History of Noble Metals. Part Two: Spanish Doubloon.

This coin has a rich history indeed. It was used as official currency in the period between the beginning of 16th and the middle of 19th century in Spain, and all of it’s colonies. Given the fact that it was made almost out of pure gold, it had a real value in countries where it wasn’t even a legal tender.
Today, it is most readily associated with pirates that sailed and plundered trading ships off the coasts of both Americas and west Europe. Since it was a Spanish coin, it often found its way into treasure booty of English pirate buccaneers. 
I will give an example here  how salvage divers, led by underwater explorer Barry Clifford - recovered 4,131 pieces of eight, and undisclosed amount of doubloons in the wreck of “Black Sam” Bellamy’s pirate galley Whydah, just off the shore of Cape Cod. It is interesting also to mention that Whydah was originally built to sail as a heavily-armed trading and transport ship for use in the Atlantic slave trade. It was supposed to carry goods from England to Africa and trade them for slaves, then sail to Caribbean to trade slaves for precious metals, medical ingredients, sugar and indigo, and finally ,sail back to England with all this cargo on board. 
At the time, slave trader Whydah was navigating somewhere between island of Cuba and Hispaniola, when Black Sam first spotted it. There was a 3 day long chase, in which Bellamy's 2 ships, (a 26 cannon galley named Sultana and 10 gun converted sloop Marianne), finally caught up to the Whydah and made it's captain surrender it without resistance. Sam Bellamy short after made Whydah his flagship - and it remained so all the way to the end of his pirate escapades.

Life sized replica of the pirate ship "Whydah".

Based on salvaged clothes and gear - look of the pirate sailors on board Whydah.

One doubloon had a worth of 16 pieces of eight at the time when Whydah sank in 1717.
Doubloon was minted and stamped into a coin from 22 karat - almost pure - gold, and hence it was ordinarily referred to as a “gold piece”.

Spanish gold doubloon.

It draws it’s name from Spanish word doblón, meaning "double" - it was worth 2 pistole, which was worth 2 escudo. One escudo was worth 16 reale, and 8 reale was also called a dollar, peso, or duro.
Most coins of that era were circular, but, initially they were hand stamped and therefore irregular in shape. The weight of the gold in coin is what mattered the most. If they weighed too much after the minting, small bits were cut off around the edges to make them roughly, (in case of the doubloon), 6.77 grams, or 0.218 ounces heavy.

History of Noble Metals. Part One: The Legend of Croesus.

Maybe you have heard of a saying “as rich as Caesar”?! The original saying actually is “as rich as Croesus”, - it has been ever since ancient times.

Often nowadays people use Caesar’s name instead of Croesus, possibly because it is much harder to pronounce, and it is less recognizable.

King Croesus was the last king of Lydia (560 – 546 B.C.E).

Greatly due to his conquests and trade practices, Croesus was revered by many of his contemporaries as the wealthiest man on earth. Historically, the legend of the immenseness of his wealth is shadowed only by his merit in issuing the first standard purity gold coin - used in general circulation. The coin itself was a crude mix, so called electrum, which is a naturally occurring pallid yellow alloy of silver and gold. It has been also produced artificially during history. Lydian’s and other ancient people referred to it as “white gold”, as opposed to “refined gold”. In 546 B.C.E Croesus was defeated and captured by Persians, who then adopted gold as the predominant metal in their coins.

Croesus gold coin

Although Croesus had subjugated the Ionian city-states, he was friendly to the Greeks, making salient and grand offerings to their oracles.

Herodotus, (ancient Hellenic historian), is in large responsible for the legendary stories involving this Lydian king. According to one, the Athenian Solon once advised Croesus that no man could be deemed happy, despite his riches, until he finished his life happily. Later, after Croesus had already been defeated by Persian ruler Cyrus the II, and sentenced to be burned alive, he allegedly cried out Solon’s name three times from the burning pyre. Cyrus, moved by king’s explanation, sympathetically spared his captive’s life, just to become his friend and ally later on. The myth, however, is chronologically impossible, and it is only one of the legends relating to this very real Midas.

Croesus on Pyre