‘Treasure Fleet’ Shipwreck Coins Salvaged Off Florida
- Editor OGN Daily
- Oct 4
- 2 min read
In 1715, ships sailing from Cuba to Spain loaded with treasure hit a violent storm and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The storm hit on 31 July 1715, as the fleet sailed past what is today Indian River County, Florida. There are conflicting records on the exact number of ships, but it’s believed at least a dozen were in the convoy transporting New World cargo, including treasure, to Spain.
Now, 310 years later, during the summer of 2025, a team of divers have recovered 1,051 silver coins known as Reales, five gold coins called Escudos and other gold artifacts. They say the trove is worth around $1 million, and that there should be much more to find. Dates on the coins range from 1698 to 1714, and appear to have been minted in the Spanish colonies of Mexico, Bolivia and Peru.
The company that holds the exclusive salvaging rights to the vessels, 1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels, LLC. Technically, the treasure belongs to the United States District Court, says Treasure Coast Newspapers and the state of Florida can take up to 20 percent of the findings, and the rest will go to the salvage team.
Recovering more than 1,000 coins this summer was a major win for the salvors. However, they say their work is far from complete. At least five of the ships that sank in 1715 haven’t been found, and they are reasonably optimistic that they will discover more treasures. “I’ll never finish in my lifetime. We have barely scratched the surface,” Mike Perna, one of the salvors, told the Miami Herald. “The storm took ten minutes to deposit what is taking us years to find.”
