Shipwreck Treasures - Coins pulled from the deep

Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (Nasdaq:OMEX), is the world leader in the business of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration. Odyssey announced in May 2007 it had recovered 17 tons of silver and gold coins from shipwreck site off the coast of spain which it called the “Black Swan” site. These coins were brought back to Odyssey's home base in Florida.

Odyssey had initially said the "black swan" shipwreck was a 20th century passenger liner reported to be carrying over 500,000 silver and gold coins, weighing in at 17 tons. But Spain contested the discovery and is suing Odyssey seeking reparations. James Goold, a U.S. lawyer representing Spain in the lawsuit says the wreck that Odyssey removed the coins from is the Spanish navy warship Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes.

The Mercedes was a frigate, a ship commonly used by the Spanish navy in 1804 . In October of 1804 the Mercedes left Peru, carrying a cargo including spanish doubloons or pieces of eight minted in Lima. It was just a day's sail from Spain just south of Portugal when it was attacked and sank by a British raiding party. The attack killed all 200 Spanish sailors aboard, according to the Spanish government's filing to the Florida court.

"The coins and other artifacts that Odyssey took from the site are documented to have been on the Mercedes," Goold said. Spain accuses Odyssey of looting the gravesite of a sovereign Spanish-flagged navy vessel. Odyssey executives countered the coins certainly didn't come from a gravesite. "I think in order to have a gravesite, you certainly need the remains of a shipwreck, and you would certainly need the remains of some humans. Neither has been found at the site," said Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm.

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