How divers found the treasure of the Spanish fleet that sank 300 years ago (9 photos + 1 video)

Everyone dreams of finding a treasure or winning the lottery, but in reality Few people are so lucky in life. But this does not mean that such impossible: July 31, 2015 by treasure hunter William Bartlett along with his crew, ship captain Jonah Martinez and more one treasure hunter Dan Buckingham, found about 350 gold coins just five meters from the Florida coastline. The treasure was rated at 4.5 million dollars.





350 gold coins lay on the sandy bottom just 2.5 meters from ocean surface. They used their boat's propeller to remove the top layer of sand from the bottom, where these gold coins were found.



It took the treasure hunters 5 days to pick up all the coins from the bottom of the ocean.





“We all love this activity and we all know the odds when We don’t find anything,” Martinez said. - Opportunity to just practice this, and then also succeed in something like that - this is more expensive than any hidden treasures".



It's hard to believe that such an amazing treasure was so close to the coast, and yet it took 300 years to find it.



The gold found by Bartlett and his team is valued at 4.5 million dollars. Bartlett stated that the gold coins were in such in good condition, as if it had just fallen off the ship yesterday.



And though they can't keep the gold, they were still extremely excited about the find and the opportunity to study and organize the coins.



Among the finds were 9 larger gold coins, which are called Royals. Prior to this discovery, only 20 such coins in the world. These large gold coins served as tokens, which King Philip V gave gifts to important people. Each Royal is valued at approximately 300 thousand dollars.



This picture shows the entire team of treasure hunters, and also Brent Brisbane, owner of Queen's Jewels, which owns the rights to the shipwreck of 1715.



So far from the catastrophic crash site Spanish fleet 300 years ago managed to raise gold in the amount of 6.5 million dollars, and about 400 million dollars of gold is yet to be discover. Queen's Jewels owns the rights to the shipwreck and employs subcontractors such as Bartlett and his team to search treasures. Subcontractors are responsible for all costs that can amount to more than 50 thousand dollars for a summer search for sunken treasures, but they can keep a percentage of the find if they stumble upon artifacts from the wreck of the 1715 fleet.

The Brisbane Company purchased the title to this particular treasure from Mel Fisher, who won a rights lawsuit in 1980, as Spain showed little interest in the lost treasure. However, the State of Florida claimed any treasure found on their coast. Florida receives 20% of the treasures, which are then exposed in museums.