Collectors: Bonanza on the Bottom

Finned and face-masked, they hardly look like prospectors. Yet hundreds of scuba divers on Florida beaches these days are out for treasure, not pleasure. Some have already struck it rich. In the past six weeks alone, more than $1,000,000 in lost gold and silver has been fished from the ocean bottom off Florida’s east coast. With every reported haul, more and more Sunday divers take to the water, propelled by bubble-bright dreams of gleaming doubloons and pieces of eight, of jeweled swords and brassbound chests of bullion nestled in the coral.

In fact, the chances of finding gold are far better for Gulf Stream divers than they were for Yukon diggers. Of an estimated $8 billion in gold extracted from the New World by the Spanish, according to one expert, at least 5% —$400 million worth—was lost in shipwrecks on the way home. The actual value of all the lost loot is infinitely higher, since some 17th century coins and jewelry fetch huge prices; a single Spanish escudo can bring as much as $1,200 on the rare-coin market.

Real Eight. A few strikes have been made by casual skindivers, but the real payoff generally goes to companies that can afford elaborate treasure-hunting equipment such as electronic metal-detection gear, air compressors, sand pumps and power boats. Real Eight, Inc., a group of Vero Beach-based underwater operators that has so far sunk an estimated $150,000 in the Atlantic, recently made its first major strike: the wreck of what was probably one of a group of Spanish ships that foundered in a hurricane in 1715.

The waters are wide open. With a license from Florida’s Internal Improvement Board, a salvage contractor gets exclusive rights to work a specific area for $100 a year, in exchange must turn over one-fourth of any loot to the state. As treasure fever mounts, Florida officials have become increasingly worried that the state is not getting its proper share. Last week the Internal Improvement Board chairman, who is happily named William Kidd (no kin to the pirate captain), admitted that the state does not post any inspectors aboard salvage ships.

Treasure-Trove. The divvying-up process is also based on the honor system. When Real Eight’s estimated $1,000,000 in coins was divided last month, the company officials and their experts sat across the table from a highway patrolman and a couple of auditors for the state, none of whom professed to have any idea what the booty—largely consisting of pieces of eight, escudos and other gold and silver coins—might be worth. Still undivided is an estimated $500,000 in artifacts, such as gold and silver belt buckles, brooches and tie clasps, whose value has not yet been determined. According to the Internal Revenue Service, any find of gold or silver is taxable under personal income. By ancient law, it is considered “treasure-trove,” and the finder is taxed to the extent of its current value.

Plainly, the state’s offhand attitude invites the kind of freebooting enterprise for which Board Chairman Kidd’s namesake was notorious. Salvage operators have already reported the appearance of well-equipped—and armed —claim jumpers, as well as thousands of lone-wolf divers who spend their weekends swarming hopefully around the wrecks that others have located.

They know where to look: anybody can buy U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey maps that pinpoint the site and depth of hundreds of known wrecks. All that the charts do not tell the treasure hunter is whether the ship that went down was hauling pig iron or a golden argosy.