Treasure beneath the waves: more than 1,000 gold and silver coins found from Spanish galleon sunk off Florida in 1715

A team of treasure hunters led by Captain Levin Shavers, aboard the M/V Just Right, has recovered more than 1,000 silver coins and five gold ones off Florida's east coast, on the well-known “Treasure Coast”, named in the 1960s for its inexhaustible underwater wealth.

The pieces, minted in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, belonged to a Spanish convoy carrying the New World's spoils towards the peninsula when, on 31 July 1715, a hurricane sank eleven galleons. More than 1,500 sailors died and the sea swallowed a cargo now valued at around 400 million dollars.

According to Sal Guttuso, operations director of 1715 Fleet - Queens Jewels LLC, the company with exclusive rights to the wreckage, the find «is not just gold and silver, but a living fragment of history». Each coin, he adds, «is a testament to the golden age of the Spanish Empire and to the lives lost in that tragedy».

The excellent state of preservation suggests that the pieces were part of a single chest. After a meticulous process of cleaning and cataloguing, some will be displayed in Florida museums, returning to the public a story that the sea kept for more than 300 years.