Afternoon everyone….
In no particular order, I will be sharing gifts that I received from friends and community members for Christmas.
This one comes from my buddy in Oregon 
He without a doubt knows my stacking style and collecting preference. Since we have done numerous group buys and he has asked many questions about coins to me over the years.
Well….
He hit the nail on the head with this gift or gifts. You all know how big of a fan I am of ships on silver. These are perfect. Not only do they have ships on them, but they were produced with the silver recovered from the wreckage.
These are two half ounce silver rounds, made from the silver recovered from the SS Tilawa.
These are freaking cool….
Here is a quick blurb on it, but reading the entire story is much better.
SS Tilawa was an ocean liner of the British India Steam Navigation Company launched in 1924. She was the only passenger liner sunk during World War 2, targeted by a submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Indian Ocean on 23 November 1942, with the loss of 280 lives.
The ship carried a cargo of silver bullion that was secretly recovered by a salvage company in 2017. This led to a legal dispute over ownership of the cargo between the salvors and the government of South Africa, the original owner of the silver.
In December 2017, Argentum Exploration, a marine salvagecompany founded by racing driver Ross Hyett and owned by investor Paul Marshall, with the assistance of maritime historian Nigel Pickford, located the wreck of the Tilawa at a depth of approximately 2.5 kilometres (8,200 ft; 1,400 fathoms; 1.6 mi) and secretly recovered 2,364 (98.9%) of the silver bars. The company declared it to the Receiver of Wreck in the United Kingdom, but South Africa, which had meanwhile signed a contract with a different salvor in ignorance of the successful recovery, asserted legal ownership in 2018 and further denied the obligation to pay a recovery fee because the cargo had been a state possession and being transported for a sovereign, not a commercial purpose. An initial ruling for Argentum by the High Court of Justice was unsuccessfully appealed by South Africa.[5][7] In May 2024, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom reversed the ruling, upholding the South African position.
@summertooth. Much appreciated brother.