GOLD Found on 1715 Fleet site

[wreckdiver1715]

Jeff Milne, subcontractor with the Mel Fisher Center in Sebastian, FL, announces that his crew is “bringing up the GOLD!” this year. Divers from motor vessel New World Legacy have just made their first hit of the season, and it’s a beauty: a gold “finger” bar with a fineness of 19-1/2 karats, at least five king’s tax stamps, and an assayer/smelter cartouche containing letters which may read RODRI/GVES (Rodrigues)! —The bar has yet to be cleaned!— The find occurred off "Corrigan’s Beach" in Vero on a site believed to be part of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet. Details of the discovery…people involved, “exactly” where…day/date, etc. will be added to this report by mid-week. This will also include the ingot’s specifications: dimensions and weight…and when and where the gold bar can be seen (at the Mel Fisher Center). Photos courtesy: Jeff Milne. Posted 20 August 2006.

UPDATE: 21 August at 06:45, by Wreckdiver1715: On the same note; The folks at Admiralty Corporation are reporting on there web site that they found this Gold bar last Thursday the 17th of August. Taffi Fisher Abt, reports that Admiralty does not hold a lease to work the 1715 Fleet sites. However, Jeff Milne does hold a lease, and has hired Admiralty Corporation to work for him on the 1715 fleet sites.

Courtesy Ernie "Seascribe" Richards at http://home.att.net/~enrada/

 

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[buscadero]

Why does it seem that my heart's gonna explode whenever I see pics like that? It was the same way when I visited Mel Fisher's Museum.

I remember the feeling I got when I picked up that display "Gold Bar". You could just feel the History oozing out of it!

Gives ya Goosebumps!!


Joe

 

[ScubaFinder]

Thanks for that WreckDiver....now I'm sitting at my desk with my BC on and my Reg. in my mouth For all the bleak predictions at the beginning of this season, things sure do seem to be hopping out there. With any luck, I'll be down in 2 weeks getting wet!

Jason

 

[buscadero]

Cap: Maybe Jeff took his Royal Fifth before reporting the Gold? Or Royal Half?

I know, I'll take any piece they throw my way!

I've heard that if Gold is touching another piece of metal, it can get discolored! I'm not sure tho.



JOE

 

[riobravo]

i can no longer resist a reply,

 

[riobravo]

is it my turn yet................

 

[riobravo]

hi all,
went to their web site, those blowers were on the ground, less than two weeks ago at fort pierce, that i would say is some efficient work, guess i better raise the bar.
said with prayer and looking for a lamb to sacrifice

 

[ScubaFinder]

"Raise the bar" Joseph?? Don't you mean raise the GOLD bar!

Don't sacrifice that lamb, suit him up in dive gear and give him a MD, he should earn his keep like the rest of us! LOL

 

[stud564]

nice finds

 

[wreckdiver1715]

UPDATE on Treasure Coast Gold Bar Find

Treasure hunters find gold off Sebastian coast

By TONY JUDNICH
[email protected]
August 21, 2006

SEBASTIAN FLORIDA — The Treasure Coast now has some more booty on display to back its precious-metal and jewel-laden moniker.
The crew of Mel Fisher Center Inc. subcontractor Jeff Milne found a 1 1/2-pound gold bar on Aug. 11 from a shipwreck sunk during a hurricane in 1715 off the coast of Indian River County, Taffi Fisher Abt said Friday.
Abt is the daughter of the late and renowned treasure hunter Mel Fisher, and the director of Sebastian's Mel Fisher Treasure Museum, where the gold bar went on display Friday.
"We're very excited," Abt said about the recent discovery. "It's got beautiful markings on it. I would say it's worth at least $25,000."
Roman numeral markings on the bar indicate it is 19 1/4 karats, she said.
Abt said Milne's crew found the bar in less than 20 feet of water near John's Island, south of the Sebastian Inlet. At the same site, the crew also found a copper "maravidi," a coin used by Spaniards in the 1700s, and a bronze cross.
The site is part of the ocean bottom that contains remains of ships from a 1715 Spanish fleet that sank during a hurricane while sailing back to Europe, loaded with treasure from Central and South America. The Mel Fisher Center holds state salvage contracts on the shipwrecks and has recovered treasure from them for the past 40 years, Abt said.
She said Milne's crew will continue to work the trail that revealed the recently-found gold bar in hopes of finding more treasure before stormier fall weather sets in.
"We've been working that site (near John's Island) pretty diligently this summer," she said. "It's one of the top three sites as far as production of treasure."
And the site is one Mel Fisher began exploring in the early 1960s before he began looking for the wreck of the Atocha, a 1622 galleon laden with 40 tons of silver, gold and copper off the coast of Key West. He found the Atocha in 1985 after a 16-year search, Abt said.
The place where the gold bar was found Aug. 11 is named the Corrigan site, after a local ranching family who once owned one of only two cabins on the beach between Sebastian and Vero Beach, Abt said.
She said the other cabin belonged to the late treasure hunter Kip Wagner. In 1961, Wagner discovered a ship believed to be the Nuestra Senora de la Regla — the lead vessel in the Spanish flotilla — and helped salvage about $1.6 million in silver coins.
Salvagers haven't identified the ship where the recently-discovered gold bar came from, but it might be the Regla, Abt said.
Under state law, The Mel Fisher Center gives 20 percent of the value of artifacts it finds to the state at the end of each year.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_4931857,00.html