The Doubloon

Herman Melville's hands-on experience with whaling appears behind all the magnificent details of his monumental epic, the Moby Dick. The coin that Ahab nails onto the main mast has raised to fame even in numismatic circles, and sometimes referred to as the 'Moby Dick Coin'.

"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"--holding up a broad bright coin to the sun--"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

Later in the novel, a whole chapter is named after the coin, "The Doubloon", where even more precise description is given: "On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO."

The 8 doubloon coins were minted between 1837 and 1942 in Quito, Ecuador. It contains 27.064 grams of gold, so Ahab is in error saying that it is one ounce of gold. Today it is difficult to obtain, catalogs list its price between 800-2500 dollars. (Well, that was many years ago, the price should have doubled since then...)