Sunken Treasure

It’s a cool, clear night with a crescent moon in the Ozarks. I was just at a neighbor’s house, stargazing and eating barbecue. It’s supposed to get down to 42 degrees tonight. Cool for this time of year.

I found this item on a website called treasurelore.com…

MERCHANT ROYAL - Possibly the greatest hoard of sunken treasure still waiting to be found on the seabed around Great Britain is that which went down in the Merchant Royal, of Dartmouth, on 23 September, 1641. Returning to England with a king’s ransom in Spanish treasure, her sinking in bad weather was witnessed by another vessel in company which reported the location as “ten leagues from Land’s End” (21 miles). Carrying thirty-six bronze cannon, a crew of eighty and a few passengers under the command of Captain John Limbrey, in her hold lay “Â£300,000 in silver, Â£100,000 in gold, and as much again in jewel.” By present standards of inflation, such a sum must be the twentieth century equivalent of Â£20M at least. The loss to the Treasury and nation as a whole was of sufficient importance for Samuel Pepys to interrupt proceedings in the House of Commons to communicate the sad news.

Evidently, the wreck of the Merchant Royal has been found. A Florida company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, chartered a jet and hauled a half a million coins back home. Odyssey is being tight lipped about the details but the Telegraph is speculating that it must be the Merchant Royal. They found the wreck with remote control submarines.

Odyssey is a publicly traded company and their stock has risen 60 percent since the news of this discovery. If I’m not mistaken, they are the only company of this type that is publicly traded. They have had some success in the past most notably the SS Republic found off the coast of Georgia. They are also currently searching for the British warship Sussex that sank off Gibraltar in 1694. You can purchase coins, bottles and other shipwreck artifacts from their website.

I’d never heard of Odyssey before but I find the whole thing fascinating. You know, searching for sunken treasure, remote control submarines and making a success out of a high-risk business.