With the current find, after the state takes its share, Brisben and the Schmitt family will split the rest evenly. If the Court agrees, the company turns the items over, Brisben says. The state of Florida is entitled to 20 percent of anything Brisben or his contractors find.Įvery year, Florida will send representatives to examine anything the teams find, and put in a request for items they'd like to transfer to museums to the Court. But nothing like that initial find.Īll of the artifacts are under the jurisdiction of the United States district court of the southern district of Florida under the care of Brisben's company. They've found some more silver coins and buttons and several candlesticks since then. Schmitt and his team have continued to work the site that yielded that million-dollar haul. But "they made a certain number of coins perfect, called the Royals, which they would present to the king." Splitting the Take Their makers were more concerned about the coins' weight and quality of gold or silver. Regular coins in those days tended to look a bit rough, Brisben says. The gold coins included an extremely rare specimen called a Tricentennial Royal worth over $500,000. But the current find "is probably the biggest in terms of volume and rarity," he says. "I was literally shaking."īrisben and his company's contractors have been working the wrecks since 2010. He called Brent Brisben, co-founder of 1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels to check out their discovery. "It was absolutely unreal," says Schmitt. The dive team started to shift more sand, and ended up recovering the treasure. But around 9 or 9:30 in the morning, a gold coin popped out of the sand he was clearing on the seafloor. The day started out like any other, Schmitt says. "Typically we excavate empty holes and find beer cans," the shipwreck diver says.īut this time, in 15 feet (4.5 meters) of water about 1,000 feet (305 meters) off a beach in Fort Pierce, Florida, the divers got lucky. Usually Schmitt and his team come up empty-handed. Schmitt and his family had been working the 1715 vessels under contract with 1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels LLC, a Florida company with exclusive rights to the wrecks, for several years. (Read about a cursed warship that sank with treasure onboard.) The ships sank during a hurricane that hit them on July 30 as they sailed past Florida on their way back to Spain. (Read about another shipwreck that was part of the Tierra Firma fleet.) The 11 ships were part of Spain's Tierra Firme and New Spain fleets, regular convoys of vessels that transported gold, silver, and other precious resources from Spanish colonies in the New World to Europe. The Florida family that made the discovery, led by Eric Schmitt, wanted to wait so their announcement would coincide with the 300-year anniversary of the fleet's sinking off the coast of Florida. The find, made over a month ago on June 17, was kept under wraps until now. Shipwreck divers have announced quite the anniversary present for the flagship of a 1715 Spanish treasure fleet, the Capitana: 52 gold coins, 40 feet of gold chain, and 110 silver coins and buttons all worth over one million dollars.
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