About This Coin
A Spanish copper coin identified as an 11 maravedis piece dated 1598, reportedly found by a student on the beach at Smith's Cove in 1965 during the period when Robert Dunfield was conducting his large-scale excavation of the island. The coin dates to the reign of Philip III of Spain and is one of the oldest identified coins recovered from Oak Island, predating the discovery of the Money Pit by nearly two hundred years.
The maravedi was the basic unit of account in the Spanish monetary system from the eleventh century through the nineteenth century. An 11 maravedis denomination was a common copper coin in circulation throughout the Spanish Empire during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Smith's Cove, where the coin was found, is also the location where the elaborate box drain system, U-shaped structure, slipway, and numerous other pre-1795 artefacts have been recovered, including the lead cross whose lead was traced to a medieval French mine.
The circumstances of the find are not well documented, and the coin does not appear in any episode of The Curse of Oak Island television series. It is referenced in historical records of the island's artefact inventory alongside the 1652 Spanish maravedi from the swamp and other Spanish-era coins that collectively support theories of Iberian activity on Oak Island before British settlement of the Mahone Bay area.
The findspot is disputed between sources. William S. Crooker (Oak Island Gold, 1993) states that the 1598 coin was discovered in 1965 by a party of students from Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, at the site of Anthony Graves's house at Joudrey's Cove on the north side of the island, while conducting a metal-detector survey, and pairs it with a 1785 silver Spanish coin found beside the road from that house in 1930. Smith's Cove and Joudrey's Cove lie at opposite ends of the island, and the two accounts cannot both be correct. Les MacPhie's 2008 review of geophysical work on the island, drawing on Peter Beamish's survey material, records the coin as found by a student on the beach at Smith's Cove during the August 1965 survey and identified by J.J. Teaparty Inc. of Boston as an 11 maravedis of 1598.Historical Context
Student find
Where It Was Found
Found at Beach, Smith's Cove. Location: the cove at the east end of Oak Island where the flood system's box drains were found in 1850.
