1914 (host coin 1888) HMAS Sydney

The SMS Emden was a German Imperial Navy light cruiser attached to the East Asia Squadron at the outbreak of World War I. Under Captain Karl von Müller, she spent the opening months of the war as one of the most successful commerce raiders in naval history - capturing twelve Allied ships and sinking nine more in the Indian Ocean, and bombarding the ports of Madras and Penang.

On the morning of 9 November 1914, the Emden anchored off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and landed a raiding party to destroy the British telegraph and wireless station. The raiders signaled the SS Buresk - a captured collier serving as Emden's supply ship - to come in and resupply her. The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, escorting an ANZAC troop convoy only 80 km away, intercepted the signal and steamed at full speed to engage.

At 9:40 AM Emden spotted Sydney and opened fire first, but she was completely outmatched: Sydney's 6-inch guns vastly outranged Emden's 4.1-inch armament. By 11:20 AM all but one of Emden's guns had been destroyed. To prevent further loss of life, Captain von Müller ran his ship aground on North Keeling Island, but Emden's battle ensign was still flying and she did not respond to Sydney's repeated demands to surrender. Sydney fired one final salvo that ended the engagement. Emden lost 134 killed and 65 wounded.

The Emden's landing party watched the destruction of their ship from shore. Realizing the situation was hopeless, they commandeered the schooner Ayesha and managed to sail her all the way to Ottoman-controlled Aden, evading the Royal Navy the entire way - one of the most remarkable small-boat journeys of the war.

The Emden had been carrying 6,249 Mexican 8 Reales aboard - silver used both for paying her crew and as tokens for the ship's canteen. After the war, the Royal Australian Navy decreed that 1,000 of these coins recovered from the wreck would be made into commemorative medals by W. Kerr, a Sydney jeweler, and presented to the officers and men of HMAS Sydney who had fought at Cocos. Additional medals were given to the telegraph staff at Cocos Island and to other Australian institutions, with any remainder sold to the public to defray Kerr's mounting costs.

This medal is one of those issues: an 1888 Mexican 8 Reales (Republic of Mexico, "REPUBLICA MEXICANA," eagle and cap-and-rays design) mounted with a crowned silver suspender reading "HMAS SYDNEY · SMS EMDEN · NOV 9 1914" and stamped W. KERR / SYDNEY on the reverse of the bracket. A direct, tangible artifact of one of the most famous single-ship actions of WWI.