Pieces of Eight

"Pieces of eight" from a sunken treasure fleet still wash ashore along Florida's Treasure Coast especially in the areas close to Sebastian Inlet. The coins come from the legendary 1715 Treasure Fleet—a sunken Spanish treasure flotilla. For some background, a piece of eight is a Spanish silver coin that served as the first international currency due to its uniformity. The piece of eight, or Spanish dollar, was legal tender in the United States until 1857. In 1792, the United States based its dollar on the standards that the Spanish piece of eight had set. In colonial America, when coins were in short supply, people would cut Spanish dollars into eight pieces, like pieces of a pie, to make change and to have smaller denominations of currency. Many countries even counter stamped pieces of eight and used them as their official currency.

Kip Wagner

Ohio-born Kip Wagner (1906–1972), a construction contractor, moved to Florida in the late-1940s after signing a contract to build a motel in Wabasso. Wagner became interested in local treasure legends after business partner Steadman Parker told him of Spanish coins buried along area beaches. In his 1966 book Pieces of Eight, coauthored by legendary Virginia author L.B. Taylor Jr, Wagner recounted a conversation with Parker:

One afternoon when a rainstorm had given us the day off from construction work, he and I were sipping a few beers in a local tavern.

“This would be a good time to go look for some coins on the beach,” Parker said.”

“What coins?” I asked naively.

He seemed amazed at my total ignorance on the subject.

“hasn’t anyone told you about the old Spanish coins that wash up on the beach here?” he countered.

“No,” I replied, “but I’m interested. Tell me about them.”

The next round of beers was obviously on me. He could see in an instant he had me completely hooked. Parker then went into what sounded like a well-polished spiel about a Spanish treasure fleet that had sunk somewhere off the coast nearby, and how, over the years, he had found a number of silver coins by beachcombing the desolate sands just east of Wabasso.

“The best hunting is always after a storm or good hard rain squall like we’ve got today,” he pointed out. “I’m telling you, Kip, and mark my words, there’s a fortune out there in the sea, and I’m going to find it one day.”

Wagner became so fascinated by pieces of eight that be began combing the beaches near his home in search of them. He did not find anything, but later, to his dismay, he learned he had walked past countless coins. The coins were not silvery, but rather black and crusty and looked more like small, flat stones than coins. But his failures did not deter him and Wagner became more committed than ever to finding Spanish treasure.

A Full-Time Search

Wagner and several other men joined forces with Parker during the summer of 1949 to hunt treasure full time. The team worked a site in which Parker believed a ship had wrecked for a period lasting three months. After long days of back-breaking work and expenses topping $12,000 (a sum totaling over $147,000 in today’s money), the team had nothing to show for their efforts save a few spikes, ship fasteners, and splintered wood. The group of disheartened treasure hunters disbanded and returned to their mundane jobs and lives.

But Wagner had been bitten by the treasure bug and never recovered. The following summer, Wagner found his first piece of eight using a borrowed metal detector. And like most other things in life, the first one was the toughest. From there, Wagner’s fortunes shifted and he began finding coins on a regular basis while beach combing.

Wagner even found gold coins which he hid and kept quiet about as the private ownership of gold was illegal in those days thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102. Though Wagner’s coins would have fallen outside the scope FDR’s “Bailout of the Federal Reserve Bank,” it is always a good policy to keep your mouth shut about your gold. Wagner did, however, share news of his silver finds with friends and neighbors. Not knowing the collector’s value of what he had, he melted down many of his coins and made jewelry and trinkets for neighborhood children.

Success

As time went on, Wagner and his friend Doc Kelso “hit the books” and thoroughly researched the 1715 Treasure Fleet. In 1959, Wagner formed a team of treasure hunters, but their 1960 season was a bust. However in January 1961, while scouting a shipwreck site, the team found between 3,000 and 4,000 silver coins. Wagner went on to form the Real Eight Corporation, and by 1966, along with their diving associates Treasure Salvors, Incorporated, the treasure hunter had found items totaling over $3,000,000 in value. Wagner had found thousands of pieces of eight, gold and silver bars, hundreds of gold coins, gold rings and bracelets, porcelain fine china, and more. Additionally, priceless archaeological treasures such as muskets, cannons, silverware and plates, and swords had been recovered as well.

It is a great story; a man from Ohio turned Florida man had dreamed of Spanish coins and brought the story of the 1715 Treasure Fleet to the world. This story and dreams of finding coins of my own were on my mind the first time I visited Vero Beach. You can read about it in the sixth book of my Detours Into the Paranormal series, Adventures as a Florida Man: Searching for Skunk Apes, Water Monsters, Lost Treasure and More.

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