So basically, if a anyone finds a shipwreck that has gold or silver, either never claim which ship it came from, or just melt the gold and silver down into bars. Otherwise, a government will steal the treasure from those who did all the work.
If they want the find then pay half the value of the find at minimum plus cost of recovery. Or else it's nothing but theft to those who find it. This way those who take contract to find like Odyssey can do good work as they are shown here to have done. And are paid for their time, skill, experience, cost, equipment and labor and make a profit as well. And at the same time the tax payers don't burden the cost of what might be a nothing burger. Otherwise it sounds like there's those who say only they can have the victory and the spoils not the people who don't fit into some class or designation.
If I was the recovery company I would've dumped the treasure back where it was found and told the spanish government that it's back where it was, and never give them the location.
What these idiots don't realize is by taking the treasure back, because of it's "heritage" they will be destroying heritage as future finds will be hush hush, coins melted and destroyed. Spain surely had the ships insured, so if they got the treasure, they have to pay the insured sum that was paid out to them plus interest to the company who found it.
At the time of the sinking of the 'military vessel,' Spain's government wrote the ship off to being 'lost at sea.' And after the sinking, for several hundred years, made no effort to locate the ship, or collect the lost gold and silver. Now, someone comes along who has developed and equipped themselves with what was needed to collect the valuables from the sea floor. And this was in international waters, well outside any country's territorial waters. Only then, did the Spanish government declare that the gold and silver was part of Spanish national heritage. Imagen all those lost souls, all the lost lives, that died in the name of Spanish expansion and the hunt for more gold. What gold and silver, that was found there in the wreckage, was more than likely, they product of Spanish theft and murder, in Central or South Americas. In the recent past, it has been well known and accepted, that 'finder's keepers,' was the rule of thumb for shipwrecks. If you go out and find it, then it or the wealth within it, is yours. It's the greed of politicians now, that interferes with this. And who truly believes that the UN wants to protect the wrecks on the bottom of the world's seas, even as their own fishing vessels rake the bottom with trolling nets? And what of countries outside the UN's members, like China, which has been fishing the world's seas now for years, even entering the coastal waters of other nations? They fish with impunity, and don't give a damn what the rest of the world says about it.
There were politicians involved. And/'or some politician(s) had something to gain on both sides. You know someone got paid off someplace, somehow, that's the only reason 99% of politicians do anything. The trend in America has been to favor the governments interests over the citizen, shameful. Whom ever found the treasure, it belongs to them like it always has in the past.
@@joeneighbor The thing that everyone needs to remember is that the people own everything. the Gov. is only there as the trustees. there is on blm land its the peoples land. hints "bureau of land Management"
@@markfryer9880 That is correct and because we were born on this land alive we are heirs to all of it. I only with Americans would get there heads together and realize this and quit letting the entity that was created to manage our trust for our benefit steal our heritance
In the eyes of the Spaniards " oh its a heritage, the gold is ours , you should be ashamed treasure hunters " what about all the blood soaked gold they took from the new world ?
The most closely related First Nations tribes that still remain should put Spain to task & make a claim to UNESCO for the gold on the basis of recovering THEIR heritage! (I’d love to see what the Spanish would try to argue then!)
Spain should pay the COSTS of the Recovery Either way since they claim something they were unwilling to go after themselves. This kind of recovery of the loss thousands of coins will encourage unreported claims. Simply melt the gold or metals and sell that way. The heritage ppl are creating self defeat.
first thing spain should do is pay the Indigenous people of the Pacific Islands, South Americas and Caribbean for Spanish/Euro atrocities and give the stolen gold back to them where their ancestors mined and died for
They Spain collected the gold coins mark M in the 16th century when they colonized the Philippines, they just melted it and no one will know the value of what they've stolen. 🤔
@@filibuster_jpr because it's simply hard to be right or truly satisfy we humans we or they make wrongs or mistakes. Corruption or Evil seems to be Dominating 🌍🌎🌏🌐
@@Veldtian1 When I was in Jamaica I heard about a guy finding a handful of dubloons at Port Royal while doing construction, he melted some to make an Uzi pendant for a chain allegedly.
In the case of the Mercedes frigate, I feel as though if something has been lost at sea for hundreds of years, and the Government was not actively searching for the ship or it's contents, the treasure is up for grabs for whoever has the money, time, and risk tolerance to go looking for it. But that's just my opinion. And opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Unisco is typical of any situation where large sums of money or potential wealth creation are possible and government and politics get involved. They write laws that make the action nearly cost-prohibitive for mom&pop companies and the governments get a piece of the action, despite having no financial risk in the treasure hunting. If the treasure hunter goes broke because he never finds anything of value to cover exploration costs, the government has no skin in the game. If the treasure hunter finds something, the government gets half. Seems unfair.
The part that I find galling is that…fine, if Spain wants to claim the treasure they can cover the costs of recovery plus at least a small percentage of the value of the treasure. This screwing over of the salvage operation is the height of hypocritical academic BS. Cultural heritage…at the bottom of the ocean means jack. If they want to put it in a museum, let them front the huge cost to recover it!
there are many nuclear submarines that are underwater that could be retrieved if you had lots of money. suppose there is one that falls into the wrong hands. don't military vessels belong to the country of origin? its only a sore thumb if its not your country losing its historical artifacts.
So, treasure hunters do all the work, countries think its to expensive and dont do the salvage.. and when its salvaged they say.. you cannot have it cause its ours.. let them pay the operation or they cannot claim. Easy.
They are worried about destroying heritage artifacts that are sitting at the bottom of the sea weathering away. This is by far the dumbest argument I've ever heard
Don't ya love all those historical people against treasure hunters. First the treasure was stolen, then lost by the thieves who stole it. Not much said about those guys. Someone spends thousands of hours of work and money to find and recover, only to have it taken away by someone who invested nothing in it at all. I would destroy the lot.
If I was the CEO of Odyssey I would have returned the coins to the bottom of the sea. Even though I'd be in contempt. 10 years of Odyssey working and Portugal knew they were there and didn't say anything. They were just waiting for them to do all the work. Since when is shipwreck hunting a crime ?
The riches (600,000 coins) of the Mercedes should be returned to the South Americans whose ancestors were enslaved mining the gold and silver, not the exploiters.
Spain pillaged and raped and wiped out countless indigenous native peoples of South America, Central America, and Mexico boardering on genocide for 150 years taking hundreds of thousands of tons of gold and silver making Spain a super power for over a century. Not one coin,artifact or jewelry has ever been returned by Spain!………. Ever.
I was the scuba diver on the crew of the Capitana that found 4 1/2 million dollars in gold Spanish coins from the 1715 fleet, off of Vero beach in 2015.
Go on😊👋👋👋 Very cool experience Please get back to me Love to here more I don't amagen gold but Did you get to keep somthing From the wreck.. Maybe slipped under your whate belt? 👋👋👋🇨🇦
i'm from Sri Lanka and we have many findings in history books that ships full of gold, Saphire and elephants never reached China.. but our countries are poor to execute missions like these :( (around 377 AD-1000 AD).. loved this docu...
It's not rocket science, just develop good sonar and under water remote controlled robot and that's it. Stop looking up to western looters, they've looted then and now they will grab unfair amount from the share and say oh that's for our service. Try to stand on your own 2 feet.
@@mozartips very True. There are good r&d work going on. but the issue I see is, independence is just for name sake. For 70 years couldn’t take the treasure belonging to Sri Lanka from British museums still. 🤦♂️
Okay, I'm weighing in on what I watched here so far (halfway point). I feel if Spain had done its due diligence, they should've ponied up for salvage operations soon as this Spanish frigate was discovered, and paid professionals for every expense during this long, tedious process, plus 10% of the overall value of recovered material. That is just being fair. But Spain, a relatively poor nation, is hiding being obscure and antiquated laws to be greedy bastards and nothing more. Because of this nation (and of course many others), they are essentially driving treasure hunters into underground operations who will make every attempt to hide their discovery from them and sell these material in black markets.
Agreed. The UK will let the finder keep 50% of the treasure or offer to buy it which has resulted in both preserved treasures and happy treasure hunters. Spain is only making it worse.
Its seems simple to me, the treasures were stolen from native worlds by pirates, privateers in disguise and being "unrealistic" no gov can force a private salvage recovery company to hand over the treasures without giving them something for the efforts of bringing it up from the ocean floor. just pirates in disguise, under legalities. As for preserving shipwrecks by leaving it down their, ilogical, what about restoring the ocean floor by removing them, surely that would be better. If you could think of it like preserving car wrecks on the side of the roads just to preserve it? All govs steel, steal from who ever they will
It's salvage period. It's already been lost. And it's not just the oceans. It's getting more and more difficult to gold pan, mine, rock hound, and don't you dare take a metal detector looking for treasures on public lands. They want it all or leave it be or suffer fines and imprisonment. I grew up reading of Lost gold mines, treasures etc. Now their all off limits.
I spent years in the Alaska fishing fleet both long lining Halibut and netting sockeye and coho salmon. As much as I support the fishing industry, I’ll never support bottom trawling. It makes a sustainable industry unsustainable with it’s destructiveness and gives every fisherman a bad name. I hope the entire world wakes up and puts an end to it.
They found it and brought it up...in my book the once lost treasure goes to the finders. Of course the original owners should have first dibs by paying perhaps a tiny reduced price for it and paying all salvage fees which is the decision of the salvagers...
if it was so important to Spain then they should have taken the effort to retrieve it from the bottom of the ocean..i understand the historical heritage factor, but they should have subtracted the cost of the project from the value of the reward..that is, if they were trying to keep it Real.
The myopic attitude of the academics over 'protection' of wrecks, notwithstanding the damage fishing and unsupervised looting is causing; coupled with the ludicrous statement by the Spanish academic that each individual coin a duplicate of 600,000, is like Mona Lisa so valuable it needs to be preserved and when most are hidden away in a vault illustrates their absurd position.
That's ridiculous to leave a reck ship and it's treasures on the bottom to rot because of some pots and pans from 100 years ago.. if it's so important to museums why aren't they going down to get old heritage
These same people hate the internet because the common man can us it to communicate with fellow critical thinkers, it will be a criminal offence to critical think very soon.
I see that pirates have returned, they're calling themselves "Museums" now. As for "culturally significant", you mean in memory of the civilizations you butchered and enslaved to acquire it?
THESE RICHES BELONG TO THE COUNTRIES THEY WERE LOOTED FROM. THAT IS, PERU, BOLIVIA, VENEZUELA, BRASIL, ETC WHERE THE NATIVE PEOPLE WERE SLAVERED TO EXPLOIT THEM THROUGH THEIR LIVES SACRIFICE AND TORTURE.
The Mayan and Aztec Civilizations did a lot of butchering and enslaving to get gold before the Spanish even got to the New World. The Spanish were just better at that game. Both cultures showed the Evils man can do to other men.
Ummm, so after odyssey spends $ and recovers the treasure , Spain says wait that’s ours we were flying a military flag??? Didn’t all vessels commissioned by the queen fly her colors ? Idk I’m not an expert on maritime history but seems to me Spain just wanted that treasure...
Yeah no entrepreneurialism unless you are a State organ who lays waste to entire continents in pursuit of precious metals, then 400 years later it's "heritage", not blood money lost and found fair and square.
No it should be at actual value with historical value and the costs of the expedition taken into account. If nations didn't want to invest to do it to begin with they shouldn't have a right to it either.
Imagine if they were pulling up old Ledgers of DEBT owed to people, would they be so worried about preserving that? It's clear to me it's about the monetary value of the gold and silver and clearly nothing else. I would bet if they were pulling up iron and wood no one would care.
Well put! The whole debacle reeks of disingenuous modus operandi. Human greed thinly veiled as a nebulous sentimentality about “preservation of heritage”. Pffftt!! I can only imagine the incredulity that those -treasure hunters- _uhh, I mean:_ *cargo reclamation specialists* must have towards the ridiculous bureaucracy!! (Which seems as tho it’s being invented as it’s laid before them). If ever there was a more fitting application for the metaphorical euphemism of: _“don’t piss on my head & tell me it’s raining”,_ I certainly haven’t heard of it..
I was once on an island off Jakarta - very little tourists very quiet place ! I was approached on day 2 by an old man on the beach that asked me in broken English if I knew what coins he had found over the years in his fishing nets. I said I cloud try - The next day he brought some coins - They were from the 1700 Dutch And he had a silver dollar and a French frank that were huge and very heavy! As I was in the middle of know where I believed what he was telling me and he asked me if I would pay him $100 for all of them. I did as I thought I would take a gamble . When I arrived home to the uk I looked on line and these coins were worth thousands the franc and the dollar being worth over $20,000 each - I found a collector in London and went to see him one weekend, very exited to find out the exact worth of my new found fortune. Within Minutes of being in the collectors office he told me they were all Chinese fakes !!! Lesson learned here- Don’t trust old men
Only halfway through, but the blindingly obvious point is that if it were not for the treasure hunters none of this stuff would ever be found/recovered. The eggheads need to make a deal with the guys who have the ability/technology. Both/and not either/or.
imo, these "now called treasures" were intended to be traded. Now that they are founf by whoever, let some samples be put aside for museums and conservation; as for the rest, let they be brought to public market to be object of trade between customers and sellers.
Coins are sample gold but real gold are stamped 24k. 3D computer graphics of coins are treasure that will never lost, we don't need to touch it you just record it and melt it down. Spanish Museums can display 3D computer graphics replica not the real thing. Why they need the real thing?
34:14 so a British ship took Gold and silver from India and it sank. British recovered it and kept for themselves. India didn't do anything. I don't know why. But when spains treasure was found, Spain fought n got it back. Maybe because the ship sank before India's independence?
The ironic thing is by forbidding people to profit from finding the stuff they are encouraging historical items to stay lost. Publically funded operations have alot less chance to be funded in the first place. So the more we forbid private, for-profit recovery the less we will recover in general. There has to be an expiration on some of this stuff. If a country chooses to not attempt to recover something for 100s of years then it should be fair game.
You also need to remember that at the time of the sinking they did have insurance on the ship and they were paid for the loss of those coins. So they have been paid, and they get the coins.
I always love how these so-called archaeologists want to say oh we need to save it for everyone while they just kind of funnel away into some damn basement like the Smithsonian or claim it as theirs when they stole it from the indigenous natives that were in the country that they got it from in the first place
Message received. Treasure companies pursuing shipwrecks should never again announce what ships they're working on or where they found it. And, if they can't sell the recovered artifacts as artifacts without the threat of government theft, then they should just melt it all down and sell the metal.
I agree my friend. Governments are never your friends. People need to wake up to this fact. They are made up of the most corrupted individuals at the very top, no different than banks. Whenever a government wants to steal something, they call it "Freezing of assets/accounts/funds under national legislation". Dont be fooled by those robbers in suits.
All videos are great! Please make a video about the company RioTinto, which in the heart of the oldest European civilization - Serbia (7529. according to our old calendar), is trying to create a huge environmental disaster. Thanks!
What has to be preserved is the fact that Spain used South American slaves to get this gold in the first place and then wanted to bring it to Spain all those years ago. Shouldn't South America be the 'owners' of that treasure?
Had I been the skipper of the ship that found the treasure and had to turn it over to Spain, I would’ve dumped it all back into the ocean, and told them to go get it like I did
This Court Ruling assures there will be no artifacts to be had for Treasure Ship hunters - and no Treasure Ships or artifacts to be had for museums without Treasure Hunters! It's a lose - lose proposition! Congrats 👏 👏 👏
Finders keepers, this treasure was stolen from ancient South America nations. It doesn’t belong to Spain. The finders invested so much to get it, without their efforts nothing would be found.
I don't believe that they took picutres front and back of every single coin. Also your "heritage or history" when recovered is owned and therefore trivially preserved. I don't see how there is a loss that hinges on who owns what. Who knew history depended on who owns the property? If you have 1 million coins and half of them are paid to the treasure hunters to be auctioned off with the story behind the artifacts as that helps give them value ( the best interest of history - preservation of the story) then what is the problem? The problem sounds like greedy governments and politicians who likely under pressure would easily monetize those assets for their own benefit. AGAIN THE GUY SAYS "KEEP A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE" ... of the 600,000 coins - 28:33 what's the problem?
And the heritage of those wrecks...I feel like if you can do it respectfully and carefully then it is better to try and recover what you can rather than letting it waste away or be forgotten about.
11:30 Manila Galleons of the Spanish trade route and treasure fleet that passed by the Dragon's Triangle and the Bermuda Triangle where shipwrecks were inescapable...
The only way these exhibitions can successfully continue is it becomes a 'win-win' situation - both for the researcher/risky discoverer . . . and its' initial owner, before the ship sunk ! 😀
I agree the treasure hunters should have to offer it to museums first if they want to sell it and if the museum refuses to buy then it should be able to go on the open market...
finders keepers! If private companies wouldn't find these wrecks then nobody would benefit from it because it would be at the bottom of the ocean for no one to see!
Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view !" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment?
That's the dichotomy. If you make it impossible for treasure hunters to profit from their efforts, your treasure will disappear with the sands of time because no one with the expertise and money will look foe it.
What a scam. They blame the shipwreck hunters for stealing heritage when in fact it would have remained under water if they did not dig it up. They deserve a large part of the treasure.
These countries have not bothered to look for these treasures and they wait to pounce on guys who look for these treasures. Let the treasure hunters be, and compensate them for their troubles.
I too am sometimes envious. Of people living in Countries, with much older civilizations. Containing tangible items and architecture. That can be rediscovered and enjoyed.
I don't think that Unesco has anything to say about anything that is out in international waters. I understand that they want to protect different sites the world over, but something that is undiscovered, falls completely outside of their jurisdiction in my mind.
The idea of someone finding something hundreds of years lost and others feeling entitled to it for whatever reason is insane to me. It sounds like the greedy ones are those that covet what their neighbors have
I believe at some point they will find a shipwreck from 13000 or more years ago and finally prove we have been here in an advanced way for much longer than is currently known.
Coins belong to the original owners the peruvians all the places where the gold was stolen from,,, Mexico ...ETCETERA GIVE them to their real ownerS( countries where they were ,STOLEN!) NOT THE COUNRTY THAT DID THE STEALING.
giving contracts to qualified treasure hunters with archeologists aboard and overseen by government officials of areas not so big as the company cant enforce, with one of a kind artifacts going to the host government and percentages high enough to the treasure hunting companies to entice them and investors is the only solution. Tree hugging Unesco your wait untill technology catches up and leave everything in situ is a pipedream of an office worker. Not real world reality.
So if they are salvaged and then claimed again by an original owner or state, if there was an insurance claim do they have to return the insurance funds or does the Insurer have a claim against the ship contents?
So basically, if a anyone finds a shipwreck that has gold or silver, either never claim which ship it came from, or just melt the gold and silver down into bars. Otherwise, a government will steal the treasure from those who did all the work.
Exactly... Finders keepers of lost and abandoned treasure turns into government stealing fortunes from the people that did all the research and work.
If they want the find then pay half the value of the find at minimum plus cost of recovery. Or else it's nothing but theft to those who find it.
This way those who take contract to find like Odyssey can do good work as they are shown here to have done. And are paid for their time, skill, experience, cost, equipment and labor and make a profit as well. And at the same time the tax payers don't burden the cost of what might be a nothing burger.
Otherwise it sounds like there's those who say only they can have the victory and the spoils not the people who don't fit into some class or designation.
If I was the recovery company I would've dumped the treasure back where it was found and told the spanish government that it's back where it was, and never give them the location.
What these idiots don't realize is by taking the treasure back, because of it's "heritage" they will be destroying heritage as future finds will be hush hush, coins melted and destroyed. Spain surely had the ships insured, so if they got the treasure, they have to pay the insured sum that was paid out to them plus interest to the company who found it.
@@Voidy123 back to the Aztecs
At the time of the sinking of the 'military vessel,' Spain's government wrote the ship off to being 'lost at sea.'
And after the sinking, for several hundred years, made no effort to locate the ship, or collect the lost gold and silver.
Now, someone comes along who has developed and equipped themselves with what was needed to collect the valuables from the sea floor.
And this was in international waters, well outside any country's territorial waters.
Only then, did the Spanish government declare that the gold and silver was part of Spanish national heritage.
Imagen all those lost souls, all the lost lives, that died in the name of Spanish expansion and the hunt for more gold.
What gold and silver, that was found there in the wreckage, was more than likely, they product of Spanish theft and murder, in Central or South Americas.
In the recent past, it has been well known and accepted, that 'finder's keepers,' was the rule of thumb for shipwrecks.
If you go out and find it, then it or the wealth within it, is yours.
It's the greed of politicians now, that interferes with this.
And who truly believes that the UN wants to protect the wrecks on the bottom of the world's seas, even as their own fishing vessels rake the bottom with trolling nets?
And what of countries outside the UN's members, like China, which has been fishing the world's seas now for years, even entering the coastal waters of other nations? They fish with impunity, and don't give a damn what the rest of the world says about it.
I say it is part of the Americas since spain stole it from there
There were politicians involved. And/'or some politician(s) had something to gain on both sides.
You know someone got paid off someplace, somehow, that's the only reason 99% of politicians do anything.
The trend in America has been to favor the governments interests over the citizen, shameful. Whom ever found the treasure, it belongs to them like it always has in the past.
@@joeneighbor The thing that everyone needs to remember is that the people own everything. the Gov. is only there as the trustees. there is on blm land its the peoples land. hints "bureau of land Management"
@@montneymon-ta-knee6810 I agree. The Spanish stole it from the Americas, so they can't claim it as part of Spanish Heritage.
@@markfryer9880 That is correct and because we were born on this land alive we are heirs to all of it. I only with Americans would get there heads together and realize this and quit letting the entity that was created to manage our trust for our benefit steal our heritance
In the eyes of the Spaniards " oh its a heritage, the gold is ours , you should be ashamed treasure hunters " what about all the blood soaked gold they took from the new world ?
The most closely related First Nations tribes that still remain should put Spain to task & make a claim to UNESCO for the gold on the basis of recovering THEIR heritage! (I’d love to see what the Spanish would try to argue then!)
Who does the Hagia Sophia belonge to?
Spain should pay the COSTS of the Recovery Either way since they claim something they were unwilling to go after themselves. This kind of recovery of the loss thousands of coins will encourage unreported claims. Simply melt the gold or metals and sell that way. The heritage ppl are creating self defeat.
first thing spain should do is pay britain bk the billions of euros they begged off of us when the worldwide recession hit
first thing spain should do is pay the Indigenous people of the Pacific Islands, South Americas and Caribbean for Spanish/Euro atrocities and give the stolen gold back to them where their ancestors mined and died for
@@rolly6020 Excellent. Only way to (more or less) repair THE HORROR done to our ancestors.
Yea did Spain pay the Aztecs (what's left of them) or at least Mexico for the billions in wealth they took?
Spain should have zero claim to stolen artifacts in the first place
As if Spain hadn’t already stolen enough riches, historically. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
They Spain collected the gold coins mark M in the 16th century when they colonized the Philippines, they just melted it and no one will know the value of what they've stolen. 🤔
@@filibuster_jpr because it's simply hard to be right or truly satisfy we humans we or they make wrongs or mistakes. Corruption or Evil seems to be Dominating 🌍🌎🌏🌐
exactly , its all plundered from latin america
True,true. The coins should be given to poor people in Peru and Mexico and the Philippeans. Not Spain or rich Americans
I was actually shocked to see Spain acting so ancient. Thought the world was changing a bit faster.
If I find gold coins while diving international waters nobody would ever know what I found.
No joke
oddly enough i was thinking the same , a nice crucible and a set of bellows
@@thespursfan7564 The coins are worth faaaar faaaar more in their original form at auction as Doubloons ect then as anonymous gold bullion.
@@Veldtian1 When I was in Jamaica I heard about a guy finding a handful of dubloons at Port Royal while doing construction, he melted some to make an Uzi pendant for a chain allegedly.
their bragging got them the bad karma.
In the case of the Mercedes frigate, I feel as though if something has been lost at sea for hundreds of years, and the Government was not actively searching for the ship or it's contents, the treasure is up for grabs for whoever has the money, time, and risk tolerance to go looking for it. But that's just my opinion. And opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one.
Unisco is typical of any situation where large sums of money or potential wealth creation are possible and government and politics get involved. They write laws that make the action nearly cost-prohibitive for mom&pop companies and the governments get a piece of the action, despite having no financial risk in the treasure hunting. If the treasure hunter goes broke because he never finds anything of value to cover exploration costs, the government has no skin in the game. If the treasure hunter finds something, the government gets half. Seems unfair.
The part that I find galling is that…fine, if Spain wants to claim the treasure they can cover the costs of recovery plus at least a small percentage of the value of the treasure. This screwing over of the salvage operation is the height of hypocritical academic BS. Cultural heritage…at the bottom of the ocean means jack. If they want to put it in a museum, let them front the huge cost to recover it!
your belly button looks exactly like mine.
A lot of people paid off ; including the non supreme court
Government gets half? Welcome to America my friend🥲
there are many nuclear submarines that are underwater that could be retrieved if you had lots of money. suppose there is one that falls into the wrong hands. don't military vessels belong to the country of origin? its only a sore thumb if its not your country losing its historical artifacts.
So, treasure hunters do all the work, countries think its to expensive and dont do the salvage.. and when its salvaged they say.. you cannot have it cause its ours.. let them pay the operation or they cannot claim. Easy.
Business is Booming 😂🤑!!!
It's called "power".
They should get cost + 50%
They are worried about destroying heritage artifacts that are sitting at the bottom of the sea weathering away. This is by far the dumbest argument I've ever heard
Don't ya love all those historical people against treasure hunters. First the treasure was stolen, then lost by the thieves who stole it. Not much said about those guys. Someone spends thousands of hours of work and money to find and recover, only to have it taken away by someone who invested nothing in it at all. I would destroy the lot.
i'd sink it in the ocean again ,then say its yours ok You go find it
Spain has a massive nerve...transporting gold from the Americas...stealing it and then saying to other people they can't recover it
If I was the CEO of Odyssey I would have returned the coins to the bottom of the sea. Even though I'd be in contempt. 10 years of Odyssey working and Portugal knew they were there and didn't say anything. They were just waiting for them to do all the work. Since when is shipwreck hunting a crime ?
No doubt all those gold coins were STOLEN by the Spanish . Taken from the INCAS.!
I’ll hiiihhow get hall if
I’m just using it
Okay Okay I’ll
Okay y For just a. ,, can C. No. No. No no😨
The riches (600,000 coins) of the Mercedes should be returned to the South Americans whose ancestors were enslaved mining the gold and silver, not the exploiters.
You hit the nail on the head with calling that one!! I second the motion.......
Nice thought but........you do know how that would turn out?
nice thought but not much incentive to find more coins.
@@dananorth895 Nobody knows how that would turn out. Do you?
Spain pillaged and raped and wiped out countless indigenous native peoples of South America, Central America, and Mexico boardering on genocide for 150 years taking hundreds of thousands of tons of gold and silver making Spain a super power for over a century. Not one coin,artifact or jewelry has ever been returned by Spain!………. Ever.
I was the scuba diver on the crew of the Capitana that found 4 1/2 million dollars in gold Spanish coins from the 1715 fleet, off of Vero beach in 2015.
Nice. Are you still doing this?
Go on😊👋👋👋
Very cool experience
Please get back to me
Love to here more
I don't amagen gold but
Did you get to keep somthing
From the wreck..
Maybe slipped under your whate belt?
👋👋👋🇨🇦
I would have changed out the lead in my diving belt for gold and said nothing .... Lol
@@hindsight2022 yea man
It's the dream ....
How much of it was melted?
Where did Spain ger hold of that gold in the first place!!
Aztec Blood
South America
They did not get it they stole it with muskets.
Thanks!
i'm from Sri Lanka and we have many findings in history books that ships full of gold, Saphire and elephants never reached China.. but our countries are poor to execute missions like these :( (around 377 AD-1000 AD).. loved this docu...
It's not rocket science, just develop good sonar and under water remote controlled robot and that's it. Stop looking up to western looters, they've looted then and now they will grab unfair amount from the share and say oh that's for our service. Try to stand on your own 2 feet.
@@mozartips very True. There are good r&d work going on. but the issue I see is, independence is just for name sake. For 70 years couldn’t take the treasure belonging to Sri Lanka from British museums still. 🤦♂️
@@mozartips ki
want to trade citizenships. Im american..if only
Pretty sure the elephants are toast.
Mafia: Pay us for the right to do business
Government: Hold my beer
Okay, I'm weighing in on what I watched here so far (halfway point). I feel if Spain had done its due diligence, they should've ponied up for salvage operations soon as this Spanish frigate was discovered, and paid professionals for every expense during this long, tedious process, plus 10% of the overall value of recovered material. That is just being fair. But Spain, a relatively poor nation, is hiding being obscure and antiquated laws to be greedy bastards and nothing more. Because of this nation (and of course many others), they are essentially driving treasure hunters into underground operations who will make every attempt to hide their discovery from them and sell these material in black markets.
Agreed. The UK will let the finder keep 50% of the treasure or offer to buy it which has resulted in both preserved treasures and happy treasure hunters. Spain is only making it worse.
@@s4nder86 seems like a fairer model
Cultural heritage has no meaning or value at all when it's left on the sea floor. The Spanish argument is illogical.
Its seems simple to me, the treasures were stolen from native worlds by pirates, privateers in disguise and being "unrealistic" no gov can force a private salvage recovery company to hand over the treasures without giving them something for the efforts of bringing it up from the ocean floor. just pirates in disguise, under legalities.
As for preserving shipwrecks by leaving it down their, ilogical, what about restoring the ocean floor by removing them, surely that would be better. If you could think of it like preserving car wrecks on the side of the roads just to preserve it? All govs steel, steal from who ever they will
And after Spain does all that Mexico takes them to court and has to turn it all over for nothing. The end.
It's salvage period. It's already been lost. And it's not just the oceans. It's getting more and more difficult to gold pan, mine, rock hound, and don't you dare take a metal detector looking for treasures on public lands. They want it all or leave it be or suffer fines and imprisonment. I grew up reading of Lost gold mines, treasures etc. Now their all off limits.
i figure it all started when smoking was banned from bars and public places. im not kidding. killjoys.
I spent years in the Alaska fishing fleet both long lining Halibut and netting sockeye and coho salmon. As much as I support the fishing industry, I’ll never support bottom trawling. It makes a sustainable industry unsustainable with it’s destructiveness and gives every fisherman a bad name. I hope the entire world wakes up and puts an end to it.
They found it and brought it up...in my book the once lost treasure goes to the finders. Of course the original owners should have first dibs by paying perhaps a tiny reduced price for it and paying all salvage fees which is the decision of the salvagers...
Yep if they wanted it so bad and it's so important they should have gone and got it...........
That gold doesn't belong to people from 1000 years ago no more.. that's not how finders keepers works.
@@shainblair7785 that's pretty deep for a twelve-year-old!
The original owners are dead. Waaay dead
That would make sense to Noone but u!
Well,, those Gold Coins should have been returned to the depths of the ocean ...... If the Government of Spain wants them, Go get them yourself...
Lmao Spain claiming the gold they stole is still theirs. Naw not after what they've done it should be who ever gets it.
Do CHristopher Columbus stole the Gold coins from the Caribbean Islands and the USA?
Odessey has to drop the coins back so that Spain can go for it..... that's my opinion 😜
It a completely different area too.
Along with tons and tons of sand at the same time , make it an even playing field again
if it was so important to Spain then they should have taken the effort to retrieve it from the bottom of the ocean..i understand the historical heritage factor, but they should have subtracted the cost of the project from the value of the reward..that is, if they were trying to keep it Real.
The myopic attitude of the academics over 'protection' of wrecks, notwithstanding the damage fishing and unsupervised looting is causing; coupled with the ludicrous statement by the Spanish academic that each individual coin a duplicate of 600,000, is like Mona Lisa so valuable it needs to be preserved and when most are hidden away in a vault illustrates their absurd position.
To me, he sounded like he was going, "No -- they're mine. No one else can touch them. They're mine -- all mine I say!"
100%
Heritage comes Before the people it seems in Spain! what good is that wealth sitting in a museum ?
@@carlob517 Well said.
It's in Canadian waters plain and simple
That's ridiculous to leave a reck ship and it's treasures on the bottom to rot because of some pots and pans from 100 years ago.. if it's so important to museums why aren't they going down to get old heritage
Exactly
they have no money and time for that they rather steal it once a treasure hunter did all the work
These same people hate the internet because the common man can us it to communicate with fellow critical thinkers, it will be a criminal offence to critical think very soon.
I see that pirates have returned, they're calling themselves "Museums" now. As for "culturally significant", you mean in memory of the civilizations you butchered and enslaved to acquire it?
You so woke.... Life's a battle... And if you are not able to defend your wealth its simply not yours....
THESE RICHES BELONG TO THE COUNTRIES THEY WERE LOOTED FROM. THAT IS, PERU, BOLIVIA, VENEZUELA, BRASIL, ETC WHERE THE NATIVE PEOPLE WERE SLAVERED TO EXPLOIT THEM THROUGH THEIR LIVES SACRIFICE AND TORTURE.
The Mayan and Aztec Civilizations did a lot of butchering and enslaving to get gold before the Spanish even got to the New World. The Spanish were just better at that game. Both cultures showed the Evils man can do to other men.
Bro just look up who owns unesco, says it all
the british museum it s the headquarters of those said pirates and has been that since it s beginning.
Ummm, so after odyssey spends $ and recovers the treasure , Spain says wait that’s ours we were flying a military flag??? Didn’t all vessels commissioned by the queen fly her colors ? Idk I’m not an expert on maritime history but seems to me Spain just wanted that treasure...
I would have dumped the treasure back in the ocean before handing it over for free.
moral to the story is if you find lost treasure keep your mouth shut
Just love the Bureaucrat Karen. Only the bureaucrats know whats best.
Yeah no entrepreneurialism unless you are a State organ who lays waste to entire continents in pursuit of precious metals, then 400 years later it's "heritage", not blood money lost and found fair and square.
@@Veldtian1 A VERY solemn and valued argument/position ! 😙
There could be room for both. Just need an efficient way of working together to salvage, document, and sell.
Allow each government the opportunity to buy the treasures at market value.
If they can’t afford it, then it goes to the recovery experts.
No it should be at actual value with historical value and the costs of the expedition taken into account. If nations didn't want to invest to do it to begin with they shouldn't have a right to it either.
Imagine if they were pulling up old Ledgers of DEBT owed to people, would they be so worried about preserving that? It's clear to me it's about the monetary value of the gold and silver and clearly nothing else. I would bet if they were pulling up iron and wood no one would care.
Well put! The whole debacle reeks of disingenuous modus operandi. Human greed thinly veiled as a nebulous sentimentality about “preservation of heritage”. Pffftt!! I can only imagine the incredulity that those -treasure hunters- _uhh, I mean:_ *cargo reclamation specialists* must have towards the ridiculous bureaucracy!! (Which seems as tho it’s being invented as it’s laid before them). If ever there was a more fitting application for the metaphorical euphemism of: _“don’t piss on my head & tell me it’s raining”,_ I certainly haven’t heard of it..
Good point.
What a beautiful documentary, never expected the informations revealed here! well done 👍
I was once on an island off Jakarta - very little tourists very quiet place !
I was approached on day 2 by an old man on the beach that asked me in broken English if I knew what coins he had found over the years in his fishing nets.
I said I cloud try -
The next day he brought some coins -
They were from the 1700 Dutch
And he had a silver dollar and a French frank that were huge and very heavy!
As I was in the middle of know where I believed what he was telling me and he asked me if I would pay him $100 for all of them.
I did as I thought I would take a gamble .
When I arrived home to the uk I looked on line and these coins were worth thousands the franc and the dollar being worth over $20,000 each -
I found a collector in London and went to see him one weekend, very exited to find out the exact worth of my new found fortune.
Within Minutes of being in the collectors office he told me they were all Chinese fakes !!!
Lesson learned here-
Don’t trust old men
100 bucks for a great story lol
@@bennichols1113 very true !
Only halfway through, but the blindingly obvious point is that if it were not for the treasure hunters none of this stuff would ever be found/recovered. The eggheads need to make a deal with the guys who have the ability/technology. Both/and not either/or.
Interesting documentary. Thanks @Endevr
imo, these "now called treasures" were intended to be traded. Now that they are founf by whoever, let some samples be put aside for museums and conservation; as for the rest, let they be brought to public market to be object of trade between customers and sellers.
Coins are sample gold but real gold are stamped 24k. 3D computer graphics of coins are treasure that will never lost, we don't need to touch it you just record it and melt it down. Spanish Museums can display 3D computer graphics replica not the real thing. Why they need the real thing?
34:14 so a British ship took Gold and silver from India and it sank. British recovered it and kept for themselves. India didn't do anything. I don't know why. But when spains treasure was found, Spain fought n got it back. Maybe because the ship sank before India's independence?
I’m happy for the guys who find treasure it gives me a look into the past
Fantastic vid. Dig it up! Does no one any good disintegrating on the bottom of the ocean.
The ironic thing is by forbidding people to profit from finding the stuff they are encouraging historical items to stay lost. Publically funded operations have alot less chance to be funded in the first place. So the more we forbid private, for-profit recovery the less we will recover in general. There has to be an expiration on some of this stuff. If a country chooses to not attempt to recover something for 100s of years then it should be fair game.
Spanish government “noooo you can’t just find the gold we stole and then lost”
Exactly!
How can you take what I have rightfully stolen! Lol!😂
Excellent documentary, thank you.
Never tell anyone! Melt it down yourself.
You also need to remember that at the time of the sinking they did have insurance on the ship and they were paid for the loss of those coins. So they have been paid, and they get the coins.
Anyone know what wreck footage 30:20 is from? I see a sole of a shoe and what looks like part of a rib cage.
Good eye. Sorry, can't help with the name of that wreck.
34:00 UK govt. got their split and Odyssey got their percentage, was there any involvement from India?
India wasn't a country until 1947. Still under British rule.
India supplied the tea.
@@mikehurley5052 In earlier times India supplied the Opium - that was then sold in China - which supplied the tea.
@@mikehurley5052 Were you in the Holy Modal Rounders?
But that doesn't justify looting
9:10 'There is some more ?' That really cracked me up !!! ;-P
I always love how these so-called archaeologists want to say oh we need to save it for everyone while they just kind of funnel away into some damn basement like the Smithsonian or claim it as theirs when they stole it from the indigenous natives that were in the country that they got it from in the first place
Message received. Treasure companies pursuing shipwrecks should never again announce what ships they're working on or where they found it. And, if they can't sell the recovered artifacts as artifacts without the threat of government theft, then they should just melt it all down and sell the metal.
I agree my friend.
Governments are never your friends.
People need to wake up to this fact.
They are made up of the most corrupted individuals at the very top, no different than banks.
Whenever a government wants to steal something, they call it "Freezing of assets/accounts/funds under national legislation".
Dont be fooled by those robbers in suits.
If you don't pay treasure hunters the market price why wouldn't they just melt down the gold and sell it . And therefore you don't get the objects
If the plunder was taken by force, does that mean that all plunder taken by Germany during WW2 belongs to Germany as well?
All videos are great! Please make a video about the company RioTinto, which in the heart of the oldest European civilization - Serbia (7529. according to our old calendar), is trying to create a huge environmental disaster. Thanks!
Amazing and insightful documentary .
If it sank and I find it, it belongs to me.
Where do they get these prices from on how much a day it is to float a boat
What has to be preserved is the fact that Spain used South American slaves to get this gold in the first place and then wanted to bring it to Spain all those years ago.
Shouldn't South America be the 'owners' of that treasure?
I would think so!
Had I been the skipper of the ship that found the treasure and had to turn it over to Spain, I would’ve dumped it all back into the ocean, and told them to go get it like I did
35:50 what an immoral thing to do. They should've sent all those silver to India so that those people where looted could benefit from it.
lol
This Court Ruling assures there will be no artifacts to be had for Treasure Ship hunters - and no Treasure Ships or artifacts to be had for museums without Treasure Hunters! It's a lose - lose proposition! Congrats 👏 👏 👏
Finders keepers, this treasure was stolen from ancient South America nations. It doesn’t belong to Spain.
The finders invested so much to get it, without their efforts nothing would be found.
I don't believe that they took picutres front and back of every single coin. Also your "heritage or history" when recovered is owned and therefore trivially preserved. I don't see how there is a loss that hinges on who owns what. Who knew history depended on who owns the property? If you have 1 million coins and half of them are paid to the treasure hunters to be auctioned off with the story behind the artifacts as that helps give them value ( the best interest of history - preservation of the story) then what is the problem? The problem sounds like greedy governments and politicians who likely under pressure would easily monetize those assets for their own benefit. AGAIN THE GUY SAYS "KEEP A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE" ... of the 600,000 coins - 28:33 what's the problem?
Going diving... ;)
Let me join you
I'll drive the 🚢!
Right on... lol..
Any deck hands?.. lol.
6:50 im hearing for around 20 years that only 5 % of the seas are explored,
they dont explore it anymore ?
Unesco : Wreckage hunters destroys heritage.
Wreckage hunters: Trawler and trawl fishing destroys ship wrecks.
And the heritage of those wrecks...I feel like if you can do it respectfully and carefully then it is better to try and recover what you can rather than letting it waste away or be forgotten about.
Seems to be nothing much we can do about the systems . Personal safety and hope for the best is what we always wish...
Stolen heritage before it was sunk is still stolen heritage.
11:30 Manila Galleons of the Spanish trade route and treasure fleet that passed by the Dragon's Triangle and the Bermuda Triangle where shipwrecks were inescapable...
The only way these exhibitions can successfully continue is it becomes a 'win-win' situation - both for the researcher/risky discoverer . . . and its' initial owner, before the ship sunk ! 😀
Spain has changed since then, that's like saying Rome can claim back it's lost treasures.
I agree the treasure hunters should have to offer it to museums first if they want to sell it and if the museum refuses to buy then it should be able to go on the open market...
Without the treasure hunters none of these ships would have been found.
All the starving poor people in the world just love looking at gold sitting in muesems😂😂
If you find it you keep it.
I think this is one of the most provocative videos I've watched. Both sides seem to have valid arguments.
how could they rule that the treasure is to be "returned"to spain when it was clearly stolen from the south americans????
south Americans are so poor because of Spain's treasures!
Spain politicians took their cut THEN it went to a museum
“These treasure hunters are greedy”
“No I won’t sell any of the 509,000 coins we need all of them”
Wow, amazing, corrosive as the ocean deep they find letters.😉🤔
finders keepers! If private companies wouldn't find these wrecks then nobody would benefit from it because it would be at the bottom of the ocean for no one to see!
Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view !"
Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam."
Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!"
Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..."
Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!"
Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky."
Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction."
Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment?
Every plane, train or car crash is a heritage site. OMG they've got to be preserved for posterities sake.
Once Inca gold artifacts have become doubloons and escudos they're Portuguese and Spanish "heritage".
That's the dichotomy. If you make it impossible for treasure hunters to profit from their efforts, your treasure will disappear with the sands of time because no one with the expertise and money will look foe it.
What a scam. They blame the shipwreck hunters for stealing heritage when in fact it would have remained under water if they did not dig it up. They deserve a large part of the treasure.
Amazing information and videography about unique realization of past incidents revealing the truths of times. Thanks for sharing.
if on some country's waters, is it legal?
I would have dumped it all back into the deep ocean somewhere and let Spain go and find it. lolol
These countries have not bothered to look for these treasures and they wait to pounce on guys who look for these treasures. Let the treasure hunters be, and compensate them for their troubles.
whatever. treasure hunters deserve to make a living. It is high risk and should pay off.
Such an interesting video !!!! More complex as originally thought.
If these countries want to claim ownership why don't they go find it themselves instead of taking it from someone who did find it a little shady
As an American who metal detects sometimes I'm jealous of other countries who have history that goes so far back. The finds you could make are crazy.
we have the best movies tho
@@Pluralofvinylisvinyls cringe.
Optometrist.
@@Pluralofvinylisvinyls😂
I too am sometimes envious. Of people living in Countries, with much older civilizations. Containing tangible items and architecture. That can be rediscovered and enjoyed.
I don't think that Unesco has anything to say about anything that is out in international waters. I understand that they want to protect different sites the world over, but something that is undiscovered, falls completely outside of their jurisdiction in my mind.
UNESCO EGY TOLVAJ BANDA, GITTRGYLET, OLYAN MINT AZ UN MINDERE
RÁTENNÉ A KEZÉT VILÁGSZERTE, MITÖL VÉDHETI MEG kITÖL???
Screw the oversite, worry warts with nothing better to do. Go get it boys. Finders, keepers in the ocean.
Don’t have to worry about that
"Thats our gold! We murdered and pillaged to get it." Historical heritage i guess?
The idea of someone finding something hundreds of years lost and others feeling entitled to it for whatever reason is insane to me. It sounds like the greedy ones are those that covet what their neighbors have
So the Americans aren't allowed to keep Spanish gold stolen from the Aztecs. What about the aztecs heritage?
I believe at some point they will find a shipwreck from 13000 or more years ago and finally prove we have been here in an advanced way for much longer than is currently known.
A shipwreck from 13000 years ago? Really? There would be nothing left of it! LMAO!
@@juanvaldez2921 No oxygen = no distruction.
Awesome!
Coins belong to the original owners the peruvians all the places where the gold was stolen from,,, Mexico ...ETCETERA
GIVE them to their real ownerS( countries where they were ,STOLEN!)
NOT THE COUNRTY THAT DID THE STEALING.
Brilliant informative Documentary , with Excellent narration....
giving contracts to qualified treasure hunters with archeologists aboard and overseen by government officials of areas not so big as the company cant enforce, with one of a kind artifacts going to the host government and percentages high enough to the treasure hunting companies to entice them and investors is the only solution. Tree hugging Unesco your wait untill technology catches up and leave everything in situ is a pipedream of an office worker. Not real world reality.
So if they are salvaged and then claimed again by an original owner or state, if there was an insurance claim do they have to return the insurance funds or does the Insurer have a claim against the ship contents?
to the spoils go to those daring enough to search for them!