Largest Shipwreck Treasure Find Ever - VOA Story

An American company is in the process of determining the value of a haul of sunken treasure, thought to be the biggest ever discovered. Odyssey Marine Exploration says it is examining more than half-a-million coins from the shipwreck as part of a find that could net it around half a billion dollars. The bounty has sparked public interest in the controversial business of treasure hunting vy Odyssey Marine Exploration.

"Black Swan is the code-name of a secret operation off the coast of Europe which may have discovered the biggest haul of shipwreck treasure ever found.

Odyssey won't reveal the identity of the ship, or even when it sank, to avoid giving clues to other treasure hunters. Odyssey will only say it went down in international waters.

In the crates are 17 tons of silver and gold coins and other valuables arriving in the U.S., destined for a secret location.

Mark Gordon, from Odyssey Marine Exploration, says an expert in 17th century coins estimated the value of the haul. "He looked at a representative sample of the coins and in amongst the group that he saw he was able to determine that there were values ranging from $400 to $4,000 for individual coins, and the mean value of the group that he looked at was about $1,000," says Gordon.

Those crates could hold about half a billion dollars. In the U.S., a big media splash about the "Black Swan" hoard has triggered a new fascination in pirate ships and treasure.

Odyssey estimates there are some three million shipwrecks worldwide. The company combs the seabed using a special underwater vessel: operating it costs $35,000 a day.

If treasure is found, the company determines if anyone may have a claim to it -- unlikely in the case of a pirate-ship -- then petitions a U.S. court to get ownership.

Odyssey is the only publicly traded treasure-hunting company in the U.S., but the business is unpredictable. It reported a net loss of $3.8 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Critics, such as the Institute of Field Archaeologists, accuse private companies like Odyssey of "ransacking" shipwrecks for profit. And Odyssey is in a legal wrangle with the Spanish government over the Black Swan treasure. Spain says it might be one of their galleons that went down in its territorial waters.

But Odyssey says it will press on with its work - and has even teamed up with the Walt Disney Corporation to cater to the public appetite for sunken treasure.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Black
• Swan
• treasure
• Shipwreck
• Marine
• sea
• bounty
• Odyssey
• Exploration

[Ortizhastalascachas]

Spain has been stealing and killing for its gold and Silver since the 1500's , sould Central and Sount America SUE Spain for these loses?? Leave it to Spain to claim something that does not belong to them.. Screw Spain and Screw Cortez!!

[jetulik]

At 1:22, thats not a man!!, thats a lesbian whos had hormone treatment to look like a man...likes Cher's daughter....the voice always gives them away...LOL

[MultiBlackballs]

@Ortizhastalascachas screw america too. give the riches to its rightful owner.

[msheldondante]

I bet Black Swan refers to the black swans discovered by Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh while searching for the sunken treasure ship Ridderschap van Holland. (Not a pirate ship, so these modern treasure hunters should have no right to the gold.) It's so depressing to have these irreplaceable relics that belong in a museum sold off to the highest bidder and melted down.

-Madsd

[arklat]

@itzericalL252. Afghanistan has the largest unrecovered mineral deposits in the world. Oil isn't the only natural resource that civilization depends on.

[mrrogue72]

@jetulik yeah, friggin weird

[romeiis]

Moral of the story . . . if you are stupid enough to tell thieves what you find then you deserve to have theives steal it from you . . . silence is golden

[sriharipala]

GOLD AND SPICES WERE REAL MOTIVATION OF COLONIALISM

[sriharipala]

REAL MOTIVATION OF COLONIALISM

[itzericaL252]

for one thing there is no oil in afganistan that i know of as well as any scientist ive ever heard talk on the subject , we should get out of there we have been over there looking for bin laden how long now 9 yrs jeeze if we had wanted him we could have gotten him by now , as for gold found at sea it should be to the finder goes the spoils never would have been found other wise

[seawolfu99]

i don't care who's ships they were if these's guys find them i think they have a Right to the Glod they find there the ones spending money to find the things if the other owners whated them so bad they should of Looked for them not wait tell some one eslse doe's it for them