It is hard to believe that almost 60 years have passed since the Real Eight CompanyAlso referred to occasionally as “The Real 8 Company”- was incorporated in 1961. It had eight members….Kip Wagner, Kip Kelso, Dan Thompson, Harry Cannon, Lou Ullian, Del Long, Erv Taylor and Lis... reigned supreme as the premier salvage operation working the wreck sites of the 1715 Fleet. In the early 60’s they secured leases from the State of Florida for almost all of these wreck sites. This gave them exclusive rights to recover vast amounts of the Fleet’s treasure virtually without competition. In return, the state received 25% of the treasure and also has the right to claim historical artifacts. Nearly every summer the newspapers carried stories of precious cargo recovered by the Real Eight and the tiny band that formed the company were transformed into celebrities.
However, even celebrity treasure hunters make mistakes. This is a story of one such mistake. Late in June 1965, members of the Real Eight recovered a number of large disc-shaped objects from a wreck site south of the Sebastian Inlet. This site is often referred to as the Cabin Wreck. Weighing in at between 60 and 100 pounds, the Company identified these large objects as “silver discs”. Newspapers reported that these discs and other silver ingots found at the site were bound for Madrid where they would presumably be melted down for coins and jewelry.
Unfortunately, they were wrong. These “discs” or “plates” were not silver at all, but copper. They were “bell metal”. Bell metal is a hard alloy consisting of a mixture of copper and tin. It is used for making bells and musical instruments. Most of these ingots reside in the State of Florida Collection and all ( as far as e can tell) came from the Cabin Wreck site. For more about these copper discs see our Treasure of the Month for May 2014, HERE.
