8 Escudos Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Ecuador has no historical connection to the 8 escudos denomination — that was colonial Spanish American coinage, last struck in the region in the early 19th century, long before the Republic of Ecuador existed as a monetary authority. This piece borrows the name for novelty purposes. Herman Melville based much of Moby-Dick on the 1820 sinking of the Nantucket whaleship Essex, stove by a sperm whale in the Pacific — waters Ecuador's Galápagos territory directly borders, which supplies the sole geographic logic here.