Moby Dick Coin 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 novel "Moby-Dick", in Chapter 36 "The Quarter Deck" and later at length in Chapter 99 "The Doubloon". It is often confused as a Spanish doubloon, but this coin was not struck by the Spanish crown or endorsed by the
Moby-Dick and his works, or at least those that could still be fairly easily obtained or remembered. Other works, especially the poetry, went largely forgotten. In 1917, American author Carl Van Doren became the first of this period to proselytize about Melville's value. His 1921 study, "The American Novel", called "Moby-Dick" a pinnacle of American Romanticism. In his 1923 idiosyncratic but influential "Studies in Classic American Literature", novelist, poet, and short story writer D. H. Lawrence celebrated the originality and value of American authors, among them Melville. Perhaps surprisingly, Lawrence saw "Moby-Dick" as a work of the first order despite his