Lost Treasure USA

Mystery of the "Beeswax Wreck" in Nehalem Bay

2012-03-18T07:49:00.003-07:00

(I used to live near here, in Oregon, dang it.)

A silver Spanish eight reale, or “piece of eight,” with “two bits” clipped off to make change.
The markings indicate that the coin was minted in Mexico City about 1650
and was loaded on a Manila galleon.

By Robert Lewis Knecht, Coast Explorer Magazine
Spring 2012 issue

Ahh, shipwreck treasure... perhaps no other subject is quite as magical, and I grew up with that magic. I was born just six miles from the wreck of Gold Rush paddle steamer Brother Jonathan, which took $500,000 in gold to the bottom just off Crescent City, California in 1865, and grew up listening to Dad spin tales of lost gold mines, sunken ships and, with the fire glowing bright and a glass of sweet wine in his hand, the fables of treasures to satiate desire.

When I landed in Key Largo, Florida as a teen, I jumped in the water and never looked back. After hundreds of dives on Spanish galleons and other historic shipwrecks around the world, the question I'm most often asked these days is: Are there any Spanish galleon shipwrecks off the Oregon coast?

Had I been asked that question in the Keys, I would have said, "No." But when I moved back to the Oregon coast in 2010, it wasn't long before I heard the intriguing story of the "beeswax wreck" reputed to lie somewhere in the surf beyond the sleepy seaside town of Manzanita, just south of Cannon Beach. These stories told of large blocks of beeswax (some weighing 175 lbs.) with strange markings on them, teak wood timbers and delicate Chinese porcelains which had been washing up on the beach for the last several hundred years. My first thought? A Manila galleon! These Spanish trade ships sailed from Acapulco, New Spain (present day Mexico) to Manila, the Spanish capital of the Philippines, for 250 years, delivering silver from New World mines in exchange for the fabled silks and spices of the East.

http://coastexplorermagazine.com/features/1577-mystery-of-the-nehalem-bay-beeswax-wreck-full-version

Seventeen tons of gold and silver coins recovered from sunken galleon touch down in Spain

2012-03-16T09:42:00.001-07:00

(I know the loot was found off Portugal, but Odyssey Marine Exploration is based in good ol' Florida ... Couldn't resist this story about one of the biggest sunken treasures EVER found ...)

Home at last: part of the treasure from the 19th-centuary Spanish galleon that landed in Madrid today following a long legal battle

London Daily Mail
February 25, 2012

Two military planes laden with 17 tons of silver and gold coins scooped up from a Spanish warship that sank during a 1804 gunbattle landed in Spain today, ending a 200-year odyssey that took the treasure from an ocean floor to Florida courtrooms.

The planes landed with the 594,000 coins and other artifacts retrieved after a five-year legal wrangle with the Florida-based salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which had taken the haul to the U.S. in May 2007.

Once the treasure is offloaded from the planes it will be transported to an undisclosed location, state broadcaster RTVE said.

The deep-sea explorers found the treasure in a shipwreck, believed to be Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast.

British warships had sunk it as it approached Spain as part of a fleet that had traveled from South America. The Mercedes was believed to have had 200 people aboard when it exploded and sank.

Odyssey made international headlines when it discovered the wreck, estimating the trove to be worth as much as $500 million to collectors, making the haul one of the richest ever ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106373/Spanish-treasure-lands-200-years-17-tons-gold-silver-coins-touch-Spain.html#ixzz1pIb5Rnnx

Persistence pays $2,000 for Cicero mother-daughter treasure hunters

2012-03-14T11:28:00.002-07:00

(You just gotta follow the clues --)

Two thousand dollars in her hand

By Charley Hannagan, Syracuse Post-Standard
Monday, February 25, 2012

Syracuse, NY – Chrissy LaRocca and her daughter Crystal Fontana used every tool in their arsenal to uncover The Post-Standard Treasure Hunt Medallion on the West Shore Trail of Onondaga Lake this morning.

They read the newspaper for clues, checked the postings on Syracuse.com, looked at The Post-Standard’s Facebook page for tips, and worked with other treasure hunters.

The Cicero mother-daughter team don’t subscribe to the paper and were only eligible for the smaller $1,000 prize instead of the $2,000 prize awarded to subscribers.

However, in recognition of their use of all of the Post-Standard’s print and digital formats to discover the medallion, the company decided to double their prize to $2,000 ...

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/02/persistance_pays_2000_for_cice.html

Researcher says he knows site of 400-year-old Drakes Bay shipwreck and, maybe, its buried treasure

2012-03-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

(OMG -- He knows ... and he's TELLING??? California, here I come!)

Treasure recovered from a Spanish galleon

By Mark Prado, Marin Independent Journal
March 13, 2012

A researcher says he knows exactly where the galleon San Agustín -- possibly laden with silver, gold and other treasures -- sank in Drakes Bay more than 400 years ago.

It was the ill-fated arrival in 1595 of Portuguese explorer Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeño in the bay that piqued the interest of Brian Kelleher, a San Jose environmental engineer who dabbles in lost ships.

By painstakingly translating the galleon's log, Kelleher believes he knows the precise location of the ship: It's buried along the shore of the bay under layers of sand. Kelleher believes much of the galleon could be salvaged.

"My belief is the wreck is very much intact because it went into the sand in one piece," he said. "The crew was able to salvage some of the lighter items, but the heavier chests and barrels were too heavy to get off."

There is a possibility that there are items of value in those chests and barrels buried deep under the West Marin sands.

"There was no register, but there is a good possibility this is a very valuable wreck," Kelleher said. "These were the wealthiest merchants in the Philippines at the time who sponsored this trip" ...

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20167592/researcher-says-he-knows-site-400-year-old

Cedar Rapids treasure hunter’s ‘extreme metal detecting’ lands him TV series

2012-03-13T19:38:00.001-07:00

(This new show should be pretty watchable -- I'm all for any treasure-hunting tips I can get ... I think ... What ARE they doing down there?)

The guys 'at work'

By Trish Mehaffey, Cedar Rapids Gazette
February 27, 2012

Treasure hunter Tim Saylor is not above licking a clump of dirt if he loses a bet over finding a silver dollar, but he prefers it when his buddy loses and has to wear a yellow prom dress while riding his bike off the dock into the icy Montana waters.

Saylor, a Cedar Rapids and Williamsburg native, started “extreme metal detecting” with friend George Wyant about 10 years ago when he moved to Anaconda, MT. They even formed a company, AnacondaTreasure.com, to share their zany exploits and tips with other hunters.

Saylor, an insurance software programmer, insists the fun isn’t about finding something worth thousands of dollars because he doesn’t sell most of what he finds. It’s “all about the chase,” silly stunts and antics along the way to digging up buffalo nickels, silver dollars, 1800s saloon tokens, Civil War artifacts, rings and any other treasures they find ...

http://thegazette.com/2012/02/27/cedar-rapids-treasure-hunters-extreme-metal-detecting-lands-him-tv-series/

Rare movie posters found in attic to be auctioned

2012-03-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

(Who would have dreamed that old movie posters where something you could retire on?)

Cagney and Harlow, smoldering

By Joann Loviglio, Associated Press
March 13, 2012

A rowdy band of bloodsuckers, gunslingers, wily wise guys, jaded private eyes, hard-boiled reporters and good girls gone bad, stuck in an attic together for 80 years, are going their separate ways.

Nearly three dozen movie theater posters from the Golden Age of Hollywood found in a Pennsylvania attic are expected to fetch $250,000 at auction in Texas this month. They were stuck together with wallpaper glue when they were purchased for around $30,000 at a country auction last fall in Berwick, near Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The buyer, who chose to remain anonymous, consigned them to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, where the 33 Depression-era posters were painstakingly steamed and gingerly separated over several weeks.

"As we started to peel them apart, it was one of the greatest treasure troves from a beautiful period of poster printing," said Grey Smith of Heritage Auctions, where the posters go on the block March 23 ...

(And BTW, I have have worked with Heritage Auctions in Dallas before -- they are fabulous and very definitely know what they are doing, in a friendly and down-to-earth way. Highly recommended by Carlotta.)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/13/DD0I1NJDMP.DTL#ixzz1p3F4ODux