Sixth Coin background information

Like the Fifth Ledger, the Sixth Coin is written from the viewpoint of the Third-person omniscient. Several related events are happening at about the same time in different places sometimes to unrelated individuals. As the story unfolds, these events fuse together at the climatic meeting where the story ends.

Also in this book, the characters describe major portions of the story in dialog that is minimally attributed by the words 'he said, she asked or he blurted, etc' rather than Dave describing the action in long paragraphs. Things are also defined using dialog , for example the 'Twin Otter' is described by one company employee telling a new employee what a Twin Otter looks like in chapter 1.

Shipping Treasure form the old Spanish Main

 

The ships engaged engaged in transporting the gold coins featured in this story generally travelled the routes shown on this Wikipdeia map above, as dictated by the prevailing winds and ocean currents. Easterly winds are prevalent below the thirtieth latitude, and westerly above it. Combined with Gulf Stream current, this meant the most favorable routes for sailing ships laden with treasure bound for Spain generally traveled just south of Florida, north up the Gulf Stream and north of The Bahamas. Many were wrecked along the way. The return trips were made south of the thirtieth latitude.

The coins featured in Sixth Coin were destined to be transported to Spain along this Nothern route. However, the ship they were on was damaged in an engagement with an English ship and it eventually sunk in very deep water. Its resting place off Columbia, South America was only recently discovered. The coins may have looked like the one shown below.

The Last Gold Cob Struck in the New World

C73. Nuevo Reino (modern Colombia), mint at Santa Fe de Bogota, 1755 FS four escudos. Unique. The last dated media onza known from the Santa Fe mint and the last known mintage of cob 4 escudos struck in the New World.

GoldCobs.com is a fascinating website covering the history and geography of treasure coin production as well as offering items for sale. Gold Cobs