Ben Costello

The Miami Herald announces that a new exhibit, “The Artist and the Sea” at the Miami Art Center will feature treasure including silver bars, pieces of eight and Chinese porcelains from the Spanish treasure Fleet of 1715 courtesy of the Real Eight Company.

It was announced that the Real Eight Company had acquired Rebikoff Underwater Products Inc. of Fort Lauderdale. The acquisition of Rebikoff, a supplier of underwater equipment and underwater systems, marks a first diversification step for Real Eight in the oceanography field.

On this day it was announced that a $400,000.00 exhibit of Real Eight Company treasure would be featured at an open house sponsored by the First National Bank of Merritt Island on Sunday March 29. The bank’s open house was celebrating the completion of a new third floor as well as its seventh birthday on

Kip Wagner dies. Wagner was the catalyst that sparked efforts to recover the lost treasure of the 1715 Fleet. Even today, some 60 years later, recovery of those treasures still continue. All due to this one man.

The final major sale of Real Eight Fleet gold, 310 coins in all, is held by Bowers & Ruddy Galleries in Los Angeles.

The Plus Ultra Newsletter is launched. It remains in regular publication until 2016.

Marie Louise of Savoy, the first wife of the reigning Monarch Philip V, dies of tuberculosis at the age of 26. In September 1714 Philip marries Elizabeth Farnese of Parma by proxy. They remained married until Philip’s death in 1746.

February 6, 1968 State archaeologist Carl J. Clauson reported that the wooden remains of a well dug in sand by survivors of the 1715 Fleet disaster had been uncovered. Sections of wood, almost certainly from the wooden beams of wrecked ships used as casing for a surface well, were excavated. The well was dug a

February 4, 1967 The second major Real Eight auction offered artifacts, silver and 264 gold coins at Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York City.

January 28, 1965 The Vero Beach Press Journal reports that Real Eight Company President Kip Wagner hopes to visit Spain later in the year in order to collect information about the 1715 Fleet from the Spanish archives located in that country. He believes that the archives may furnish clues that would help locate additional treasure

Work is progressing rapidly on the Real Eight Museum of Sunken Treasure near the Cape Kennedy Hilton, City of Cape Canaveral. The Museum, set to open by mid year, will house displays of Spanish treasure recovered by the group from the ocean floor off of the east coast (From the Orlando Sentinel).

The Real Eight Company makes its first significant recovery of Spanish silver coins at the Cabin Wreck site near Sebastian, Florida.