A Tale of Spanish Doubloons
One of my ongoing projects as a Director of the Fleet Society is to catalogue the many archival documents that I have acquired over the years. Although I enjoy this aspect of my job very much, I find that the responsibilities of my full time job often interfere with cataloguing duties. But, when I do […]
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An Alternative Explanation for an Iconic Artifact
Within the State of Florida’s archaeological collection there resides an unusual and rare artifact, catalog number 93 A. 673. 000103. 0001, lab tag 6458, with the designation “bone toothpick”. It was received into the State’s collection in 1993 after being found at the site number 8SL – 00017, the Douglas Beach Wreck, part of the […]
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One Day of Hunting Treasure
Walt Holzworth was a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer who relocated to California to work in the construction industry. Eventually, he ended up a full-time treasure hunter. He made his first dive in 1963 at the age of 52. His wife Shirley authored this narrative describing a day in the life of a treasure hunter. The actual […]
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Some Highlights of the Florida Collection
“The Earliest Lima 8 Escudos in the Florida Collection” This post is the second in a series that will explore some of the highlights of the magnificent Florida State Collection of Spanish Colonial artifacts and coins. The Lima mint began striking a gold coinage in August of 1696, almost a decade after permission for a […]
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Clausen Report
In the summer of 1964, Mel Fisher working through a contract with the Real Eight Corporation, located and salvaged a tremendous treasure consisting of thousands of gold coins and priceless artifacts. This wreck site was surveyed, analyzed, and reduced to a report by archaeologist Carl J Clausen, who was representing the State of Florida. More […]
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Numismatic Legacy of the 1715 Plate Fleet
This article, by Phil Flemming and Ben Costello, was published in the January 2015 edition of The Numismatist, and the full text of the article is included below. Three hundred years ago, a Spanish treasure fleet was lost in the waters off Florida’s eastern coast. Over the last five decades, salvage operations on known wreck […]
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DATELINE: Ft. Pierce, Florida
The latest edition of Indian River Magazine, published by a locally owned company based in Ft. Pierce, Florida, has just released its Holiday 2014 Edition featuring a multi-page article on the 300th Anniversary of the 1715 Fleet Disaster. Written by Rick Crary, the article features a brief history of the 1715 Fleet supplemented with numerous […]
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1701 Gold Escudo Hybrid of Santa Fe from 1715 Fleet
by Herman Blanton The “171S Fleet-Queens Jewels, LLC” treasure salvage operations recovered a cache of gold escudos on 13-July-2013 on a site called “Corrigans” at Sebastian Inlet near Wabasso Beach, Fl. Other artifacts including a silver spoon, olive jar pottery shards, musket balls and spikes were found in the vicinity. About a week later three […]
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