Silver Bullion

Where can I get my hands on some quick cash? Today, I had my hands on an 85+ pound silver ingot. The bar’s metal is worth $25,000, but its numismatic value would be $140,000. It is sunken treasure. It is one of 900+ ingots that were recovered from the wreck of the Spanish treasure galleon Atocha that sunk off of Key West in 1622.Treasure hunter Mel Fisher spent decades searching for this vessel. Each day, he would sail out of port and say, “Today’s the day!” In 1985 that day finally came. He recovered almost half a billion dollars in gold, silver and emeralds. Much of this treasure and many other artifacts from this wreck are at the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum, in Key West.

The museum is a nonprofit, dedicated to underwater archeology, but it has an annex that is still controlled by the Fisher family. In addition to selling jewelry, reproductions of pieces of eight, made into pendants, it also sells the dream. According to manifests, there are still some 200 ingots not yet found. If you want to become a treasure hunter yourself, then the Fisher family wants to help you. They are soliciting “investors”, who want to help them dive for treasure. Photos of some of these lucky people holding up their new finds are on display. In 2011, one of these salvors found an emerald ring, valued at $500,000.