The coins were found in Lewis Bennett’s rucksack after the couple’s catamaran capsized and sank, US prosecutors said.
Mother-of-one Isabella Hellman, 41, has been presumed drowned since the incident off the Bahamas in May.
The 38-year-old businessman appeared in court in Florida last night charged with transporting stolen goods valued at $5,000 (£3,868) or more.
He will appear before the court on Friday for a bail hearing.
After his rescue from the 37ft catamaran Surf Into Summer, Bennett told US Coast Guard officials he went below deck to get some sleep.
He came back up after hearing the boat hit something to find the vessel sinking and Ms Hellman gone. He then called for help before getting into a life raft.
According to prosecutors, nine plastic tubes containing 225 rare coins were found in a rucksack in the life raft.
They were given back to Bennett but later confiscated after FBI agents found they had been stolen a year earlier from a Caribbean vessel, the Kitty R, while Bennett was a crew member.
Bennett had told police that the Kitty R, which sails out of St Maarten, had been burgled while no one was on board.
A search of the Miami home he shared with Ms Hellman and their 11-month-old daughter Emelia later found 162 coins hidden in a pair of his boat shoes.
The total value of the coins stolen from Kitty R was $100,000 (£77,000), according to its owner, who said the ones that were recovered are worth more than £20,000 but only account for part of the theft.
They include 158 “Year of the Horse” English silver coins and 77 Canadian gold maple leaf coins.
The FBI has refused to say if Bennett is a person of interest or a suspect in the disappearance of his wife.
Bennett, who has dual British and Australian citizenship and went to school in Cornwall, has described his wife’s disappearance as “absolutely devastating”.
He has said: “She is my soul mate. I thought we were going to be together for ever.”