What started as a routine day for treasure hunters in the Florida Keys ended with a rare recovery.<\/p>\n
Local 10 News reported<\/a> that the team of divers brought up a 22-pound silver bar tied to the Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de Atocha shipwreck, a find they said had not happened in nearly 30 years.<\/p>\n The discovery<\/a> came Thursday during a late dive by Mel Fisher’s Shipwreck Expeditions.<\/p>\n Lead diver Blake Baker said the crew was close to finishing for the day when the find was made.<\/p>\n Near the wreck site, Capt. Drake Nicholas was diving with the salvage crew when they moved in to check a promising signal.<\/p>\n “We were in an area with a lot of metal detector hits,” Nicholas told Local 10 News. “This one was deeper.”<\/p>\n Only after he struck the object with a knife and examined its surface did Nicholas think it might be authentic because the markings matched those associated with historic silver bars.<\/p>\n The bar was coated with buildup from centuries underwater, and it was sent to a lab for closer examination.<\/p>\n Sean Browne of Mel Fisher’s Shipwreck Expeditions said the piece could be worth about $100,000, though it is expected to be kept as a historical object.<\/p>\n The Atocha ship was carrying treasure to Spain when it was lost between Key West and the Dry Tortugas during a hurricane in 1622. On board it had enormous quantities of jewels, silver, and gold.<\/p>\n In the 1970s, Mel Fisher began bringing artifacts up from the wreck, making a lasting name in both marine archaeology and treasure hunting.<\/p>\n The 22-pound silver bar is a preserved piece of global trade, colonial history, and seafaring life from the 17th century.<\/p>\n Even after noticing the identifying marks, Nicholas noted<\/a> he had trouble registering what he was seeing. “I didn’t believe it at the moment,” he said.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What started as a routine day for treasure hunters in the Florida Keys ended with a rare recovery.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[129258,129253,28,30,2472,29,114879,122035,129256,129257,129254,129252,129255],"class_list":["post-309909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-blake-baker","tag-drake-nicholas","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-keys","tag-florida-news","tag-local-10-news","tag-mel-fisher","tag-nuestra-senora-de-atocha-shipwreck","tag-shipwreck-expeditions","tag-silver-bar","tag-silver-bars","tag-treasure-hunters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}