I have seen
doubloons before now in my voyagings; your
doubloons of old Spain, your
doubloons of Peru, your
doubloons of Chili, your
doubloons of Bolivia, your
doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes.
These fractions may seem strange to today's traders, but the NYSE originally based its quote system on the Spanish gold
doubloon system used in trading for centuries.
Melville lampooned the presumptuousness of critics in Chapter 99 of Moby-Dick, "The
Doubloon," through the simpler-minded second mate, Stubb, who scolds, "Book!
Money--even in the form of pennies or Ahab's Spanish
doubloon nailed to the mast as a prize for the sailor who first spied Moby Dick--is always power, and power is often bloody.
Toni's saffron, bell pepper and sherry for 'The
Doubloon' with a great round flavour harmonised perfectly with the whiffs of the melted Beurre Noisette, Iberico ham and baked ray wing.
Become a real pirate and hunt for treasure in Locomotion's giant sandpit - if you find a gold
doubloon you will get an official pirate certificate.
(In order to elaborate, I'm going to have to ask everyone reading this to swear on the nearest gold
doubloon that what I'm about to tell you goes no further.
The letter, written by Sam's ancestor, Joseph Silver, Captain of the 'Sea Wolf', gives clues to finding a hoard of treasure and the
doubloon, when rubbed, whisks Sam back in time to 1706, where he finds himself on board the pirate ship 'Sea Wolf' and heading for adventure.
But their investigations showed that there was also one special gold coin, a Spanish
doubloon, stamped AUSTRALIA, ONE GUINEA, 1813.
Chandler wanted "The Brasher
Doubloon" as the title, but his publisher, Alfred Knopf, thought that it made the novel sound "like a boy's story" (Selected Letters 80, 317).
Both the sailors and tribesmen are paid with gold: in Melville, by the symbolic
doubloon that Ahab nails to the mast; in Lawrence, by the heavy bags of coins used to bribe the insatiable Arabs.