Two Artifacts recovered from the 1714 Fleet

[cirelaw]

A Spanish Fleet of 7 left Havana and met with a hurricane of our Florida treasue coast. Only one survived. Treasure was scattered from Ft Piece where I live and Melbourne to the north. Less than half of them have been found. When I was practicing law in the 80s, one of the salvors presented me these two rum bottle that survived almost 400 years and numerous hurricanes. I got them from storage and wanted to share them. All were hand blown. No two are alike and both very heavy! ~~ Eric !

[lugersrkewl]

oh wow. got a couple time machines there.
remember to wash those before you drink out of them

[cirelaw]

Found on a beach just south of Ft. Pierce inlet. Dated and counterstamp on reverse for King Philip iv and dated 1690, Mined in Bolivia. The governor found out the ingots short. He executed the assayer and certified only those that were correct by small counterstamp that can be easily! Somehow it passed attention with an obvious crack. The piece of '8' is certified. I havent seen another.~~~Eric

[alanint]

The crack is not unusual. Currency back then was all about weight, not appearance.

Weight is what eventually led most coins to have serrated edges, which are symbolicaly retained by many coins circulating today.

[cirelaw]

I didn't know that! Thank You~

[Vlim]

Correct. People would strip the edges of the coins, thus reducing the weight and value. If you did this long enough, you'd have a good supply of extra precious metal

The serrated edges were added to prevent this, as any damage to the edges would be instantly visible

[skeeter4206]

very cool collection. I just love the history behind things of that nature. Just wonder how many things from our era will actually survive that kinda time.

[cirelaw]

In September 1715, 11 galleons left Havana for Spain loaded with King Phillip the Fourths' treasure trove. After the crosssing from Cuba, a Hurricane caught the fleet right as they were sailing north of our coast battered them and forcing all but one to to be pushed into our shallow reefs scattering their treasure and lives from Jupiter in the south and Melbournes in the north. Only one straggler got back to Seville and reported the loss. King Phillip sent salvors to our coast in hopes of recovering the spoils. Their base came has been found. Mel Fishers' museum stands in it its place on A1A. ! The Spanish fleet left Havana harbour already in the 1715 annual hurricane season. The hurricane hit the fleet as it was off the coast of Florida streching from Jupiter inlet in the south toward Melbourne in the north. One made it back to Spain and brought the bad news to King Phillip the IV and caused Him to be unable to continue to fund the war with England! Usually after a hurricane sweeps the sand away and some are still found! A client of mine was diving for lobster south of the Fort Pierce inlet and discovered a Spanish bronze signal cannon and was in the long process of desalting an preserving it when some one ratted and it was seized. I had one of the stone wheel used to ground grain which I later sold. I met Mel Fisher in a bar in Ft. Pierce 4 years before he died. Here wore a 6 feet gold chain. The Spanish surrounded themselves with such beautiful ornate gold and gems. Emeralds are still found on north beach. They are mistaken for broken green glass from old 7 up bottles! Also its said for years the silver silver reals, then black and encrusted were used to flip them not realizing their real worth. Mel Fisher Museum has a fine site to start your adventure. Happy Hunting~~~~Eric

[MikeP]

An awful lot of the art treasures of the Incas or Aztecs ended up melted down into Spanish coins and gold bars.
They did nothing to preserve artifacts of those they considerd to be so savage.

Might have had some relationship to their cannibalism and ritual sacrifices.

[cirelaw]

Thats because the Spaniards wanted no evidence of their looting, slavery, forced labor and melting down the whole Mayan race while attempting to leave no evidence of the atrocities all under the guise of Catholic conversion! Good thing there were no fully successful!!! Eric~~

[MikeP]

I think the Spanish practices are a given and not to be excused.

Those relics, fine as they are, tend to be very rare.

There is a bit of written material on this as well.

A good historical novel is "AZTEC."
They had a lot of recorded material that the Spanish destroyed as well-I think one scroll survives in Spain.

[cirelaw]

The Spanish escuido pictured above was made from melted down gold in order to cleanse their sins! Everything was done and appproved by the Catholic church under the pretext of religion and conversion! It was Spains way of laundering a their sins! The nuns never taught that in grammer school! I will look up your referenced book! Tks

[alanint]

The codices were Mayan, not Aztec, (who had no books). There are only 4 partial and complete books left in existence.

[cirelaw]

In the latest upcoming Daniel Sedwick Auction. They consist of Spanish 8 Real bust of Charles IV. Recovered from the 'Leocad' sunk in 1800 off Punta Santa Elena, El Savador. Most never have this amount as below! They obviousy remained in the original sack and the smaller are referred to as 'clumps' shown below are typical and expensive examples.~~~

[ithacaartist]

Eric,

I visited Mel Fisher's museum in Key West about 20 years ago. Amazing treasure, a good display. While touring the Montello fort on the island, we ran into two of the restorers working on that project. One was named "Gibby", and he had worked as a diver for Mel.. He had quit, and just afterward, he said, Mel came tooling up in his old Cadillac, opened the trunk, and showed them the anchor from the wreck in question--which meant they were very very close to finding the wreck site. Bummer, to miss out on a cut of a billion dollar treasure!

[cirelaw]

Mel Fisher found the Atocha on July 19th 1985. He was at the end of finances and salvage permit when they found the mother load on the very last day of His permit!!! Tragety struck a year before when He lost his son, his sons' wife and 2 salvors as the boat they were in capsized. He never gave up and said before every dive, "This Is The Day"