When HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure set sail from Plymouth, England, in 1772, the ships were stocked for a long and grueling journey into the unknown. Provisions included 60,000 tons of biscuit, 14,000 hunks of pork, and 30 gallons of carrot marmalade, as well as live goats, sheep, and geese.
For hardware, captain James Cook was to test out a new longitudinal device as he attempted to travel further south than any previous ship. And when Cook and his crew encountered local people across the Pacific islands, they were to hand out a commemorative brass medal, 2,000 of which had been produced for the voyage.
The medal had two functions. First, it was meant to record a significant event. Cook’s first voyage, after all, had circumnavigated the globe; great things were expected for the sequel. Second, as Cook wrote in his journal, the medals were “testimonies of being the first discoverers,” ones that could potentially help with future claims over resources against other European nations.
One of these medals is set to be sold at Wilshire’s Auction House in Swindon, in the southern UK, on December 4. It bears an estimate of £2,000 to £3,000 ($2,500 to $3,800).
The medal had been devised and commissioned by Joseph Banks, who had gained national renown as the chief scientist on Cook’s first voyage. Banks wouldn’t end up traveling to the Antarctic circle; his excessive demands of resources and personnel led the Admiralty to withdraw his permission to sail.
The front of the coin bears the laurel-crowned image of King George III, which demonstrates that the monarch approved of the medal. Around him wrap the words “King of Gr Britain France And Ireland Etc.” (Since the Hundred Years War, British monarchs sometimes claimed the French throne, a practiced continued through the French Revolution.)
The reverse has the image of the Resolution and the Adventure sailing towards the horizon. It records that the ships sailed from England in March 1772, though in fact delays in preparation forced the departure back to July.
“Resolution and Adventure medals connect the explorer and cartographer to two other influential men of the late 18th century who also played their role in positioning Britain as a powerhouse of science, industry and colonial expansion,” the auction house wrote in a statement.
These men are the aforementioned Banks, who had collected specimens of over 1,300 new species and would serve as Royal Society president for four decades, and Matthew Boulton, who manufactured the coin and would pioneer producing metal wares using an assembly line alongside James Watt.
Cook’s medals were handed out to locals across Tahiti, Easter Island and New Zealand, where they sometimes became a form of local currency. Some medals were distributed during Cook’s third voyage. In addition to the brass medals, 100 were minted in silver and two in 24 carat gold.
In 2023, another 1772 Resolution and Adventure medal sold at a Stack’s Bowers auction for $16,800.