Six 19th-century coins found hidden under HMS Victory's masts, revealing a centuries-old maritime tradition

Workers raising the foremast of HMS Victory at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in England recently didn't expect to find anything unusual underneath. Instead, they found six coins and tokens from the 19th century, lying quietly beneath some 50 tons of masts, yards, and rigging, untouched for 132 years.

It’s the sort of find that brings history suddenly, unexpectedly closer.

A tradition older than most countries
To understand why this matters, you need to know about mast-stepping, one of the oldest rituals in naval history. The custom dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, when the dead were buried with coins to pay the mythological ferryman Charon to take them across the river Acheron to the underworld. The ancient mariners began dropping coins into the hole where the mast was to be stepped.


Over the centuries, the meaning developed. Coins found under the masts of ancient Roman ships wrecked at sea show that sailors paid a toll for crew members lost at sea. Viking ships had specific places under their masts for coins or amulets. By the 19th century, the tradition had become less about the afterlife and more about good luck, protection, and pride.

The USS Constitution, America’s own legendary warship, continues the same tradition. Coins from important years are put in their three lower masts. "This practice of placing 'good luck pieces' under the masts is almost as old as the art of shipbuilding itself," said one naval constructor when the ship was restored in 1927-31.

What was hidden under the Victory
Five of the six coins found below the foremast of HMS Victory date to around 1894, the year the foremast was stepped, when wrought iron versions replaced the ship’s original wooden masts. The five comprise three one-penny pieces featuring a 'bun head' portrait of Queen Victoria, dated 1890 and 1892, along with a halfpenny dated 1890 and a farthing dated 1882.

The sixth item is the most interesting. It is a 1835 token from Prince Edward Island, Canada, depicting a complicated ship design and the inscription “Ships, Colonies and Commerce.” The discovery of a Canadian token dating from almost 60 years before the mast being stepped beneath one of Britain’s most famous warships leaves some questions that may never be fully answered. Somebody picked it deliberately. Why? That story is lost to the ages.

The find of the coins was “an extraordinary surprise,” Andrew Baines, the executive director of museum operations at Royal Navy Museums, told GB News. There had been hopes when one farthing was discovered under the main lower mast of Victory, but no one had expected six coins.

Why HMS Victory still matters
HMS Victory is not a museum ship. HMS Victory is one of the oldest commissioned warships afloat in the world, an internationally significant example of Georgian naval engineering, and, along with her role as Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, a national treasure.

The project, HMS Victory: The Big Repair, is a £42 million conservation project to save the ship for future generations. The coins had endured extreme conditions, survived huge structural weight, and years of corrosion before conservators used X-ray analysis to uncover their identity, age, and origins.

You can see them now
The six coins and the earlier farthing found beneath the main lower mast are now on display in the Victory Gallery at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where they will remain throughout the summer. Visitors can follow the story from discovery to scientific analysis.

It's worth the trip for those interested in naval history, or at least the idea that everyday objects can have extraordinary weight.