2014 Port Isabel Texas Lighthouse

MintUnknown Mint

IssuerUnknown Mint

DistributorJohn Grayson (San Benito / Harlingen, TX)

The reverse depicts the Port Isabel Lighthouse, with a sailing vessel offshore and coastal waters in the foreground. The design captures the maritime setting of the Lower Laguna Madre and Gulf approach. Legend: “PORT ISABEL – SOUTH PADRE ISLAND” Date: 2014

A large five-point Texas star dominates the field. At the center appears the geographic outline of the State of Texas. Surrounding legend reads: “TEXAS TRADE UNIT”. Lower legend: “.999 FINE SILVER 1 TROY OUNCE”. The design reflects a generic bullion “trade unit” format adapted to Texas iconography.

Port Isabel Texas Lighthouse – Texas Trade Unit Silver Round Overview

2014 Port Isabel Lighthouse Texas Trade Unit Silver Round is a privately issued one-troy-ounce .999 fine silver piece. It pairs a dated lighthouse scene with a Texas star bullion reverse. It is one of the few modern Texas silver rounds built around a Lower Rio Grande Valley landmark rather than a statewide theme. Everything about it points to a small regional release sold to visitors and local collectors at the southern tip of the Texas coast, not a national bullion product.

The dated side carries the Port Isabel Lighthouse, with a Spanish galleon under sail offshore and open water in the foreground. The galleon nods to the Spanish explorers who first reached this stretch of coast and to its later years as a haunt for privateers. The lighthouse was built in 1852 to guide ships through Brazos Santiago Pass. Soldiers on both sides used it as a lookout during the Civil War, and it went dark in 1905 once shipping traffic dropped off. The State of Texas took the site as a gift in 1950. Today it is a State Historic Site operated by the City of Port Isabel, and it is the only lighthouse on the Texas coast open to the public. That long standing as the area’s signature landmark made it the natural subject for a souvenir round from Port Isabel.

The opposite side swaps local imagery for a bullion format. A large five-point star fills the field, with the outline of Texas set at its center. The legend frames the piece as a “TEXAS TRADE UNIT” and states its weight and fineness. The trade-unit wording follows the private-bullion tradition of marketing silver as a tradeable unit of metal rather than as a coin. That phrasing is very uncommon in Texas exonumia; no other Texas round using it has been documented.

The piece is struck in a cameo finish: mirrored, prooflike fields set against frosted central devices on both sides. It has a standard reeded edge and carries no privy mark, serial number, or manufacturer’s identification. The same lighthouse die was later paired with a second reverse as part of a planned regional series (see Alternate Reverse below).

2014 Port Isabel Lighthouse Texas Trade Unit Silver Round Attribution

No mint mark, maker’s legend, or other manufacturer’s identification appears on either side, and no catalog, invoice, or original sales literature naming a manufacturer has been located. The round is therefore catalogued under Unknown Mint, pending discovery of die-style or documentary evidence.

The 2014 date is struck on the lighthouse side. The earliest documented secondary-market sales appear in late December 2013, which places the release at the turn of that year, consistent with a round struck in advance of its stated date. Those early sales ran at a steady $30 through repeated relists into 2015. The Kemp’s Ridley companion sold at the same $30 in December 2015, under a listing written in the issuer’s own voice. Together these point to a single issuer selling both varieties direct rather than through the bullion trade.

Issue and distribution are attributed to Rod Eric Bates (d. October 12, 2021, obituary), a Port Isabel historian and treasure hunter. He owned Rio Bravo Gallery, the antiques, collectibles, and trading shop he ran with his mother in Old Port Isabel near the lighthouse. Local press shows Bates handling old bank notes and currency at the gallery, and he was active in local heritage programs in the years around this issue. The attribution rests on collector testimony consistent with that documented role. It is recorded as attributed rather than confirmed until contemporary documentation, such as an invoice, packaging, a gallery advertisement, or a struck mark, ties the round to Bates or Rio Bravo Gallery directly. The same standard applies to the tentative design credit to Bates.

2014 Port Isabel Lighthouse Texas Trade Unit Silver Round Alternate Reverse

The same dated lighthouse obverse is documented paired with a second reverse depicting a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. The endangered Gulf species nests on the beaches of South Padre Island, where Ila Loetscher founded Sea Turtle, Inc. in 1977 to protect it. On that reverse, the turtle swims across the field beneath an arched “KEMP’S RIDLEY SEA TURTLE” legend, with “.999 FINE SILVER 1 TROY OUNCE” along the lower rim.

The variety is known from a [WorthPoint sold listing]([enter WorthPoint URL]) (sold December 1, 2015, $30). The seller described it as the second offering in a planned series of rounds on South Texas history and wildlife, and wrote in the first person as the series’ producer. The listing also names the ship on the obverse as a Spanish galleon and describes the finish as a two-tone cameo strike. That description places the Texas Trade Unit version as the series’ first issue and the Kemp’s Ridley as its second. No further designs in the planned series have been documented.

Open threads:

• whether the eBay seller account behind the 2015 listing traces to Rio Bravo Gallery or Rod Bates, which would move the issuer attribution from testimony to documentary evidence;
• relative mintages of the two varieties;
• whether any third design was ever struck.

2014 Port Isabel Lighthouse Texas Trade Unit Silver Round Notes

• The “TEXAS TRADE UNIT” legend is the only documented use of that phrasing on a Texas round.
• The dated lighthouse side is catalogued as the obverse, consistent with site convention for privately issued rounds. The issuer’s own listing refers to the lighthouse side as the reverse.
• No serial numbering, privy mark, or COA has been documented for this issue.
• Documented with a second, Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle reverse; see Alternate Reverse above.

2014 Port Isabel Lighthouse Texas Trade Unit Silver Round References

• Valerie Bates, City of Port Isabel Marketing Director & Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site Manager — email correspondence, 2026, confirming Rod Bates sold these and identifying John Grayson as the likely production/distribution partner
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site, Texas Historical Commission
• Point Isabel Light, Wikipedia
• Port Isabel offers a quiet slice of paradise, Houston Chronicle (June 2016)
• Rio History: When Rubber Meets the Road, Port Isabel–South Padre Press (January 2020)
• Rod Eric Bates obituary, Thomae-Garza Funeral Home (October 2021)
• [WorthPoint sold listing: Ridley Sea Turtle 1 Troy Ounce .999 Silver Coin, 2014 Lighthouse Rev.]([enter WorthPoint URL]) (sold December 1, 2015)
• Collector testimony regarding Rod Bates and Rio Bravo Gallery distribution
• Documented example examined (this entry)
• Texas Stacker Archives

Continue Exploring

← Previous1982 Silvex Systems Silver Round

Next →1986 Mothers Day Silver Round

MintUnknown Mint24 coins in the archive

→