Description:

Barnacle-encrusted spike from a sunken galleon in the Spanish Treasure Fleet of 1715

Heavy barnacle-encrusted spike, approximately 2" in diameter, 7" long, recovered from a sunken Spanish Galleon in the treasure fleet of 1715, four days after leaving Havana for Spain. 4.5 lbs.

[SPAIN] From 1561-1748, the Spanish government sent two merchant convoys each year, with few exceptions, to the New World. One went to Mexico, the other to Panama. They brought European goods to the colonists and returned with gold and silver coins, gem stones, and other valuables. These convoys became known as treasure fleets.

Two fleets filled with treasures left Cubafor Spain on July 27, 1715. They sailed up the east coast of Florida. On July 31, 1715, a hurricane drove the fleets into the reefs along the east coast of Florida. The entire fleet of 11 ships and nearly half of the 2500 crew members were lost. Some of the ships’ cargo was salvaged by the Spanish government, but most of it remained on the ocean floor.

From the Certificate of Authenticity signed in facsimile by Mel Fisher, President of Cobb Coin Company Inc., Eugene Lyon, Historian, and R. Duncan Mathewson III, Archaeologist: “Description Spike. This is to Certify that the above described artifact was salvaged from the shipwrecks of the Spanish Treasure Fleet of 1715 which was destroyed by a terrible hurricane, July 31, 1715 of off [sic] the eastern coast of Florida. Seven Hundred lives and more than 14 million peso’s [sic] in registered treasure was lost in one of the worst maritime disasters of all time. The Shipwreck Site was awarded to Cobb Coin Company … and the artifacts recovered from it have been in the custodianship of the Archaeological Department of Cobb Coin, Company, Inc. until this date. Certified this 8th day of May 1985."

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