Ocean Salvage Corporation

14/04/2016

Captain Michael Hatcher will be hosting a Seminar in London, in June 2016, where he will explain all about his Next Expedition and how people can get involved. You will also be able to view items from his own personal collection and take part in a private auction. If this is something of interest to you, please contact Morgan Mai International, who will be organising the event.

http://www.morganmaiinternational.com/michael-hatcher1309/

The ONLY Marine Salvage Investment to offer participants the chance to truly EXPERIENCE the Adventure of a lifetime Morgan Mai International proudly presents a unique opportunity to enter the extremely secretive and often murky world of high seas salvage by taking part in a Historic Salvage Operatio…

07/12/2015

‘Holy Grail of Shipwrecks’ found by Colombia could be worth $17 billion

Galleon San Jose could hold treasure worth $17 billion

“Great news: We have found the Galleon San Jose.”

Thus what could be the biggest finding of a sunken treasure hoard in years was made by the government of Colombia in a single Twitter message on Friday evening. President Juan Manuel Santos said the remains of Spanish galleon San Jose, which sunk 307 years ago, has been located near the coast of Caribbean port city Cartegena.

https://twitter.com/JuanManSantos/status/672925619278249984

What’s more, the ship was carrying gold, silver, gems and jewels that some estimate could be worth as much as $17 billion. In a news conference on Saturday, Santos said the government would build a museum to display the findings, with sonar images so far showing cannons, arms, ceramics and other artifacts, according to Reuters.

Related: Meet the treasure seekers who hunt millions in undersea gold

The Galleon San Jose was blown up and sank in June 1708 during a naval confrontation with the British as part of the War of Spanish Succession, and some 600 lives were believed to have been lost. It was part of a fleet that was sailing from Portobelo to Cartegena, and the ship was believed to be carrying 7 to 11 million pesos, worth some $4 billion to $17 billion, wrote Rick Spilman, author, sailor and maritime history enthusiast, in a 2012 post for The Old Salt Blog.

Spilman said that the Galleon San Jose is often referred to as the “Holy Grail of Ship Wrecks.” But it has also been part of a years-long lengthy litigation battle between the government of Colombia and U.S. salvage company Sea Search Armada. SSA and Colombia had agreed to a division of any findings until the country passed a law giving itself all rights to the treasure. SSA sued Colombia in its own courts and the battle made it to the U.S. courts, which eventually upheld Colombia’s ruling in 2011.

On its page, SSA says it is managed by IOTA Partners, a U.S. limited partnership formed in 1988 to “provide management and working capital to pursue the rights of SSA investors in the face of efforts by the Government of Colombia to illegally confiscate SSA’s finds.” Attempts to reach SSA for comment were unsuccessful.

There was no mention of the dispute by the Colombian government in announcing the discovery. It said a team of international experts, the country’s navy and archaeology experts found the wreck last week. Here’s a video released by Colombia on YouTube documenting the discovery:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gQ3zSHYPm9c

And here are photos of the treasure hoard released by the Colombian Culture Ministry’s press office.

20/11/2015

4,000 coins found in Roman treasure trove in Swiss orchard

Trove of 3rd century silver and bronze coins dating to Emperor Aurelian’s reign unearthed by Ueken farmer this summer

A trove of more than 4,000 bronze and silver coins dating back to ancient Rome, uncovered this summer in the orchard of a fruit and vegetable farmer, has been described as one of the biggest treasures of this kind found in Switzerland.

The huge hoard of coins, buried about 1,700 years ago and weighing 15kg (33lb), was discovered in Ueken, in Switzerland’s northern canton of Aargau, after the farmer spotted some shimmering green coins on a molehill in his cherry orchard.

He guessed the coins were Roman, following an archaeological discovery a few months earlier, of remains of an early Roman settlement in the nearby town of Frick. He contacted the regional archaeological service , which later labelled it one of the largest such finds for Switzerland.

On Thursday the archaeological service announced that after months of digs, 4,166 coins had been found at the site, most in excellent condition.

The coins’ imprints remained legible, and an expert dated the money to the period stretching from the reign of Emperor Aurelian (270-275) to the rule of Maximian (286-305), the most recent coins made in 294.

“The orchard where the coins were found was never built on. It is land that has always been farmed,” said Georg Matter, an archaeologist, explaining how the treasure could have laid undiscovered for so long.

The coins’ excellent condition indicated that the owner systematically stashed them away shortly after they were made, the archaeologists said. For some reason that person had buried them shortly after 294 and never retrieved them. Some of the coins, made mainly of bronze but with a 5% silver content (an unusually high amount), were buried in small leather pouches.

The archaeologists said it was impossible to determine the original value of the money due to rampant inflation at the time, but said they would have been worth at least a year or two of wages. How much the coins were worth today was beside the point, Matter said. He said the farmer would be likely to get a finder’s fee “but the objects found belong to the public, in accordance with Swiss law”.

The Ueken treasure will go on display at the Vindonissa Museum, in Brugg, Aargau.

30/09/2015

The Black Swan Project
$500 million

In 2007, Odyssey Marine Exploration flew 17 tons of coins from Gibraltar to an undisclosed address in the US. Their newly discovered shipwreck was located in a lane where many Colonial-era ships floundered and they were uncertain as to nationality, size, and age. Due to the uncertainty and other security concerns they did not release the wreck site, nationality, date, or type of the coins. The treasure haul was the largest to date throughout the world. Experts called the find “unprecedented” and without comparison.It wasn’t long before the Spanish Government filed a claim against the cargo, claiming that it came from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate that was sunk by the British in 1804. In 2008 a US federal court ordered Odyssey to disclose the location of the wreck site. The location appeared to rule out Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, but after 5 years of litigation, the courts ruled in favor of Spain and the treasure was flown back.Hestie lives in Pretoria, South Africa. Apart from a love for the arts and history, she is intrigued by the ocean and its mysteries.

30/09/2015

The Atocha Motherlode
$450 million

The Nuestra Señora de Atocha was carrying jewelry and jewels, indigo, silver, gold, and copper when it sank off the Florida Keys in 1622. The treasure on this legendary ship was so vast, that it took two months to painstakingly record and load it before the ship could depart along with the rest of the Spanish fleet. Although the Spanish tried to locate the wreck, it was never found. In July 1985, after scouring the seabed for almost 17 years, Mel Fisher discovered the Atocha and her fortune. To this day, the wreckage site is still being explored and excavated as the sterncastle, the most valuable part of the ship, has yet to be found.

29/09/2015

The Whydah Gally
$400 million

The Whydah is significant as it is the only pirate ship that has ever been found. Even more significant is the fact that the Whydah was the flagship of “Black Sam” Bellamy, a famous pirate captain. Discovered by Barry Clifford in 1984 after many years of searching, its treasures are still being recovered to this day. More than 200,000 artifacts including cannons, coins, gold jewelry, and the ship’s bell have been brought to the surface. Since 2007, a selection of the Whydah’s artifacts has been on show in a travelling exhibition sponsored by The National Geographic Society. Aptly named “Real Pirates”, the exhibit is incredibly popular.

29/09/2015

The British Treasury Ship
$200 million

The S.S. Gairsoppa sunk in 1941 after being torpedoed by a German U-boat. The ship carried a total cargo of silver, approximately 7 million ounces, worth £600,000 at the time. In 2010, Odyssey Marine Exploration won the exclusive salvage contract for its cargo after the UK Government Department of Transport put out a tender. Under the terms of the contract, Odyssey carries all the risks involved but retains 80 percent of the pieces salvaged.A year later, the wreck was discovered in the North Atlantic, approximately 4.6 kilometers (2.8 mi) below the surface. Odyssey recovered 48 tons of silver (43 percent of the lost treasure) but had to stop the project due the weather conditions. The complete weight of the haul makes it the largest known metal cargo that has ever been recovered from the sea. The excavation will resume when the rough weather season passes.

28/09/2015

The Diamond Shipwreck
(Still being valued)

Geologists working for De Beers (the world’s biggest undersea diamond miners) were stunned when they discovered a shipwreck buried in the beach. After uncovering several ingots, the mining operation was stopped and archaeologists were called in. In what some have called “the find of a lifetime”, they uncovered not only the oldest shipwreck ever to be found off Africa’s coast but also more than 22 tons of ingots, 6 cannons, swords, thousands of gold coins traced back to King João III, and more than 50 elephant tusks. After some investigation it was ascertained that the ship was the Bom Jesus, a Portuguese ship which sailed in 1533 and disappeared off the coast of West Africa.

28/09/2015

Treasure of the S.S. Republic
$120 – 180 million

The S.S. Republic was lost during a hurricane in 1865 off the coast of Georgia carrying coins worth an estimated $400, 00. The wreck was finally discovered by Odyssey (a well-known deep sea exploration and salvage company) after being submerged for more than 230 years. To date, more than 51,000 US gold and silver coins have been recovered from the site along with almost 14,000 artifacts which includes thousands of bottles, glasses, and stoneware containers. Soon after the first excavation, a lawsuit was filed by a man claiming Odyssey used his information to locate the wreck. In 2004 a federal judge ruled in favor of Odyssey, awarding them full ownership of the cargo.

22/09/2015

Planning your investments? Know how to use Excel to calculate the rate of return

Aimed at easing your financial calculations, we have covered several aspects of planning. We looked at different Excel functions that help in estimating the future value of investments, both for constant and varied interest rates, computing loan EMIs, and estimating the time frame to reach a financial goal. In the concluding part of this series, we will look at a function that helps in calculating the rate of return. The idea of the interest rate or rate of return helps one plan the investment by making appropriate selection of avenues.


http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-16/news/45256437_1_investment-interest-rate-nper

In this series, aimed at easing your financial calculations, we have covered several aspects of planning. We looked at different Excel functions that help in estimating the future value of...

22/09/2015

The Antikythera Treasures
$120–160 million

In the year 1900, divers discovered an ancient shipwreck just off the island of Antikythera. The Archaeological Service of Greece launched an expedition shortly thereafter in what was the world’s first major underwater archaeological expedition. Another expedition in 1976 recovered the most significant part of the cargo. The recovered Antikythera mechanism (believed to be the world’s oldest analog computer) has received so much media coverage over the years that many are not aware of the ships’ other treasures.The massive haul of artifacts from the famous wreck also included coins and jewelry, glassware, pottery, wonderful statues, and even copper couch beds. One of the remarkably well-preserved statues was a classical bronze statue sculpted sometime from 340 to 330 B.C. named Statue of a Youth. The entire collection of artifacts recovered is on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Greece until August 2013.

22/09/2015

The Ship of Gold
$100–150 million

The S.S. Central America sank during a hurricane in September 1857 carrying 15 tons of gold. Its sinking greatly added to the “Panic of 1857” in the United States which in turn led to the first worldwide economic crisis. After its discovery in 1987 and the subsequent excavation, 39 insurance companies claimed they had a right to the gold and artifacts recovered because of damages paid by them in the 19th century. Legal battles ensued which ultimately saw the discovery team ending up with 92 percent of the gold. One of the gold bars discovered became a very important piece of currency after selling for $8 million–a worldwide record at the time.