DATELINE: Washington, PA.

Today is the first anniversary of the 1715 Fleet Society website. Much more is coming in the next three years, we promise, but we have not been idle this first year. “Well begun is half done” said Ben Franklin.
Several pages of the website already contain important material. In the Photo Gallery, we have begun to publish an annotated Research Collection of Mexican and Peruvian silver cobs. The 1715 Fleet Society intends to publish a Collector’s Guide to this and other cob series, with special attention to the proper grading of cob coins. Please take our survey!
Courtesy of The Florida State Collection and Dr. John DeBry, the Photo Gallery also contains two other sections of exceptional photos of Fleet coins and artifacts.
In the Archives, we have pages of interviews, out-of-print articles, and original documents relating to the modern salvage of the 1715 Fleet. Several early and important Real 8 documents are published here for the first time. Modern interest in the salvage of the Fleet, it is now becoming clear, began not with Kip WagnerKip Wagner (1906 – 1972) was instrumental in the formation of the team that later became the Real Eight Company and one of the greatest salvage groups that ever explored the 1715 Fleet wrecks.  He ... and Real 8 in the late 1950’s, but  in  the early 1940’s with men Charles Dana Higgs. Stay tuned for that story.
On the Calendar page, we offer a monthly Treasure of the Month, profiling exceptional coins and artifacts recovered from the Fleet.
Thanks again to the readers who have shared their photos and documents with us. One of the purposes of the 1715 Fleet Society website is to attract and publish personal Fleet material that would otherwise be lost to history.