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Moby Dick Coin
Known in the numismatic world as a "Moby Dick Coin", the Ecuadorian 8 Escudos doubloon, minted in Quito, Ecuador, between 1838 and 1843, is the one ounce of gold "sixteen dollar piece" Captain Ahab nails to the mast of the Pequod, promising it to the first man who "raises" Moby-Dick. The coin is first mentioned in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, in Chapter 36 "The Quarter Deck" and later at length in Chapter 99 "The Doubloon". It is often mistaken as a Spanish doubloon, but this coin was not struck by the Spanish crown or endorsed by the Spanish government. The Moby Dick coin was minted in the Republic of Ecuador, at the Quito mint, many years after its independence from Spain.
Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s disks and stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, Republica del Ecuador: Quito. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
— Moby-Dick, chapter 99
In pop culture, the coin plays a central role in Season 1, Episode 4 of Netflix's Carmen Sandiego in 2019.
Known in the numismatic world as a "MobyDickCoin", the Ecuadorian 8 Escudos doubloon, minted in Quito, Ecuador, between 1838 and 1843, is the one ounce...
Advertising for the film points out that the historical story inspired the MobyDick mythology. Ann Alexander, a ship sunk by a whale on August 20, 1851 Philbrick...
Brasher Doubloon MobyDickCoin "Doubloon". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-20. Retrieved 2015-08-31. "Spanish Gold". coins.nd.edu. Retrieved...
Peter D (1998). Ship to Shore: A Dictionary of Everyday Words and Phrases Derived from the Sea. ISBN 0-87436-717-4. Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. v t e...
history of literature, considering the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, Faust, Moby-Dick, and War and Peace, with an emphasis on the modern Ulysses and Gravity's...
books that have historically been the nexus of discussion, including Moby-Dick (1851), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), The Great Gatsby (1925)...
"nor did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less". Herman Melville's MobyDick (1851) includes the passage: "I have seen doubloons now before in my voyagings;...
waters of the Land of Adventure. However, the group is separated after Moby-Dick attacks, following the whale's battle with Captain Ahab. Richard and Adventure...
Much of his later life was dedicated to depicting Herman Melville's MobyDick. In 1955 a short film using this body of artwork won a Silver Reel Award...
children's TV series Between the Lions called Moby Duck, a parody of MobyDick. In this sketch, the duck was named Moby, and two sailors were enlisted on a voyage...
of the best 20th century American novels, "worthy of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick," but admitted that his "first two attempts to read through Blood Meridian...
game decides which side's attacks are successful with a series of coin flips. A coin landing on heads will add a numbered boost to the character's power...
author Herman Melville in Chapter 42 ("The Whiteness of the Whale") of MobyDick (1851), writes "To the native Indian of Peru, the continual site of the...
yellow bow. Hello Kitty was created in 1974 and the first item, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in 1975. Originally, Hello Kitty was only marketed...
therapeutic technique originally came to him from the "Doubloon chapter" in MobyDick. In this chapter, multiple characters inspect the same image (a Doubloon)...
the Indian seas". The hull of the ship wrecked by a whale, inspiring MobyDick, had been weakened by shipworms. In the Norse Saga of Erik the Red, Bjarni...
and the species name by Herman Melville, the author of the famous novel Moby-Dick about a white bull sperm whale. Herman Melville often referred to whales...
"Guernsey-man" also makes an appearance in chapter 91 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The annual "Muratti", the inter-island football match, is considered...
keyboard in local bands. He is a singer and keyboard player of the band MobyDick. He entered the film music industry under the guidance of director Jayaraj...
the Oxford edition of the Christmas Books does. In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Ishmael describes a windswept and cold night from the perspective of...
album's single, "Without Me", denigrates boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Moby and others. The Eminem Show, certified Diamond by the RIAA, examines...
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