Mel Fisher's treasure hunters are still pulling Spanish Empire leftovers out of the Florida Keys, and this time the ocean coughed up a 22-pound silver bar.
After hitting the object with a knife and examining the surface, Nicholas said he saw telltale markings that were consistent with a silver bar.
"I didn't believe it at the moment," he said.
The silver bar was covered in more than 400 years of marine encrustations and will be taken to a lab for examination.
Sean Browne, with Mel Fisher's Shipwreck Expeditions, said the bar is worth an estimated $100,000. It will likely be kept intact as a historical object.
Discovered treasures like the bar are divided among investors and then the Fisher family, Browne said.
The Atocha was a ship packed with treasures and bound for Spain in 1622, but a powerful hurricane sunk it between Key West and the Dry Tortugas.
Local 10
The Atocha is the shipwreck that refuses to stop paying rent. Mel Fisher started chasing it in the 1970s, found the mother lode in 1985, and four decades later, his company is still out there turning the wreck into news, museum pieces, investor distributions, and extremely wet lottery tickets. This latest find is a 22-pound silver bar worth an estimated $100,000, which is not bad for a boat that sank in 1622 and somehow still has a business model.
At this point, the Atocha is less a wreck than a very damp annuity.
Previously:
• Pirate treasure is real. Here's how we found it.
• Researchers are about to rescue the radio from the sunken wreck of the Titanic
• A robot found the 'holy grail of shipwrecks' containing billions of dollars in cargo
• Is this mysterious shipwreck the oldest in the Great Lakes? Is it Le Griffon?
• 13-year-old goes metal detecting, casually uncovers Viking king's treasure
