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DeepSea Numismatics
A Private Collection
A gold ducat shipwreck coin resting on white coral from the collection
One Man's Pursuit

The sea has had these long enough.

A private archive built by one collector - obsessively, deliberately, across decades and oceans. Not every wreck has surrendered its coin yet. But I'm working on it.

Enter the VaultThe Mission

As featured in Coin World Magazine & the ANA’s The Reading Room

As Featured In Coin World & The ANA’s Reading Room
COIN WORLD
June 8, 2026 · News & Analysis Feature

The ‘Titanic’ of the Far East

NGC certifies the first documented coins from the 1874 S.S. Japan shipwreck.

DeepSea Numismatics, in partnership with historian Captain Robert S. Wells (USN, Ret.) and numismatist Matthew Tavory, announced the first NGC-certified coins from the wreck of the Sidewheel Steamer Japan - the largest documented loss of Chinese immigrant life on an American vessel in history.

“The most significant and only known concentration of S.S. Japan Trade dollars in existence.”- Coin World Staff
THE READING ROOM
August 14, 2026 · American Numismatic Association

Trade Dollars from the Wreck of the SS Japan

The American Numismatic Association's own publication turned its spotlight on the collection.

When the ANA's The Reading Room picked up the story, it put the SS Japan Trade dollars in front of one of the hobby's largest audiences. The feature traces how the coins were authenticated and assembled, and underscores what makes the find matter to collectors: the first documented Trade dollars recovered from the wreck, now certified by NGC. 

Read the article
The Mission

One coin from every known wreck.

A lifelong undertaking to hold one authenticated piece from every documented shipwreck the sea has surrendered. Each coin is researched, attributed, and tied to the vessel that carried it.

Collector first. Nothing enters the vault without provenance. No exceptions.

See the Mission
HMAS Sydney 8 Reales obverse
HMAS Sydney
Lost 1914
Jupiter Wreck 8 Reales obverse
Jupiter Wreck
Lost 1654
1874-S Trade Dollar recovered from the SS Japan, obverse
SS Japan
Lost 1874
Yucatan Wreck 4 Reales obverse
Yucatan Wreck
Lost 1586
The Long Form

Featured Stories

All Stories →
17th-century painting of a Dutch fleet attacking shipping below Salvador in the Bay of All Saints
Dutch WrecksAugust 2026

A Coin That Outlasted Its Admiral.

1617 Utrecht Lion Daalder - Piet Heyn's Hollandia, lost in the Bay of All Saints, March 1627.

354 years on the seafloor beneath a burned Dutch warship, recovered in 1981, and one of at most 29 ever documented from the wreck.

Read the story →
Carte de visite of Perry Engle in Maryland Volunteer Infantry uniform, c. 1864
Personal HistoryJune 2026

A Coat That Walked the Frontier.

Perry Engle - Maryland to Kansas, four feet of buffalo hide, ten pounds of armor against the cold.

A 100-days man in the 3rd Maryland, a Kansas homestead, and a buffalo and beaver robe coat that outlived him by a century.

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SS Japan ablaze at night under a starry sky
Featured StoryMay 2026

The SS Japan

A wooden sidewheel steamer of the Lincoln era. A wreck the ocean kept.

Pacific Mail's flagship, the Chinese laborers she carried, and the 1874-CC Trade Dollars recovered from her.

Read the story →
1871 Oakland, Brooklyn & Fruitvale Railroad fare token, obverse and reverse
Personal HistoryMay 2026

One Fare. 24,000 Miles.

The Oakland, Brooklyn & Fruitvale R.R. token - and the family that earned it.

An 1871 copper transit token, a 1846 voyage around Cape Horn, and the 3rd great-grandfather who connects them.

Read the story →
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Wrecks Acquired
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Still Hunting
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Wrecks Tracked
See the Mission Tracker
Field Notes
"The ocean had not erased her - it had kept her."
Field note - On the wreck of the RMS Rhone

More from the dives, the shows, and pieces in progress.

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