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 with the narrator introducing himself ("I am an invisible man"). The oration by Ellison's blind preacher Barbee resembles Father Mapple's sermon in that both prepare the reader for what is to come. American songwriter Bob Dylan elaborated on the book in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech of 2017, citing the book as one of the three books that influenced him most. Dylan's description of the book ends with an acknowledgment: "That theme, and all that it implies, would work its way into more than a few of my songs." Moby-Dick Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American