In the summer of 1944 the S.S. John Barry, a cargo class Liberty ship, was carrying over 3 million Silver Riyal coins minted to pay for Oil from Aramco during WWII. On August 28th, 1944 the ship was torpedoed off the coast of The Sultanate of Oman by the German U-Boat U859. It sank to a depth of 2600 meters, where this coin and others like it sat under the ocean for 50 years! Only 1,400,000 coins were retrieved in a 1994 special engineering operation, after the salvage rights were paid for by the "Ocean Group".
The ability to recover small coins from a steel vessel 1.6 miles below sea level has given a very special value to these Arabian silver Riyals.
Each Saudi Riyal contains .342 oz of Silver.