Arrrrrrrr!!!! Booty Exposed

TAMPA, Fla. - Deep-sea explorers said Friday they have hauled up what could be the richest sunken treasure ever discovered: hundreds of thousands of colonial-era silver and gold coins worth an estimated $500 million from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.

A chartered cargo jet recently landed in the United States to unload hundreds of plastic containers packed with the 500,000 coins, which are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.

“For this colonial era, I think [the find] is unprecedented,” said rare coin expert Nick Bruyer, who was contracted by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration to examine a batch of coins from the wreck. “I don’t know of anything equal or comparable to it.”

Citing security concerns, the company declined to release any details about the ship or the wreck site.

Company co-founder Greg Stemm said a formal announcement will come later, but court records indicate the coins might have come from the wreck of a 17th-century merchant ship found off southwestern England.

Because the shipwreck was found in an area where many colonial-era vessels went down, the company is still uncertain about its nationality, size and age, Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck.

The site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country, he said.

“Rather than a shout of glee, it’s more being able to exhale for the first time in a long time,” Stemm said of the haul, by far the biggest in Odyssey’s 13-year history.

He would not say if the loot was taken from the same wreck site near the English Channel that Odyssey recently petitioned a federal court for permission to salvage.

In seeking exclusive rights to that site, an Odyssey attorney told a federal judge last fall that the company likely had found the remains of a 17th-century merchant vessel that sank with valuable cargo aboard, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the southwestern tip of England. A judge granted those rights Wednesday.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the project dubbed “Black Swan,” Odyssey also is not discussing details of the coins, such as their type, denomination or country of origin.

Bruyer said he observed a wide variety of coins that probably were never circulated. He said the currency was in much better condition than artifacts yielded by most shipwrecks of a similar age.

The coins — mostly silver pieces — could fetch several hundred to several thousand dollars each, with some possibly commanding much more, he said.

Value is determined by rarity, condition and the story behind them.

Other experts said the condition and value of the coins could vary so much that the price estimate was little more than an educated guess.

“It’s absolutely impossible to accurately determine the value without knowing the contents and the condition of the retrieved coins. It’s like trying to appraise a house or a car over the phone,” said Donn Pearlman, a rare coin expert and spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild.

Experts said that controlled release of the coins into the market along with aggressive marketing should keep prices at a premium.

The richest-ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Treasure-hunting pioneer Mel Fisher found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.

Odyssey likely will return to the same spot for more coins and artifacts.

“We have treated this site with kid gloves, and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed,” Odyssey CEO John Morris said. “We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance.”

Odyssey stock shot up 80.9 percent Friday, closing at $8.32.

The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Ga., in 2003, making millions. But Odyssey posted losses in 2005 and 2006 while using its state-of-the-art ships and deep-water robotic equipment to hunt for the next mother lode.

“The outside world now understands that what we do is a real business and is repeatable and not just a lucky one-shot deal,” Stemm said.

Other sunken treasures
In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.

Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million.

But under the terms of an agreement, Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 percent of the first $45 million and about 50 percent of the proceeds thereafter.

Odyssey also is seeking exclusive rights to what is believed to be an Italian-registered passenger vessel that sank during World War I in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sardinia, and to another discovered in the Mediterranean about 100 miles west of Gibraltar.

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For nearly two decades, Barry Clifford has looked for the remains of the Whydah, a fabled pirate ship sailed by Black Sam Bellamy. Caught in a fierce storm off Cape Cod, Mass., in 1717, it sank, supposedly laden with up to five tons of gold and silver.

Mr. Clifford, after a long hunt that produced tantalizing artifacts, found the ship's bell in 1985 and over the years recovered thousands of other artifacts, including cannons, hand guns, pewter tableware, navigational instruments, silver and gold coins, gold bars and gold dust.

But the main wreck always eluded him -- until now, he says.

A week ago, Mr. Clifford and his divers were working a quarter mile offshore and about 25 feet below the surface in an area rich in artifacts. Working in an area where they had dug through about 10 feet of sand, they uncovered a wooden beam. Further work revealed a large section of an old ship's hull. The site also produced a spoon, coins and gold dust.

The age of the wooden structure, and its position among Whydah debris, has made Mr. Clifford, 53, confident that he has found the mother lode at last.

''This is a big, big thing for us,'' Mr. Clifford said in an interview shortly after the unearthing. ''We discovered the hull, which we've been looking for all these years.''

If further research supports the first impressions, the discovery of the ship's hull may eventually lead the recovery team not only to a new understanding of pirate life but also to the bulk of the Whydah's treasure, presumably lost in the shifting sands. Its worth may be hundreds of millions of dollars.

On the day of the discovery, a team of four divers uncovered about 30 feet of the hull, which turned out to be partly lined with metal. Mr. Clifford believes the beamed structure may be part of the ship's powder room, covered with tin or lead to keep rats away and explosives dry.

''It was pretty amazing, finding the hull remains,'' said Bob Cembrola, a marine archeologist who was on the expedition and helped uncover the wreckage. ''It's clearly an old ship. There has to be more research to say it's definitively the Whydah, but it sure looks like it.''

He added, ''Anything associated with the wreck is very significant because we know so little about pirates.''

The Whydah (pronounced WID-da) is the only pirate ship to come to light in modern times whose authenticity is certain, established by the bell, inscribed ''The Whydah Gally 1716.'' In March 1997, archeologists found what they believe may be the remains of Blackbeard's flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, off North Carolina. But the evidence so far is circumstantial.

Scholars say pirates are cloaked in centuries of myths and misconceptions, and relish any facts that shed light on these historical figures and their age. The years from 1650 to 1725 saw an explosion of lawlessness on the high seas. Thousands of men -- and a few women -- devoted themselves to plundering trade ships rich in gold and silver, spices and ivory, fine steels and slaves.

Samuel Bellamy, or ''Black Sam Bellamy,'' as the tellers of pirate tales usually put it in their efforts to portray the villainy, was a young English sailor who went on a wild streak. In a little over a year, his gang captured more than 50 ships, contemporary accounts say.

Late in the game he captured the Whydah, an African slave ship. Dozens of his 150 or so crewmen were said to be freed slaves.

Legend has it that he sailed to Cape Cod to see a lover, Maria Hallet, when disaster struck in a ferocious storm at night. Black Sam Bellamy, 29, was never seen again.

After the Whydah grounded on a sandbar, a salvage expert sent by the colonial governor watched helplessly as the remains of the capsized ship broke up off shore in heavy surf. Later, a few pirates who survived the storm were tried in Boston, and some attested to the size of the lost treasure.

Mr. Clifford said the sandy seabed within 100 feet of the newly discovered wooden hull had recently produced a wealth of artifacts. Among them is a grinding wheel that the pirates apparently used to sharpen their knives and swords.

''It has a small crack across its face where they'd put in the points to sharpen them,'' he said, adding that the wheel is 18 to 20 inches in diameter and spooky. ''You can almost hear the grindstone working,'' he said.

The team also found what appears to be a swivel gun -- a short cannon meant to fire small pellets at people. Such anti-personnel weapons were usually mounted on a vessel's stern, Mr. Clifford said, an area of the Whydah that the team has searched for unsuccessfully.

''We've been anxious to find something from the stern,'' he said, ''and that tells us we're near.''

A search pattern conducted over many years led to the hull, Mr. Clifford said. The team used an electronic device towed by the search ship that detects large concentrations of metal, as well as following the train of objects.

The recovery team works out of Mr. Clifford's 70-foot vessel, The Vast Explorer, and includes a staff archeologist, Cathrine Harker. The discovery of the hull came in the last hours of a three-day expedition, so the team had little time to follow up on the discovery.

The discovery was made off the Wellfleet area of Cape Cod, near Provincetown, Mass., and was documented by the National Geographic Society, which is planning an article on the recovery of the Whydah for its magazine, as well as a television show and an exhibition of artifacts from the pirate ship.

Mr. Clifford, who is based in Provincetown, said his team was preparing to head out to the site again, and would do so repeatedly into the fall, seeking to expose the rest of the wooden hull and to search for more artifacts and gold.

Some of the ship's artifacts are now displayed at a Provincetown museum run by Mr. Clifford, the Expedition Whydah Sea Lab and Learning Center.

Mr. Clifford said any new discoveries would join the mix.

''All this material is being saved as a collection,'' he said. ''None is to be sold. Our hope is to take it on a world tour after the National Geographic exhibition.''

The hunt is being financed with profits from the Whydah museum and money from the National Geographic Society, but pay for himself and crew members is minimal, Mr. Clifford said.

''We're in it for the adventure,'' as well as the potential treasure, he said, adding: ''We understand what we have and how important it is. We want to tell the whole story.''