Unca Walt
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- Jul 24, 2020
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Here's sumpin' just popped up in today's news -- They found a big bar of silver from the Nuestra Senora de las Maravillas.
I was scuba diving with some of my buds, standing on the back platform with my rig on. We were over snow white sand in about 20 of water heading to the reef. Suddenly, my tank slipped out of the too-loose vest and was dangling by the hoses.
So I simply stepped off, and sank down to the sand to adjust everything. About when everything was fine, I was about to go back up so we could continue... when my pinkie fingle bumped something in the sand.
It was a piece of eight! <--TINS I started sweeping sand with my hands. The sand was only about 8" deep to snow white solid coral bottom. I was furiously sweeping and looking for some time.
Finally, one of my buds came down on scuba and gave me the W.TF? signal. I reached in and pulled out the coin. His eyes got huge and he started sweeping. Soon, the boat was anchored and we all were sweeping to bedrock. Our crew spent almost four hours (two 120 tanks each is all we had) down there. Nobody found nuffin else.
Mel Fisher ID'd it for me (really nice guy). He questioned me pretty technically as to where I'd found it. When I explained, he smiled broadly and shook my hand. He knew where it came from: It was from the Nuestra Senora de las Maravillas (Our New Lady of Marvels). He told me it sank in 1656 because it collided with another ship. He even identified the Potosi mint mark, and the assayer's ID. Coin date is 1653.
I had a jeweler build a sorta free-form a holder for it:
And in today's news, 50 fargin years later, a team of guys just found a monster bar of silver from the same ship. I know how they feel
I was scuba diving with some of my buds, standing on the back platform with my rig on. We were over snow white sand in about 20 of water heading to the reef. Suddenly, my tank slipped out of the too-loose vest and was dangling by the hoses.
So I simply stepped off, and sank down to the sand to adjust everything. About when everything was fine, I was about to go back up so we could continue... when my pinkie fingle bumped something in the sand.
It was a piece of eight! <--TINS I started sweeping sand with my hands. The sand was only about 8" deep to snow white solid coral bottom. I was furiously sweeping and looking for some time.
Finally, one of my buds came down on scuba and gave me the W.TF? signal. I reached in and pulled out the coin. His eyes got huge and he started sweeping. Soon, the boat was anchored and we all were sweeping to bedrock. Our crew spent almost four hours (two 120 tanks each is all we had) down there. Nobody found nuffin else.
Mel Fisher ID'd it for me (really nice guy). He questioned me pretty technically as to where I'd found it. When I explained, he smiled broadly and shook my hand. He knew where it came from: It was from the Nuestra Senora de las Maravillas (Our New Lady of Marvels). He told me it sank in 1656 because it collided with another ship. He even identified the Potosi mint mark, and the assayer's ID. Coin date is 1653.
I had a jeweler build a sorta free-form a holder for it:
And in today's news, 50 fargin years later, a team of guys just found a monster bar of silver from the same ship. I know how they feel
