This seems like a huge amount to trust to one ship. I don’t know the stats, but there must have been a good chance back then of the ship being attacked or hit by a storm. If the value was so important why not split it between several ships?
(Of course, it might well have been split… but I’m finding it hard to visualise say 10 ships carrying $1bn each).
According to this wiki about the battle in which the ship was sunk…
So:
(a) Hurricane season was approaching
(b) Their real escort was waiting at Havana
(c) This was only half of the loot.
Well they haven’t actually got the loot, so they don’t know how much is there…
are they trying to sell it before retrieval ???
Spain did become quite wealthy from New World silver and gold…
you might think to split the most valuable loot between the 13,14 vessels… but why not ?
I guess the silver and gold couldn’t go on the merchant vessels, as they might disappear in the night … a team of pirates (eg from lower rank military ?) might slip over to the ship and , long story short, steal the ship and disappear, for example…
The military ships though had crew who were going to profit from their numerous trips backward and forward, they became independtly wealth from it…
Also, with the risk of piracy (Britannia using pirates as well as official navy…),
if then news got out that Spain had puts its silver and gold on almost totally unarmed merchant ships… then the merchant ships would become targets.
So they kept the silver and gold on the naval ships, and thus protected the merchant ships… no sense having everyone killed…
The wreck is identified by the military cannon on it. I don’t think the dolphin insignia on the cannons is unique to the ship, but it does say its a naval ship of the correct era.
Are they valuing the stuff today as simple bullion, or as rare antiquities?
How much was that worth back then?
Just a brief bugaboo of mine. Spain becameimpoverished because of new world silver and gold.
The hazards of importing money instead of wealth.
Sorry. Carry on.
Thank you for the informative cite. I think you are probably right, but I hope you will consider providing another cite because the one linked does not offer the opinion that bullion *caused *Spain’s impoverishment. See especially the last paragraph.
Nitpick: Money is a subset of wealth.
Nay, my friend. Money is a system of accounting for wealth. Wealth is goods and services and such. My iPhone here is wealth. The $20 bill in my wallet is merely a means of accounting for potential, future wealth.
What the Spanish did was import money - some gold but primarily a LOT of silver - and cause inflation that affected an entire continent. More money chasing the same amount of goods and services leads to high levels of inflation and the devaluation of money.
Money is lubrication for the creation and increase of wealth. By itself it has no value at all.
Some cites:
Start with our beloved Cecil Adams.
The Price Revolution - Wiki
Spain During the Price Revolution - PDF