WWII memories and map help find galleon shipwreck

[Andy in West Oz]

Pretty cool.

Coin clue to shipwreck legend? | NEWS.com.au

A COIN found in a snake-infested swamp could help prove a century-old theory that a Spanish or Portuguese ship was wrecked on Australia’s east coast years before Captain James Cook’s famed voyage of discovery.

The find, made by an expedition led by self-funded Brisbane historian Greg Jeffreys, is the first piece of dated evidence among a number of artefacts found in Eighteen Mile Swamp on Queensland’s North Stradbroke Island.

An independent UK expert from Cambridge University has been able to confirm the coin as being dated 1597 for NEWS.com.au from what he could see in this picture.

“If it were the genuine object it does suggest a late 17th century wreck,” the expert from the Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum told NEWS.com.au. “It’s pre-Captain Cook by a long way.” (MORE)

Mr Jefferys, who is himself waiting to have the piece verified in Europe, hopes the coin will lead him to the wreck first rumoured to be there from witness accounts in the 1890s.

“It’s the first thing that we can date 100 per cent,” he said. “This has the date stamped on it so it has to be a 17th century wreck.”
Legend of the Stradbroke Galleon

Tales include Aborigines in the 1920s finding gold coins in the area with locals claiming to have seen the wreck throughout the years.

There has also been speculation Captain Cook used secret Spanish or Portuguese maps to navigate before he made landfall in Australia in 1770.

“All the evidence points to either a Portuguese or Spanish ship,” Mr Jeffreys said. “It’s not likely to be a galleon - all the eye-witness accounts put it at 30m long so it’s probably a caravel or carrack which were used for exploration.”
The find

Mr Jeffreys said his team was resting on a sand spit after slowly hacking their way through 3m razor grass when a colleague stumbled on the piece.

“He was scratching in the sand and his machete turned up this coin,” Mr Jeffreys said. “It’s one of those fluke things – it’s amazing.”

Mr Jeffreys, an archaeology graduate and historian, has looking for a wreck to support the theories for more than 20 years.

The quest has not been without its disappointments.

In 2002, he thought he’d found muzzles and barrels of cannons from a 16th-century Portuguese or Spanish galleon only to concede days later in the national press that the pieces were actually lifeboat supports from a 19th-century ship.

More recently he has discovered a brass button, a sailor’s blade and a fishing weight in the dense swamp.
WWII military map

The group had gone to the location after a tip-off from the son of a RAAF pilot whose father had flown over the area many times during World War II.

The pilot - Cyril Broome - claimed to have seen the shipwreck in the swamp between 1938 and 1942 while flying training missions and calculated the location on a military map using area landmarks.

Another map published by Shell in the 1920s includes an entry for “Wreck of Spanish Galleon” in about the same location.

Authorities in Queensland have previously expressed scepticism about the claims.

[Capt.Sensible]

This smells a bit fishy - the 'expert' from Cambridge University says that the coin is stamped 1597. The image on the website is not good enough to clearly see the date but it is not inconsistant with a coin of the late 16th century. The expert is then quoated as going on to say that it may indicate that the wreck is of late 17th century date. Why not late 16th, early or mid 17th century origin? It would have been quite possible for an English coin to have travelled to SE Asia in the late 16th century.....mmmmmmmmm...wait and see......

[morse1001]

It will be interesting to see what turns up, if indeed there is a wreck to be found

[marcus69x]

What if the coin had been lost by someone after James Cook had discovered it. Maybe the person collected old coins and had lost it in this swamp?
Just a thought.

[Steve Newman]

I have over the years been fortunate enough to find about 200 or so of this type of coin in England. Usually the silver survives better than this example in UK soil, so by the look of it, it could well have been underwater for some time.

The report says its a shilling or sixpence, it could also be a three pence or three farthings as all these were dated variants of Elizabeth's coinage. The reason they are saying late 17th century is I guess that, the way its been clipped, travelled, ended up 'allegedly' on a foreign ship, is so far from home and was also a a very late 16th century coin when minted. 100 or so years for this type of coin in circulation is not unusual and therefore to do all that wouldn't have been quick...

As you rightly say without knowing the context of the find spot its strike me as unusual. Its not easy to find coins such as this as they are wafer thin silver, I would have thought it easier to find a 30m wreck than an individual find from it???

Interesting story though, thanks for posting it.

Steve