SS Japan
A wooden sidewheel steamer of the Lincoln era. A wreck the ocean kept.
She was Pacific Mail's flagship - the largest American wooden sidewheel steamer in the Pacific, when fire took her in the South China Sea on December 17, 1874.
Abraham Lincoln signed her into existence. $10.47 million in silver trade dollars went down with her. 150 years on the ocean floor. 400 souls. A story most people have never heard - but deserves to be known.
The perfect palace of a ship.
The ‘Titanic’ of the Far East
NGC certifies the first documented coins from the 1874 S.S. Japan shipwreck.
DeepSea Numismatics, in partnership with historian Captain Robert S. Wells (USN, Ret.) and numismatist Matthew Tavory, announced the first NGC-certified coins from the wreck of the Sidewheel Steamer Japan - the largest documented loss of Chinese immigrant life on an American vessel in history.
“The most significant and only known concentration of S.S. Japan Trade dollars in existence.”- Coin World Staff
Inside the Archive
The ship. The story. The photographic record.
History of the SS Japan
The Lincoln mail subsidy, the laborers she carried, and the fire that took her.
Pacific Mail's flagship - the largest American wooden sidewheel steamer in the Pacific - lost in the South China Sea on December 17, 1874. The voyage, the cargo, and the souls she carried.
Read more→
Voices From the Deep
A message from a collector in Hong Kong about sea-salvagd coins with a unique signature. Fourteen months of authentication.
Chris Olive's first-person account of researching the wreck, reaching Robert Wells, pulling the project together, and certifying seven 1874 Trade Dollars more than a century after they went down.
Read more→
Photo Archive
What survives in pictures - of the ship, the era, and the recovery.
Period lithographs, the colorized saloons blueprint, Hunter's Point dry dock, the Brannan Street coaling station, and every recovered coin photographed in-hand and in-holder.
Read more→The Scars of Fire & Water
A passion project... 141 years in the making.
Choice Examples In The Vault
Struck at Carson City and San Francisco. Lost in the South China Sea. Authenticated more than a century later.
1874-CC Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-001
1874-CC Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-004
1874-CC Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-005
1874-CC Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-006
1874-S Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-018
1874-S Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-021
1874-S Trade Dollar
NGC Sea Salvaged - 2189685-024
The vault holds every authenticated piece - SS Japan and beyond.
Browse the Full Vault →