Massive moolah recovered from the “Black Swan”

The Odyssey Marine Explorations Company of Tampa, on Friday, recovered the largest ever gold and silver coins excavated from an early American ship, dubbed “Black Swan” that sank hundreds of years ago in the Atlantic Ocean, the booty estimated to be worth $500 million.

The American treasure hunter dug out 17 tons of silver coins and hundreds of gold coins, jewelry and objects worth half a million dollars using a tethered underwater robot, also known as remotely operated vehicle, making it the richest undersea treasure recovery till date. The publicly traded US Company, Odyssey Marine Explorations, though refused to reveal the exact location of the site due to security reasons; they stated that the moolah was legally imported to the US.

"Our research suggests that there were a number of Colonial period shipwrecks that were lost in the area where this site is located, so we are being very cautious about speculating as to the possible identity of the shipwreck," said John Morris, Odyssey's co-founder and CEO.

He also confirmed having some evidence regarding the ship’s identity and returning to it for further exploration but refused to disclose it until they themselves have gone through the contemporary records and analysis of the artifacts and coins that have been recovered.

"For site security and legal reasons, we are not prepared to give the location, depth or any other information about the site," the company said, adding that it planned further excavations once it has confirmed the name and nationality of the sunken ship.

The silver coins were weighed and valued by a rare-coin dealer working with the firm, Nicholas J. Bruyer of GovMint.com, estimating the worth of each coin to be ranging from a few hundred dollars to $4,000 each, depending on the condition, date and origin.

"The gold coins are estimated to bring substantially higher numbers," the company said.

Greg Stemm, Odyssey's co-founder, also added that "the remarkable condition of most of the first 6,000 silver coins conserved has been a pleasant surprise, and the gold coins are almost all dazzling mint-state specimens."

Releasing the news of the recovery, the company also added that the ship and its objects didn’t belong to any country and is their property now.

"The recovery was in conformity with Salvage Law and the Law of the Sea Convention, beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country," the company said.

But according to historians, the ship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of a potential ally in southeastern France. Thus the ship being a British government vessel, Odyssey would have to share any proceeds under an agreement negotiated in 2002.

British officials are speculating the ship to be the Merchant Royal, an English ship known as the "Eldorado of the seas", which sank in bad weather near the Isles of Scilly in 1641 as it was returning to Dartmouth laden with treasure from Mexico owing to the fact that the ship had £300,000 in silver, £100,000 in gold and as much again in jewel and recovery of such a huge booty today from an unknown shipwreck could be none other than this.

George Bass, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who specializes in shipwrecks, also said he is skeptical of early estimates, especially when the company has provided such little information.

Earlier this week the US court granted Odyssey ownership of the contents of a sunken ship located 100m below the surface and 64km off Land's End, near the English Channel believed to be a 17th century merchant vessel.

The present discovery is believed to have beaten the previous largest haul, a Spanish galleon that sank in a hurricane off Florida Keys in 1622, found by Mel fisher in 1985, retrieving around $400 million in coins and other loot.

Odyssey Marine Exploration reported a net loss of $3.8 million, or 9 cents a share, on revenue of $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2007 compared with a net loss of $3.9 million, or 9 cents a share, on revenue of $900,000 for the same period last year.

Announcement of the huge Colonial-era haul sent Odyssey's stock up by $3.70 a share to $8.32, a gain of more than 80 percent for the day.