500 Million in Coins found in Ocean (Tampa Florida)

http://news.discovery.com/history/black-swan-treasure-122402.html

Looks like the coins will never fall into any collectors' hands.

 

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I would imagine the salvage company skimmed a bit off the "bottom" in this case. What are the odds that there are still a few that got overlooked still in the ocean?

 

As i said earlier there have been reports that few illegal operations have more or less went in there and cleaned up that ship wreck and they have been melted down anything that was recovered.

 

The entire operation was shady. At least three different courts ruled against Odyssey Marine. (I've wondered about the competency of their legal team).
Cut to the chase - There's a good chance officer's of the treasure seeking company will go to trial, and even prison, for stealing the treasure.
Many different international treaties were violated by bringing the treasure to Tampa.

I saw some recent photographs of Spanish archivists handling the coins, some of which were in NGC slabs, which reminded me that NGC may still have some of the coins.
NGC's position is they won't release the coins until Spain pays the $200,000.00 to slab them.

 

I'm bummed they lost the case OTOH Odyssey handled it poorly. Here's a link to one of the many court decisions.
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201010269.pdf

Spain is a signer of the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage ​

 

The find that put Oddysey on the map was the SS Republic off the Georgia coast. If anybody is interested in learning more about them, they put a book out called "Lost Gold of the Republic". It tells the story of that salvage. Pretty interesting book. They used to have a show on tv. Some foreign governments harassed them with their naval ships and planes because they felt like they were intruding on their territory. Almost like somebody metal detecting on somebody's property without permission.

They've had to invest a lot of time and money into these projects. Nothing was stopping any foreign government from seeking out these wrecks themselves. But now that a president has been set, I don't know why they would. They can just confiscate whatever the private sector invests their work and time into. I think our govt screwed them over royally on this one. I half wonder if they're going to want to keep doing what they're doing after this? They can give their projects code names but when there's a big find, there's no keeping anything a secret. It's possible they just won't bring anything back to US soil. Only problem is, there's no reputable TPGs or NCS equivalent for their stuff in South America. That may be half the reason they brought it back to the US.

The company is traded on the NYSE. I always thought it'd be interesting to own some but I bet this debacle doesn't do a thing for their share price. There's a lot of uncertainty for the future now. Who knows if they can even absorb a loss like this?

 

Ironic part of the incident is the high profile drew a lot of illegal treasure hunting operations from Asia (i doubt US or Spain would dare seize Indian or Chinese vessel in the high seas) and legal debacle dissuaded any further legal operations like Odyssey.

 

I've been following Odyssey (OMEX) for years. Was my most exciting investment. However, it seems the only people to benefit long term are the company's officers. The rules of high seas salvage are no longer working for OMEX's in a lot of cases. It must be brutal for them to lose the Black Swan case. They could benefit from getting a new legal team. OTOH, they've made successful deals with England.

 

I think pnightingale brought up an interesting conspiracy theory. Leave it up to a bunch of money hungary politicians to make the decisions when there is big money involved? The painting? Give me an fing break that is just greed.

 

Especially after the US State Dept threw Black Swan under the bus in favor some some guy's missing art work.