About This Coin
Seven copper coins bearing the image of King George II were recovered from Lot 24, one of nine four-acre properties once owned by Samuel Ball, during Season 4. Charles Barkhouse and metal detection expert Gary Drayton conducted an intensive search of the lot, and Gary's detector returned hits across the site. The first coin, dating the piece to between 1727 and 1760, was found alongside an eighteenth-century dandy button, a lead musket ball ingot used by soldiers to chop off pieces and cast musket balls in a mould, and a metal plate from the stock of a musket or pistol bearing what appeared to be an engraved name or signature. Six additional King George II copper coins were then recovered concentrated in a small radius.
Gary concluded the density and type of artefacts pointed to a British military encampment. The find supported Fred Nolan's longstanding theory that the treasure was connected to the 1762 British sacking of Havana, when the Royal Navy confiscated a vast hoard of Spanish gold and sailed to the port of Halifax, roughly sixty miles north of Oak Island. Charles noted that the 1870 first edition of Mather Myles DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg lists Samuel Ball as one of the original Money Pit discoverers rather than Anthony Vaughn, a detail removed without explanation in later editions.
Ball, a formerly enslaved South Carolinian who settled on Oak Island in 1786, became one of the wealthiest men in the area by his death in 1845, accumulating nine four-acre lots on the island despite having arrived with no apparent means. The concentration of military-grade artefacts on his property has fuelled theories that Ball discovered and profited from treasure or military stores buried on the island. The seven coins represent the largest single cache of period currency recovered from any one location on Oak Island.
Historical Context
Gary Drayton
Where It Was Found
Found at Samuel Ball's property — Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
