Part of the family moved to Augsburg and Amsterdam where they became gold- and silversmiths. The Grill family originated from Genoa, their name comes from the Italian Grillo, meaning cricket, and the family’s coat-of-arms displays a crane holding a cricket in its beak. Once in Asia, these bars were melted down again and minted into coins and silver objects that could be used to pay for purchases or as diplomatic gifts in the East. The bars were cast in private factories, run by assayers, from melted-down silver coins, mainly Spanish-American ‘reales’. Therefore, VOC ships had to sail to Asia with silver and gold bars to pay for Asian goods. The Dutch had little to offer in Asia but silver and gold.

She sank on her second voyage to the Dutch East Indies off the English coast on the Goodwin Sands in 1739. The Amsterdam ingots were salvaged in 2004 from the wreck of the VOC East-Indiaman Rooswijk of the Amsterdam VOC Chamber. Weight 1751 grams (marked Gerrit van Driel) All bars are 98.7% pure silver Weight 17 grams (marked François Engelen) Three stamped with the VOC Zeeland/Middelburg monogram, two with the Middelburg assayer’s hallmark of François Engelsen and one with the assayer’s hallmark of Gerrit van Driel Four stamped with VOC Amsterdam monogram, and with the Amsterdam assayer’s hallmark of the Grill family, silver assayers in Amsterdam, circa 1738

Seven silver