FINDING GOLD NEVER GETS OLD in SOUTH FLORIDA
A good old treasure story- for most people, this type of story rings in every demographic from young to old and wealthy to the poor. Sunken treasure could tell a story of both extreme wealth and sunken misfortune.
In very shallow waters, off the Atlantic coast of Vero Beach, Florida, Brent Brisben and his crew dove off the coast on July 30 and 31,2015 and came up recovering 350 gold coins that were about 10-15 feet off the shoreline! The gold coins were valued at $4.5 million, according to Florida Today. Nine of the coins that were found are known as Royals, which surprisingly value at $300,000 a piece! The Royal coins were special because they were specially made for the king of Span, Phillip V, in the early 1700’s.
The treasure that was found had a very noteworthy meaning due to the anniversary of the 1715 Fleet Shipwreck that sunk on the same day they found the coins 300 years later! There were 11 ships that were traveling from Havana to Spain to deliver “The Queen’s jewels” – which was at least $400 million worth of jewelry and gold! All of it was lost at sea due to a hit of a hurricane, and more so was lost, 1,000 maritime workers died that day.
"For a treasure diver such as myself, a find like this is the equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal," said William Bartlett in an email to FLORIDA TODAY. Bartlett is the diver who recovered the coins from the bottom of the ocean. "This is what we (treasure hunters of the 1715 Fleet) all come here to do. For four months out of the year we eat, sleep and live treasure. When we're not actually treasure hunting, we're usually talking about treasure hunting. We hang out with other treasure hunters. I worked this wreck, which was part of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet, back in the 1960s and even though we recovered millions in gold and silver, I have been trying to tell people ever since that this site was still loaded with treasure. Even with all they have found this go round, I think the best finds are yet to come.”
“The gold belongs to the U.S. District Court of Florida. The state will assess the treasure, then Brisben and his crew will divvy up the remaining 80 percent.”
Risks are rewarding; treasure hunting is no easy task!
It has been quite a summer for treasure hunting in South Florida!
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