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 in the book in which a mysterious, undecipherable painting in a bar is gradually revealed to depict a whale. American author Ralph Ellison wrote a tribute to the book in the prologue of his 1952 novel "Invisible Man", where the narrator remembers a moment of truth under the influence of marijuana, and evocates a church service: "Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is the 'Blackness of Blackness.' And the congregation answers: 'That blackness is most black, brother, most black ...'" This scene, Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad observes, "reprises a moment in the second chapter of "Moby-Dick"", where Ishmael wanders