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Tag: treasure

  • Giant Gold Nugget Found And Now To Be Sold: Should Finder Have Kept It?

    A man found a giant gold nugget in the mountainous region of Butte County, North California.

    The lucky individual who happened across the six pound treasure has gone to great lengths to conceal both his identity and the location of the find.

    While this movie is typical of treasure seekers who luck out, it seems no one has ever stopped to ask WHY it’s typical.

    Why rush to get rid of something extremely valuable…especially gold.

    Sometimes in the hunt for things that will make us rich, or at least richer than we were at the start of the day, we get lucky.

    In the case of the anonymous man who found the “Butte Nugget”, it’s obvious he’ll be collecting a tidy sum of money.

    The nugget will reportedly be sold for a minimum of $350,000.

    Suppose the man manages to collect as much cash for his find.

    …Then what?

    The man may reinvest that money in hunting for more gold. During such time, he may discover that his find was a fluke, and he lived out the fable of the “Goose That Laid The Golden Egg”.

    Rather than spend part or any of the money, there’s a chance he could decide to invest it.

    …Which brings us back to the question of WHY he sold the gold in the first place.

    A number of Americans have gone to great lengths to require gold. Even though gold prices fluctuate in recent months, there is a general understanding that the precious metal will always be valuable.

    American printed currency cannot be spoken of in the same way.

    Do you think it’s wiser to hold on to valuable materials or try to get cash? Share why below!

  • Sunken Gold Recovered Near South Carolina

    Sunken Gold Recovered Near South Carolina

    Recovering sunken treasure sounds like the stuff of Disney movies, complete with busty heroines and Johnny Depp eyeliner. But a group has just brought up almost 1,000 ounces — about $50 million worth — of gold from a ship that sank in a hurricane over 150 years ago.

    The S.S. Central America was called “The Ship of Gold”. It sank off the coast of South Carolina in 1857. It was on its way up the east cost of the United States, bringing gold back from California, where the Gold Rush was in full swing.

    But the ship was never to reach its port. A hurricane sent it, and its huge stash of gold — 35,000 pounds, to the bottom of the ocean. The gold was valued in those days at around $2 million. There were also 550 passengers aboard, many of whom were likely carrying gold on their persons.

    The amount of gold that went down that day was so large that its loss shook public confidence in the U.S. monetary system as a whole and contributed to the Panic of 1857.

    All that gold stayed at the bottom of the ocean until 1988. A recovery company found the ship and started bringing artifacts and gold to the surface. But lawsuits were immediately filed by insurance companies that had paid out claims way back in 1857 and were still around. They said they had rights to some of the gold being recovered.

    In the fracas of legal maneuvering that followed, no one went back for more gold from the ship. The man who led the 1988 expedition and ended up the target of lawsuits has been a fugitive ever since.

    Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida finally got clearance from a judge to have another go at the ship. Half of anything Odyssey finds will be split among the litigants of the 1988 case.

    Mark Gordon, Odyssey’s president, says they were shocked to find gold as quickly as they did.

    “While we weren’t planning to recover gold so quickly, it did confirm that the site has not been disturbed since it was last visited in 1991 and there is gold remaining.”

    The crew will continue to bring up gold.

    Image via YouTube

  • Family Finds Gold off Florida Coast

    While hunting for treasure might sound like a job more suited for Captain Jack Sparrow, a family in Florida found quite the haul while looking for gold off the coast of Fort Pierce over the weekend. According to the Sun Sentinel, The Schmitt family found gold coins and gold chains that have an estimated value of more than $300,000.

    The Schmitt family found the treasure near the Brisben wreckage site approximately 150 yards off the coast. The wreckage site is where the 1715 Treasure Fleet perished in a hurricane that took the lives of 1,000 sailors and left behind an estimated $600 million in gold and other valuables. According to Brent Brisben, co-founder of the company that holds the rights to the wreckage site, treasure is found on a “daily basis.” Gold isn’t the only treasure found, either. “We find shipwreck artifacts, musket balls, pottery,” Brisben said.

    The Schmitts have been diving at the wreckage site for years through their company Booty Salvage. While they have found treasure before, including a Spanish silver plate worth around $30,000, this is by far their biggest find. At just 15 feet underwater, the family found 64 feet of gold chain, five gold coins and a gold ring. The value of the treasure has been placed at a conservative estimate of around $300,000.

    The find proved to be a very emotional moment for the family. When her brother Eric showed her the gold, 20-year-old Hillary Schmitt said that she “cried like a baby” on the boat. “His pocket was hanging (with gold) about down to the ground…It was an intense moment. We were all just screaming and crying.” Rick Schmitt, father of the treasure-hunting family, said that the find “is like the end of a dream.”

    While finding enough gold to pay off your mortgage may certainly feel like a dream, the Schmitts won’t get to keep their entire haul. According to federal and state law, the family will have to turn their find over to the U.S. District Court in South Florida. Florida can keep 20 percent of the find for its museums, and the remaining treasure will be split between the Schmitt family and Brisben’s company, 1715 Fleet – Queens Jewels LLC.

    Image via YouTube

  • SS Gairsoppa: Shipwreck Gives Up Its Treasure

    In December 1940, the SS Gairsoppa raised anchor in India and left, fully-loaded with 240 tons of tea, silver, and iron for Liverpool, England. After breaking away from its convoy due to bad weather off the Irish coast, a German U-Boat sank the Gairsoppa with one torpedo on February 17, 1941. The Telegraph reported that one survivor made it out.

    The Gairsoppa rested 2.9 miles below the surface for over 70 years when, in 2011, the Odyssey Marine Exploration company discovered the wreck while searching on a contract that nets them a sweet 80% of the discovered treasure (the remaining 20% will go to the British government).

    The silver rests underneath the Atlantic

    Since then, Odyssey has been diligently working to extract the archaeological find from the Atlantic seabed, in spite of problems relating to the structure and size of the ship. On Monday, the company reported they had successfully recovered $35 million in silver when they pulled 61 tons of bullion out of the wreck.

    Mark Gordon, Odyssey’s president and chief operating officer said of his people, “The ability of our team to deliver on our planned objectives underscores our experience and the tremendous determination of our team. We have accomplished a world-record recovery at a depth never achieved before. We’re continuing to apply our unique expertise to pioneer deep-ocean projects that result in the discovery and recovery of lost cultural heritage, valuable cargoes and important and needed natural resources.”

    If, like me, you wonder just exactly what 61 tons of silver looks like, it looks like one of these:
    a Silver Bar recovered from the SS Gairsoppa

    … multiplied by 1574. Odyssey reports that their find weighs in at 1.8 million ounces. Combined with previous efforts to retrieve the find from the ship, 2792 silver ingots have been retrieved from the ship using remote vehicles, which Odyssey reports comprised more than 99% of the insured silver that the Gairsoppa was hauling.

    Unfortunately for Odyssey, Reuters reports that they actually lost money due to fluctuating market prices. The going price for silver bullion when they recovered 48 tons last year earned them $38 million, so their larger haul will unfortunately fetch a smaller sum due to falling silver prices.

  • $500 Million Spanish Treasure Recovered

    The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia denied another motion from the Odyssey Marine Exploration Company to keep over $500 million in recovered treasure. The treasure was recovered by Odyssey in 2007 from a sunken ship off the Spanish coast. The coins were flown from Spain to a heavily guarded US location where they have remained. Spain discovered the recovery and filed a suit in Tampa, Florida claiming the treasure.

    (image)

    Spain won their claim in Tampa, Florida in 2009 but Odyssey appealed the decision in
    Atlanta. With the rejection of this final petition by the Circuit Courts Spain’s Culture Ministry said:

    “With the ruling by the appeals court, the process begins to recover all of the coins taken illegally.”

    “We’re not going to use this money for purposes other than artistic exhibition, but this is something that enriches our material, artistic capital and it has to be appreciated as such.”

    The coins were originally lost on the Nuestra Senora de las, a navy warship that was lost when British ships attacked the Spanish fleet in 1804. The Spanish treasure has crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice now. Once in 1804 and then again when it was transported to the US in 2008.

  • Millennium Falcon Found in Baltic Sea?

    There are perhaps tens of thousands of salvage items at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Treasure hunters frequent the area and recover many things.

    Peter Lindberg, a commercial diver who trawls for treasure in the Baltic, has mapped a sonar image that he intends to excavate in the Spring. The object is circular, with a diameter of 195 feet.

    While the type of sonar image that Lindberg recorded does occasionally give a false read, there is definitely something down there. And, from the looks of those sonar images, it is something from a long time ago… in a galaxy far, far away…