the size of a dime and nearly thin as a razor. Here are some photos taken when I got home.

P5040063.JPG

P5040064.JPG

I went on a fruitless search for the identity of this coin for the next week. :BangHead: The writing on the coin is Arabic. I had some thoughts on its origin, where it came from and when, but I wanted a certain and exact identification for the coin before posting it. My first insight on the coin’s true identity, a Khums Kabir coin from Yemen, came from the most unlikely of sources. Although I had never cared for any of those TV treasure hunting shows, I heard from my hunting partner that Diggers on National Geographic had dug a worn fragment of a similar coin (Mystery Coin Episode). They also had found their coin in Newport, which I knew to be no coincidence. There was a reason for all of this in the town’s history. So I watched the episode online. I don’t get the whole tree climbing routine or running around acting half-crazed after digging a worn copper, but they did find a half coin fragment further broken in two pieces that matched my find. More importantly, they correctly identified the fragment as coming from a Khums Kabir coin out of Yemen.

P5250246.JPG

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My online search for these specific coins produced only a few results for further follow-up; however, I did find one specialist in Islamic and Indian coins, Steve Album Rare Coins, in California. While speaking with him on the phone, I e-mailed the pictures below, and he read the inscription, with the ease of someone reading the breakfast menu at a local Denny’s.

Here is his reply (cut and pasted):

Yemen
Qasimid dynasty
Muhammad III, AH1098-1130 / 1687-1718, with the title al-Hadi
AR khumasi
Mint of al-Hadra’
Date AH1105 (began on 10 September 1693)Listed in my “Checklist of Islamic Coins” as #1138.

Stephen Album Rare Coins
P.O. Box 7386
Santa Rosa CA 95407, USA

He said that I did well by contacting him, as there were only about two people in the U.S.
who could identify my coin, he being one of them. :notworthy: He stated that my coin was in wonderful condition and had a numismatic value of $100. He added that coins from Yemen are “the most unappreciated coins on the face of the planet.” None of that mattered to me, as I value the coin much more for its provenance and history.

I was hoping for a date of 1693 or earlier. :hello2: In the 1690’s, the American colonies was carrying out brisk trade with each other, the Caribbean Islands, the west coast of Africa for the slave trade, and England, but no one was sailing to the Indian Ocean to trade anywhere near Yemen at the time for many reasons. Yemen is located along the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea with Saudi Arabia located to the North; moreover, it’s found north of the Horn of Africa on the east coast, i.e., the Indian Ocean.

240px-Arabian_Sea_map.png

So how did these coins from Yemen get half a world away to Southern New England in the late 17th Century? While the Diggers TV show provided a much needed identification and mentioned the coin’s long journey from Yemen to New England, I can’t believe what they failed to recognize. They declared that the coin was the first one ever to be found in the United States, which is a doubtful claim, along with a bunch of other hype, and all the ridiculous slang words (sweet nectar, roundness in the hole, etc.). If they had researched how the coin came to Newport from half a world away in the late-17th Century, they could have made a greater and indisputable claim. These 17th Century Yemeni coins came to Newport by only one means - piracy! :skullflag: :skullflag: :skullflag:

Captain Thomas Tew of Newport, RI sailed aboard the sloop Amity from Bermuda with a privateer’s commission to attack French trade off the West Coast of Africa in 1692. Once out to sea, he gathered his men and instead proposed that they turn pirate or “go on the account” and sail for richer waters in the Arabian Sea. He didn’t have to argue the point, as they all readily agreed. They captured only took one ship in late 1693; it was all they needed. It was a rich merchantman belonging to the Great Mogul of India. Masters of intimidation, Tew’s crew took the ship despite there being 300 Indian soldiers aboard for defense. After tearing through the vessel, they hit the jackpot, recovering 100,000 pounds sterling in gold and silver. Every member of his crew earned 1300 -1500 pound sterling on the cruise, while some select crew members made a bit more. After a 22,000 mile cruise and 15 months at sea, they went home and arrived in Newport, RI where gold and silver coins along with plundered trade goods flowed into the local economy for a spending binge on eating, drinking, and carousing. :skullflag: :skullflag: :skullflag:

In this fanciful illustration by artist Howard Pyle from 1894, Thomas Tew offers good company and conversation with the New York’s governor Benjamin Fletcher after returning home from his successful voyage.

Pyle_pirate_tales[1].jpg

While Tew’s fantastic haul of looted gold and silver makes him the most likely suspect on the origins of my coin, there was a mob of other cut-throats, the Pirate Roundsmen, which followed in his wake to the rich shipping routes of the Arabian Sea - Henry “Long Ben” Every, Robert Culliford, and the unfortunate Captain William Kidd. So perhaps my coin came from one of these other pirate voyages, as most of them and their crew had New England connections. Regardless, I firmly believe that the coin I recovered has an absolute and undeniable connection with piracy in the Arabian Sea during the late 1690’s. There was no other source for such coins at this time. I’m surprised that the Diggers show overlooked all this fantastic history.

I apologize for my long, rambling post, but I don’t find a genuine pirate’s coin every day. I wanted to make a convincing case for this latest find, and I appreciate any feedback on the T-Net. More importantly, if anyone has found coins similar to what I recovered, please let me know! Don’t be surprised if someone else posts one of these amazing coins.
Two fragments of these coins were found by members of a local metal detecting club, the Silver City Treasure Seekers in Tauton, MA. Fragmented coins are not surprising, as the cutting and clipping of silver coins was a common practice among thrifty colonists. If you have recovered similar coins along the East Coast, please post a photo. You might have found a 1690’s coin for Yemen. More importantly, you might have a genuine pirate’s coin.:thumbsup:



Good Hunting
 

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Upvote 128
Fantastic
Thanks silver tree for saving history!
 

Great story and research, thank you for sharing! That is one cool coin!

I hope to see it at one of club meetings! :icon_thumleft:
 

Absolutely love this coin and the story behind it! Steve Album is truly an awesome dealer - he is one of the most knowledgeable dealers in the world for Islamic coins. He spent 10 years travelling through the desert and collecting old coins from remote Islamic outposts, formed a truly monumental collection and then provided it to a university museum in Nuremberg. Congrats on an epic dig!
 

Superb! what a great find, congratulations!
 

Awesome story! I found this small silver coin on a beach on cape cod, MA a couple of years ago and have never been able to ID it, some suggested Arabic...
ea502b87a13d82359dff9cb5a5334fae.png

f5b58b7303b17a20bfc90b855f8a47a6.png

86d837bc23e85cee9cb469b7d5791697.png


Thanks for looking


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Awesome story! I found this small silver coin on a beach on cape cod, MA a couple of years ago and have never been able to ID it, some suggested Arabic...
ea502b87a13d82359dff9cb5a5334fae.png

f5b58b7303b17a20bfc90b855f8a47a6.png

86d837bc23e85cee9cb469b7d5791697.png


Thanks for looking


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My apologies for not responding to this way sooner. It appears to have an Arabic inscription, but the heavy toning and wear may not allow for identification. Could you possible provide better pictures? Is it milled (perfectly round) or hammered (off round)? If it's a hammered coin, which it appears to be, I would certainly like to take a closer look. Thank you.
 

Sick!!! A great book is New England's Pirates and Lost Treasures by Robert Ellis Cahill. Tells some awesome New England Pirate stories and lists several beaches down in that area where pirate treasure has been found. Read it if you haven't, great stuff. Cheers.
 

I have to come clean. I buried that coin there LOL. That is an amazing discovery and a nice bit of research that you have done congratulations. I'm not even sure if I had found that that I would have realized it was a coin. Who doesn't dream about finding pirate treasure? Maybe that fell out of a huge chest of them whenever they were going to bury it
 

yes, GREAT research on this coin - it makes ALL the difference in the world, to us readers!
What-a-FIND! WOW! :thumbsup:
 

I found this small hammered silver coin two weeks ago at an early colonial-period site dating back to the mid-1600’s. Located near Newport, RI, this productive site has offered up an Oak Tree shilling, two Spanish cobs, numerous coppers, buttons, buckles, seal spoon fragments, etc. over the past several years. For finding early colonial-period finds, this site is like Disney World for detectorists.

I was using the new 11” coil on my XP Deus when I got a high-toned signal. It gave a slight but consistent tone, though my machine couldn’t put any numbers to it. I cut and flipped a deep plug. The signal was on the dirt side of the plug. Upon probing the plug, I could discern a silver-like color to something. I was skeptical, but my probe thought otherwise, as it gave a loud signal. I removed a clod of dirt and saw a small hammered silver coin. I could see a design on the coin. I thought it was possibly a Massachusetts Silver two-pence or three-pence coin, but I couldn’t see a tree design. Perhaps it was a Spanish cob? I avoided rubbing dirt off the coin, which can be damaging. I ran to my car for a bottle of water to clean the coin. I ran into the property owner and he came with me back to the hole. I doused the coin with water, and this is what we saw.

View attachment 1000830

View attachment 1000831

Here is the cut plug. The coin can be seen on the top of the plug.

View attachment 1000832

The coin is about the size of a dime and nearly thin as a razor. Here are some photos taken when I got home.

View attachment 1000833

View attachment 1000834

I went on a fruitless search for the identity of this coin for the next week. :BangHead: The writing on the coin is Arabic. I had some thoughts on its origin, where it came from and when, but I wanted a certain and exact identification for the coin before posting it. My first insight on the coin’s true identity, a Khums Kabir coin from Yemen, came from the most unlikely of sources. Although I had never cared for any of those TV treasure hunting shows, I heard from my hunting partner that Diggers on National Geographic had dug a worn fragment of a similar coin (Mystery Coin Episode). They also had found their coin in Newport, which I knew to be no coincidence. There was a reason for all of this in the town’s history. So I watched the episode online. I don’t get the whole tree climbing routine or running around acting half-crazed after digging a worn copper, but they did find a half coin fragment further broken in two pieces that matched my find. More importantly, they correctly identified the fragment as coming from a Khums Kabir coin out of Yemen.

View attachment 1000828

View attachment 1000827

View attachment 1000826

View attachment 1000825

My online search for these specific coins produced only a few results for further follow-up; however, I did find one specialist in Islamic and Indian coins, Steve Album Rare Coins, in California. While speaking with him on the phone, I e-mailed the pictures below, and he read the inscription, with the ease of someone reading the breakfast menu at a local Denny’s.

Here is his reply (cut and pasted):

Yemen
Qasimid dynasty
Muhammad III, AH1098-1130 / 1687-1718, with the title al-Hadi
AR khumasi
Mint of al-Hadra’
Date AH1105 (began on 10 September 1693)Listed in my “Checklist of Islamic Coins” as #1138.

Stephen Album Rare Coins
P.O. Box 7386
Santa Rosa CA 95407, USA

He said that I did well by contacting him, as there were only about two people in the U.S.
who could identify my coin, he being one of them. :notworthy: He stated that my coin was in wonderful condition and had a numismatic value of $100. He added that coins from Yemen are “the most unappreciated coins on the face of the planet.” None of that mattered to me, as I value the coin much more for its provenance and history.

I was hoping for a date of 1693 or earlier. :hello2: In the 1690’s, the American colonies was carrying out brisk trade with each other, the Caribbean Islands, the west coast of Africa for the slave trade, and England, but no one was sailing to the Indian Ocean to trade anywhere near Yemen at the time for many reasons. Yemen is located along the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea with Saudi Arabia located to the North; moreover, it’s found north of the Horn of Africa on the east coast, i.e., the Indian Ocean.

View attachment 1000829

So how did these coins from Yemen get half a world away to Southern New England in the late 17th Century? While the Diggers TV show provided a much needed identification and mentioned the coin’s long journey from Yemen to New England, I can’t believe what they failed to recognize. They declared that the coin was the first one ever to be found in the United States, which is a doubtful claim, along with a bunch of other hype, and all the ridiculous slang words (sweet nectar, roundness in the hole, etc.). If they had researched how the coin came to Newport from half a world away in the late-17th Century, they could have made a greater and indisputable claim. These 17th Century Yemeni coins came to Newport by only one means - piracy! :skullflag: :skullflag: :skullflag:

Captain Thomas Tew of Newport, RI sailed aboard the sloop Amity from Bermuda with a privateer’s commission to attack French trade off the West Coast of Africa in 1692. Once out to sea, he gathered his men and instead proposed that they turn pirate or “go on the account” and sail for richer waters in the Arabian Sea. He didn’t have to argue the point, as they all readily agreed. They captured only took one ship in late 1693; it was all they needed. It was a rich merchantman belonging to the Great Mogul of India. Masters of intimidation, Tew’s crew took the ship despite there being 300 Indian soldiers aboard for defense. After tearing through the vessel, they hit the jackpot, recovering 100,000 pounds sterling in gold and silver. Every member of his crew earned 1300 -1500 pound sterling on the cruise, while some select crew members made a bit more. After a 22,000 mile cruise and 15 months at sea, they went home and arrived in Newport, RI where gold and silver coins along with plundered trade goods flowed into the local economy for a spending binge on eating, drinking, and carousing. :skullflag: :skullflag: :skullflag:

In this fanciful illustration by artist Howard Pyle from 1894, Thomas Tew offers good company and conversation with the New York’s governor Benjamin Fletcher after returning home from his successful voyage.

View attachment 1000824

While Tew’s fantastic haul of looted gold and silver makes him the most likely suspect on the origins of my coin, there was a mob of other cut-throats, the Pirate Roundsmen, which followed in his wake to the rich shipping routes of the Arabian Sea - Henry “Long Ben” Every, Robert Culliford, and the unfortunate Captain William Kidd. So perhaps my coin came from one of these other pirate voyages, as most of them and their crew had New England connections. Regardless, I firmly believe that the coin I recovered has an absolute and undeniable connection with piracy in the Arabian Sea during the late 1690’s. There was no other source for such coins at this time. I’m surprised that the Diggers show overlooked all this fantastic history.

I apologize for my long, rambling post, but I don’t find a genuine pirate’s coin every day. I wanted to make a convincing case for this latest find, and I appreciate any feedback on the T-Net. More importantly, if anyone has found coins similar to what I recovered, please let me know! Don’t be surprised if someone else posts one of these amazing coins.
Two fragments of these coins were found by members of a local metal detecting club, the Silver City Treasure Seekers in Tauton, MA. Fragmented coins are not surprising, as the cutting and clipping of silver coins was a common practice among thrifty colonists. If you have recovered similar coins along the East Coast, please post a photo. You might have found a 1690’s coin for Yemen. More importantly, you might have a genuine pirate’s coin.:thumbsup:



Good Hunting

nice pirate treasure. good job.
 

UPDATE - PUBLICATION OF STUDY ON ARABIAN COINS & RED SEA PIRACY

In one of my separate post from last month (Nov. of 2017) for the recovery of a 1662 Oak Tree twopence, I mentioned the need to update this thread — the Arabian silver coin in this thread and the Mass Silver twopence were both found at the same site. I authored a lengthy study earlier this year on the unlikely recovery of the Arabian silver coin. My study appeared in the past August issue of the Colonial Newsletter, a research journal published by the American Numismatic Society.

128.jpg

I first found the coin back in 2014, and my initial research detailed here on TNet strongly suggested that it was a genuine pirate’s coin. I continued to research the potential history of the coin found in the detailed accounts from over three centuries ago and eventually decided to pursue publication of what I uncovered. Any inferred connection between the coin and piracy without publication would have only amounted to wishful thinking.

Eventually, I wasn’t researching a connection for the one single coin I recovered. Here on this thread and elsewhere I came into contact with other detectorists who had also uncovered strange Arabian coins in Southern New England. These coins/coin fragments, nine in total, shared some common characteristics: they all traded in the distant Red Sea; 8 of the 9 coins were from Arabia (the 9th coin was from Egypt); they were all silver; and none of the coins dated later than 1695. Here’s a view.

17TH CENTRY ARABIAN COINS.jpg

My research soundly concluded what I had already proposed a few years back on this thread. The coin I recovered along with all the other coins presented in the study are evidence of one of the greatest crimes of the 17th century involving one of history’s most famous pirates, Captain Henry Every. Every and his crew of 180 men aboard the Fancy captured a royal treasure ship belonging to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, as it sailed from Arabia to India with an immense cargo of gold and silver coins — silver coins just like those pictured above. The year was 1695; the recovered coins range in time from the 1640s to no later than 1695 — a perfectly sound correlation.

The amount of primary documents I found available for research was amazing to me, as I traced Henry Every and his crew from the west coast of India to an important stopover in the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and onward to the Bahamas, the American Colonies, and back home to England. Most of the crew hailed from England before turning pirate but never returned; rather, they took up new lives in the American Colonies where all evaded prosecution for their crimes. Evidence of this can be found in multiple primary source documents. I found one such document to be quite important and striking. On May 4, 1698, the General Assembly in Newport [Rhode Island] voted that former Sheriff Townsend be secured and brought to trial for the following: “Capt’n Thomas Townsend, late sheriff, did, some time in the month of April last, by his connivance, or willful neglect, let one William Downs at large out of his Majesty’s jail, and so has made his escape from the hands of justice, he being committed upon suspicion of piracy.” So who was William Downs? Was he a member of Every’s crew? Imagine my wonder in finding his name listed below in this royal proclamation from King William III, dated August 8, 1696. This Proclamation for Apprehending Henry Every, Alias Bridgeman, and Other Sundry Pirates assures “the payment of 500 Hundred Pounds Sterling for the said Henry Every, alias Bridgeman, and 50 Pounds Sterling Money foresaid for every one of the other Persons above-named.”

View attachment PROC.pdf

Included among the 25 listed accomplices from the Fancy is Newport jail breaker “William Down.” Downtown Newport, where William Downs was briefly held in jail and his pirate brethren walked the streets, was a mere three miles from where I recovered my coin specimen!

I uncovered a great deal more in my research, going much further than I would have ever imagined possible in connecting the coins in the study to piracy in the Red Sea. The biggest revelation was evidence indicating that Henry Every actually went to Newport under the guise of a slave trader before sailing home to England, where he soon after disappeared from the pages of history. He was never captured and thus became known as “the Successful Pirate.” The evidence of Henry Every’s visit to the American Colonies had never before been published. The details of Henry Every’s apparent covert use of a slave ship in his flight from justice is just as fantastic as story of pure fiction.

My article is 44 pages long, and yes — it took a lot of time and effort. Was it worth it? I’m still not sure. Publication of the study resulted in some publicity — the local paper and TV news along with an article in Coin World (see link), but I was hoping that the story of coins and their connection to such a rich history would have become more widely publicized. Regardless of the outcome, I did enjoy connecting all the dots in my research and uncovering a lost history.

https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/2017/09/arabian-coin-in-rhode-island-might-come-from-pirates.all.html

Henry_Every[1].gif
CAPT. AVERY and his crew taking one of the GREAT MOGUL’S Ships.
Johnson, Charles, A General and True History of the Lives and Actions of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers &c. To Which Is Added, a Genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the Most Noted Pyrates, London, 1734.

My apology for writing such a long post, but for those who may have an interest, I wanted to provide a full story. Obviously, a detailed account of Henry Every and the voyage of the Fancy is much bigger, 44 pages bigger! If anyone is interested in a fuller account of all the details, please post it here. I can perhaps add excerpts from my study to this thread or make other arrangements to provide my study to any interested TNet members.

Good Hunting in 2018!

STC
 

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Great read and thank you for the research and the update. I will be reading this again. It was that good!
 

Very Nicely posted and rerearched!! Congrats on such an early coin. Great read!! Happy Hunting and post some more like this.
 

Hey Jim, I can not thank you enough for all the research that you did and the meaning that you put behind my find! You put an amazing story behind a fragment of silver that I found on the beach. It is every kids dream to find pirate treasure and because of your story I know that I have a legitimate piece of pirate treasure. Just to think about the blood that was shed to steal this coin and the journey it went on to get to cape cod is amazing. You made a dream come true for me, I brag to everyone now that I have pirate treasure and that is all due to your research, thank you. Here’s a better picture of my coin for those who haven’t seen it. Thanks again!

IMG_0015.JPG
 

What an amazing find! I'm voting a second Banner! :laughing7:
SPECTACULAR!
 

Hey Jim, I can not thank you enough for all the research that you did and the meaning that you put behind my find! You put an amazing story behind a fragment of silver that I found on the beach. It is every kids dream to find pirate treasure and because of your story I know that I have a legitimate piece of pirate treasure. Just to think about the blood that was shed to steal this coin and the journey it went on to get to cape cod is amazing. You made a dream come true for me, I brag to everyone now that I have pirate treasure and that is all due to your research, thank you. Here’s a better picture of my coin for those who haven’t seen it. Thanks again!

View attachment 1527974

Ross: It means a lot to me that you take a great deal of pride in finding such a unique coin on the basis of my research. Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply. You can be certain of your coin's history. Another such coin was just found several weeks ago by another detectorist, again in MA. It appears to be 17th century and from the Red Sea region. I need to get it identified for the finder. That would be a total of 10 coins found in Southern New England. I should point out that T-Net member Screwynewy also found an apparent Red Sea pirate coins down in North Carolina, but that area was beyond the scope of my study.

Hyoung-nam-pirate_Henry_Avery[1].jpg
Here's an image of Henry Every from Uncharted 4. It's a Sony PlayStation game loosely based on Every's robbery of the Gunsway and the modern day search for his treasure. I'm not a gamer, but I kept coming across this image and others for the game while researching my article. I'm certain that players in the game find a cave stuffed with chests of gold, skeletons, etc., but I'd rather chase down the real thing! :icon_thumleft: Anyway, it's still a cool illustration.

I'll send you a PM as soon as I have an opportunity.
 

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