The 550-ton English East Indiaman Joanna, commanded by Captain Robert Brown, was on a voyage from England to Surat on the west coast of India.  On June 8, 1682, the Joanna became separated from her convoy of four other ships and wrecked in rough seas on a reef and sank off the southernmost tip of South Africa.  

Twenty-four people perished.  Eventually, 104 survivors reached the Dutch colony of Cape Town, from which a salvage party was soon dispatched.  The Joanna’s cargo consisted of 70 chests of silver coins, of which the salvage party reported having recovered only about 28,000 coins.  After the salvage operation was completed in late 1682, the Joanna shipwreck faded from memory and the wreck site lay untouched for the next 300 years.   

In 1982 the wreck was rediscovered on the outer reefs of Die Darn by a group of South African divers led by Gavin Clackworthy.  The divers recovered 44 iron cannons, many silver ingots (discs) and over 23,000 silver cobs, most of them Mexican 4 and 8 reales minted during the reign of Charles II.   

Over the past two decades these cobs have entered the market from both private dealers and auctions, but always in relatively small quantities at a time.  Almost all the coins were found in very worn condition, usually thin and nearly featureless, but without the heavy encrustation and pitting that often characterize finds made in Caribbean waters.  However, some of the coins featured bold, formerly very rare dates 1679-1681.  

After the modern salvage excavation was completed, the Joanna shipwreck site was declared a protected area by the South African National Monuments Council Act.

This particular coin is pedigreed to Danial Frank Sedwick LLC, Treasure Auction 22 – Orlando, Florida: November 1-3, 2017.