Are Dark Tide Relics shipwreck coins authentic?

Every shipwreck coin and artifact sold by Dark Tide Relics is authenticated and accompanied by provenance documentation from recognized authorities such as the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, NGC, or PCGS, plus a permanent digital provenance record via TreasureCheck.ai.

Which shipwrecks does Dark Tide Relics specialize in?

Dark Tide Relics curates artifacts from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha (1622), Santa Margarita, the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet, El Cazador (1784), SS Central America (1857), Maravillas, Concepción, and other documented Spanish colonial and American Gold Rush wrecks.

How are orders shipped?

All orders ship via FedEx, fully insured and with adult signature required on delivery.

Does Dark Tide Relics buy shipwreck coins from collectors?

Yes. Dark Tide Relics actively acquires authenticated shipwreck coins and collections. Submissions can be made through the Sell Coins program at darktiderelics.com/sell-coins.

San Francisco Wreck

Lost: 1650
Location: Off Santiago Island, Cape Verde (attributed)
Coordinates: 14.9200, -23.5100
Era: Spanish Colonial – Mid-17th Century
Coinage: cob
Cargo: Potosí silver cobs, Mexico City silver cobs, Everyday shipboard artifacts

A wreck known almost entirely through its coins — placed by the trade off Santiago Island, Cape Verde, around 1650, with no published salvage record.

History

The "San Francisco" — also written São Francisco — is one of the few named wrecks in the cob market that exists almost entirely as a label. Dealer and auction descriptions place the loss off Santiago Island in the Cape Verde archipelago, west of Africa, around 1650, and describe the vessel variously as an unidentified Spanish ship under a Portuguese captain or as a Spanish slaving vessel. Those accounts do not agree with each other, and we have found no primary Spanish or Portuguese archival record, no excavation report, and no named salvor or recovery date behind them. What the material itself shows is more reliable than the story attached to it. Coins sold under the San Francisco name run from Potosí cobs of Philip II in the 1580s through Mexico City and Potosí cobs of Philip IV into the 1640s — a spread consistent with silver still in circulation at the time of a mid-17th-century loss. Denominations are overwhelmingly 8 reales, and the pieces typically carry the porosity and corrosion of long seawater immersion, which is why they are usually certified with "Sea Salvaged" details grades rather than straight numeric grades.

Recovery

No salvage operation has ever been publicly documented for this site, and the wreck does not appear in the standard numismatic wreck-history compendiums. We treat "San Francisco" as a trade pedigree rather than a verified vessel identification, and we grade the coin on what can be proven: mint, assayer, monarch, weight, and the physical evidence of sea exposure. Multiple unrelated ships carried the name San Francisco — a Manila galleon lost off Japan in 1609 and a member of the 1733 Nueva España fleet among them — and none of those are the source of this coinage.

Timeline

c.1650 — Vessel Lost — Trade accounts place the loss off Santiago Island, Cape Verde.
Undocumented — Coins Enter the Market — Silver cobs and shipboard artifacts surface with no published salvage record.
Modern era — Certified as "Sea Salvaged" — Philip II and Philip IV 8 reales graded under the San Francisco pedigree.

Notes

Attributed coinage spans roughly 60 years of minting, from Philip II to Philip IV
No salvor, salvage date, or archival record has ever been published for the site
The name is shared with a 1609 Manila galleon and a 1733 fleet ship — neither related