A NEW 1715 TREASURE FLEET FIND

 

Mike Penninger thought his treasure-hunting days might be over. After 30 years of exploring wrecks off the Atlantic coast, surfacing with coins, rings and other artifacts, the 71-year-old Florida diver and boat captain was about ready to hang up the scuba suit.

Then, he and his crew came upon something extraordinary off the coast of Sebastian, Fla.: scores of Spanish coins from an infamous 18th-century shipwreck.

It's a lot of work, Penninger said of searching for treasure. I'm too old. I'm almost 72 and so I'm thinking, ‘I'm done with this.' The very next day, bam, we get the first 100 coins.

The crew would ultimately find more than 200 coins during dives between May 30 and June 16. Their discovery dates back more than 300 years to what's known as the Spanish Treasure Fleet of 1715, the divers said.

The total findings will be distributed between the company and the state by the U.S. District Courts in May.

How much the coins are worth is so far unclear, in part because they haven't yet been restored from their centuries-long stay at the bottom of the ocean.

It's more about the historical value than the cash value, said 1715 Fleet director Sal Guttuso. Valuation can be tricky. Usually money values on these items only can be established once the items have been sold, and many of these will not be sold but go into Florida museums and private collections of the finders or owners of our company.

Some of the first to find evidence of the 1715 shipwrecks were beachgoers walking along Florida's coast in the early 1900s, from Sebastian down to Fort Pierce, said Ben Costello, president of the 1715 Fleet Society. They found mostly Spanish coins, deducing that the wrecked ships must have come from Spain. Floridians found washed-up treasure over the decades, but it wasn't until the 1950s when divers joined the effort to find out what was out there.

Divers have made the most progress contributing to the historical record of the wrecks, often by writing up details of what they've found. Yet many mysteries remain.

There's a lot written about the treasure and what was being transported, Costello said. There's not a lot written about who the people were. Who are some of these people that either died or survived? And what happened to them?

He added, We keep pushing for more knowledge and information. I guess our biggest goal here is to not let the story die.

To read the complete article, see:
A treasure hunter was ready to retire. Then he found hundreds of coins. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/06/26/treasure-hunter-was-ready-retire-then-he-found-hundreds-coins/)

For more information, see:
Florida treasure hunters recover hundreds of 18th century coins from Spanish shipwrecks (https://www.foxnews.com/video/6355524430112)
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/never-expect-it-florida-treasure-hunters-find-200-silver-coins-from-historic-1715-shipwrecks (https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/never-expect-it-florida-treasure-hunters-find-200-silver-coins-from-historic-1715-shipwrecks)

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