1703 Queen Anne 'VIGO' Five Guineas

A raid that came up nearly empty

Queen Anne had only just come to the throne when the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1702. England and the Dutch Republic stood against France and Bourbon Spain, and the allies opened with naval operations against Spain, the weaker partner. Their first target, the port of Cádiz, held out. But word reached the Anglo-Dutch fleet that the annual Spanish treasure fleet, carrying silver and gold from the mines of the Americas under French escort, was expected home soon.

The treasure fleet put in instead at Vigo Bay in Galicia, a port poorly equipped to unload it. That delay gave Admiral Sir George Rooke, fresh from his failure at Cádiz, time to turn his ships toward Vigo. They anchored off the coast on October 22, 1702, and attacked the next day. A boom of heavy chain and timber had been stretched across the entrance to the bay, backed by shore batteries, but the allied warships broke through it with little difficulty and destroyed or captured the entire Franco-Spanish fleet without losing a ship.

Then came the disappointment. Most of the treasure had already been off-loaded and carried away. Spain's King Philip V ended up with nearly seven million pesos, more than half the silver from the fleet. What reached the Royal Mint was modest: by one account about 4,500 pounds of silver, much of it ornaments and plate from officers' cabins, and just 7 pounds 8 ounces of gold.

Newton's mint and the queen's warrant

The English made the most of what little they had. A royal warrant directed that the captured metal be coined and marked so as to 'Continue to Posterity the Remembrance of that Glorious Action.' The word VIGO was engraved into the dies beneath Queen Anne's portrait, a mark of distinction on coins that otherwise carried the ordinary designs. The bullion went to the Royal Mint, then housed in the Tower of London, where Isaac Newton himself oversaw its delivery.

From the gold came half guineas, guineas and five-guinea pieces, all intended for circulation; the silver became crowns, half crowns, shillings and sixpences dated 1703, and some shillings dated 1702. The five-guinea piece was the largest gold coin of its day, a denomination England struck from 1668 to 1753.

The dies were the work of the Mint's chief engraver, Henry Harris, and his assistant, John Croker. Croker, born Johann Crocker in Dresden in 1670, had trained with a goldsmith and come to England in 1691, joining the Mint as Harris's assistant in 1697. He also struck a medal for the expedition to Vigo Bay showing a view of the harbor. After Harris died in 1704 Croker became chief engraver in 1705 and went on to cut almost all the coin dies of Queen Anne and George I.

England in 1703

The year the Vigo coins were struck, England was a country at war. A Recruiting Act took effect on March 1 allowing unemployed men to be forced into the army, and in May the Duke of Marlborough's campaign took Cologne and Bonn. In July the writer Daniel Defoe stood in the pillory at Temple Bar for a satirical pamphlet judged seditious.

Late in the year the Great Storm of November 26-29 tore across southern England and the Channel, killing at least 8,000 people, most of them at sea, wrecking Royal Navy ships on the Goodwin Sands and destroying the Eddystone Lighthouse. On November 30 Isaac Newton, the same man who had taken delivery of the Vigo bullion, was elected president of the Royal Society. In December England and Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty, trading English woolens for Portuguese wine.

From pirate games to a world record

Vigo five guineas almost never come to market. A 2007 auction catalog counted only five examples offered at auction in the preceding 45 years, and the seller reported then that only about 15 were in private hands. One coin offered in 1974 from the Douglas-Morris collection brought £5,000 ($7,090); the same coin sold again in November 1989 for £42,900 ($60,832) and in 2005 for £130,000, about $247,195. Another, sold in March 2000 for about $69,115, brought £82,000 ($161,075) in March 2007. An example offered in April 2001 failed to sell.

Some of the coins turn up in the most ordinary places. In September 2012 a widow found one in her late husband's chest of drawers, apparently in his handkerchief drawer; it sold in Lewes, England, that December for £296,160, about $476,871. In 2016 a Hertfordshire family brought one to an auction house near London: the consignor's grandfather had given him bags of coins to play pirate with as a boy, and his own son had been keeping the Vigo five guineas in his treasure box, playing pirate with it the same way.

Graded coins have set the high marks. A coin called 'perhaps the finest known,' graded Mint State 61 Prooflike by NGC and once part of the John G. Murdoch collection sold in 1903, brought $414,000 in May 2008. In February 2016 a coin graded About Uncirculated 55 by PCGS, one of perhaps three of a die variety with VIGO set closer to the bust, hammered at £275,000 ($397,861) before fees. On January 13, 2019, a PCGS Mint State 62 example, from what the seller called the rarest of the three varieties, sold at auction in New York for $1,080,000 including a 20 percent buyer's fee, against an estimate of $1 million. It was a world record for any British coin at auction.

Prices have not been one-way. The coin that brought £82,000 in 2007, by then in an NGC holder noting tooling on the obverse, sold again at auction in December 2024 for 280,000 Swiss francs.

How to know one

The obverse shows Queen Anne's draped bust facing left with the legend ANNA DEI GRATIA, and the single word VIGO beneath the bust. The reverse carries four crowned shields in a cross, the pre-Union arrangement used before England and Scotland combined their arms in 1707, with scepters in the angles, a rose at the center and the date at the top, around the legend MAG BR FRA ET HIB REG. The edge is lettered DECVS ET TVTAMEN ANNO REGNI SECVNDO, an ornament and a safeguard, in the second year of the reign.

Five-guinea pieces of this era measure about 37 millimeters and weigh about 41 to 42 grams; one Vigo example sold in 2024 weighed 41.76 grams. The coin is catalogued as S. 3561.

There are three different obverse dies, distinguished by where VIGO sits relative to the bust. The seller of the 2019 record coin noted that striking from three dies is a puzzle for a coin made in such small numbers. Because so few exist and so many have been re-offered, pedigrees matter: the same coin can be traced through 1974, 1989 and 2005, and another through 2000, 2007 and 2024.

The numbers

Mintage

Not recorded; struck from just 7 lb 8 oz of captured gold, shared with VIGO guineas and half guineas

Known survivors

Fewer than 20; about 15 reported in private hands (2005-2007)

Dies

Three obverse dies, differing in the placement of VIGO

Weight

About 41-42 grams (one example: 41.76 g)

Diameter

About 37 mm

Composition

Gold, from bullion captured at Vigo Bay

Edge

Lettered: DECVS ET TVTAMEN ANNO REGNI SECVNDO

Designers

Henry Harris, chief engraver, and John Croker

Reference

S. 3561

Timeline

1. 1697

   John Croker joins the Royal Mint as assistant to chief engraver Henry Harris.

2. 1702

   The War of the Spanish Succession begins soon after Queen Anne takes the throne; the allied attack on Cádiz fails.

3. Oct 22, 1702

   Admiral Sir George Rooke's Anglo-Dutch fleet anchors off Vigo.

4. Oct 23, 1702

   The allies break the boom at Vigo Bay and destroy or capture the Franco-Spanish fleet; only 7 lb 8 oz of gold is seized.

5. 1703

   Under royal warrant, the captured gold is coined at the Tower mint into half guineas, guineas and five guineas marked VIGO.

6. 1903

   The John G. Murdoch collection sells, including a Vigo five guineas later graded NGC MS61 Prooflike.

7. Nov 26, 1974

   The Douglas-Morris example sells at auction for £5,000.

8. Nov 9, 1989

   The same coin sells for £42,900.

9. Oct 2, 1992

   A 1992 sale devoted to Vigo pieces notes that certainly fewer than twenty Vigo five guineas survive.

10. 2005

    The Douglas-Morris coin sells again for £130,000.

11. Mar 29, 2007

    Another example sells at auction for £82,000.

12. May 26, 2008

    The ex-Murdoch coin, NGC MS61 Prooflike, brings $414,000.

13. Dec 6, 2012

    A coin found in a widow's chest of drawers sells in Lewes, England, for £296,160.

14. Feb 9, 2016

    A PCGS AU55 example hammers at £275,000.

15. Oct 23, 2016

    An auction house near London announces a Vigo five guineas found in a boy's toy treasure box.

16. Jan 13, 2019

    A PCGS MS62 example sells in New York for $1,080,000, a record for any British coin.

17. Dec 10, 2024

    The 2007 coin, now NGC-graded with obverse tooling, sells at auction for 280,000 Swiss francs.

The world in 1703

• Jan 1, 1703

  Ashby v White is decided, a landmark English case on the right to a remedy.

• Mar 3, 1703

  Scientist Robert Hooke dies.

• May 26, 1703

  Diarist Samuel Pepys dies.

• Jul 29, 1703

  Daniel Defoe is placed in the pillory at Temple Bar for seditious libel.

• Nov 26, 1703

  The Great Storm begins, killing at least 8,000 and destroying the Eddystone Lighthouse.

• Nov 30, 1703

  Isaac Newton is elected president of the Royal Society.

• Dec 27, 1703

  England and Portugal sign the Methuen Treaty.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1703 Queen Anne 'VIGO' Five Guineas is number 26 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (67 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The fleet that won at Vigo Bay found most of the treasure already gone; all the VIGO gold coins came from about 7 pounds 8 ounces of captured gold.
• Isaac Newton personally oversaw delivery of the Vigo bullion to the Royal Mint in the Tower of London.
• In 2012 a widow found a Vigo five guineas in her late husband's chest of drawers, possibly his handkerchief drawer.
• A boy in Hertfordshire played pirate with a Vigo five guineas from his toy treasure box, just as his father had done.
• One Vigo five guineas sold for £5,000 in 1974; a different example brought $1,080,000 in 2019.
• For a coin struck in tiny numbers, the Mint cut three different obverse dies, a puzzle that collectors still debate.