On July 24th, 1715, Spain’s treasure-rich “New Spain” Fleet sailed from Havana, Cuba with a cargo valued at fourteen million pesos in silver, gold and jewels.  One week into the voyage near present day Vero Beach, Florida they were met by a furious hurricane resulting in the loss of eleven of the fleet’s twelve ships and 700 lives. Only one ship, a chartered French vessel, survived.  Fourteen million pesos in registered treasure were lost in one of the worst maritime disasters of all time. The wreckage of 11 ships was strewn over a forty mile area from Ft. Pierce to Cape Canaveral on Florida’s east coast.

For nearly 250 years the sea would hold the treasure captive. Only occasionally tossing a blackened silver  peso or gold escudo that were stuck together at would-be discovers 100 feet from the Florida shoreline. In 2015 only 295 gold coins were found by divers exploring the area on the 300th anniversary of the disaster. Tightly controlled, all of these would be sold in 2016 and 2017.

This is a very high grade Columbia 2 Escudo Charles II type NGC MS64 from the 1715 Fleet 300 Anniversary find. It will be very hard to find anything from the shipwreck nicer than this specimen.