In a stroke of luck that seems too Hollywood to be real, a family hunting for treasure in a sunken ship in the Atlantic Ocean hauled up $300,000 worth of gold this weekend.
The booty comes from a ship that was sailing from Cuba to Spain in 1715 carrying $400 million worth of treasure when a hurricane drove it into the ocean. This weekend the sailors’ misfortune became the Schmitt family’s luck, Reuters reports.
Gold chains and coins lay hidden in the wreckage belonging to a company called 1715 Fleet – Queens Jewels LLC. The Schmitts were scouring the ship under a subcontracting agreement with the firm.
Florida law gives the state a 20% stake in the reward; the rest will be divided evenly between the company and the Schmitt family.
This was not the first big find for the divers. In 2002 Eric Schmitt found a silver platter worth $25,000.
In 2010 a mother and daughter duo found a solid gold statue of a bird in the wreckage. It’s appraised value is calculated at nearly $900,000.
Since acquiring the rights to salvage shipwrecks in the Atlantic in 2010, the firm has retrieved between $1.3 and $1.4 million worth of relics, according to the company’s website.
Comments
ConfusedPanda
Is it $300,000 or $300million???