- Title: USA-SHIPWRECK/AUCTION PREVIEW Guernsey's to auction found undersea treasure
- Date: 4th August 2015
- Summary: INTERNET (AUGUST 04, 2015) (REUTERS) (MUTE) SCREENSHOTS OF GUERNSEY'S CATALOGUE OF THE UNDERSEA TREASURE AUCTION FROM THE MEL & DEO FISHER COLLECTION WITH PHOTOS OF MEL FISHER SCREENSHOT OF GUERNSEY'S CATALOGUE OF THE UNDERSEA TREASURE AUCTION FROM THE MEL & DEO FISHER COLLECTION WITH PHOTO OF MICHAEL ABT JR.
- Embargoed: 19th August 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA7Y99ONGKS8F0EOHX3D5T0ECDA
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: "Today's the day!" was a famous treasure hunter's saying, and on Wednesday (August 05), fans looking for his found treasure will get to bid on silver and gold bars and emeralds and pearls from the estate of Mel Fisher.
After a 16-year-search, Mel Fisher and his crew found the mother lode of a shipwreck in September 1985 from Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon that has yielded one of the greatest treasures ever recovered from the sea.
They hauled up more than 40 tons of gold and silver, including more than 100,000 Spanish silver coins known as "Pieces of Eight," along with Colombian emeralds and other artifacts. Its worth is estimated at nearly $500 million.
The Atocha was headed back to Spain with a load of gold and silver from the New World when it sank and broke up in a hurricane not far from Key West in September 1622. Fisher died in 1998.
"The name Mel Fisher, who was the most intrepid, passionate, focused, dedicated treasure hunter ever, had developed techniques to be able to go beneath the floor of the ocean and for many, many years, his research indicated that there were Spanish galleons that had sunk off the coast of Key West and he was determined to discover what treasure they held," Arlan Ettinger said, president of Guernsey's auction house in New York.
Ettinger was contacted several months ago by Fisher's children who wanted to honor the will of Fisher's wife, Dolores (Deo) Fisher, who died six years ago. Deo Fisher was also Fisher's business partner and had managed his estate. The family had retained some of the items from the wreck that were never before seen.
"The gold chalice is breathtaking," Ettinger said of the auction pieces.
"There is a little gold frame with extraordinary filigree work that you marvel how people could have done that and then marvel even more to think that this was under water for almost four centuries and how it looks like it was made yesterday, so those certainly stand out. The gold and emerald cross is magnificent. And then there were, I believe the number, about 12,000 pearls, natural pearls that were discovered in the wreckage and the two largest and presumably most valuable of those are here too and those are quite breathtaking. So those are just a few of the items that strike my fancy."
Deo Fisher's will stated that she wanted the items sold with a portion of the money going to the Have a Heart Foundation, which places defibrillators in U.S. public schools.
Mel and Deo Fisher's grandson, Michael Abt Jr., was a 12-year old boy who died of sudden cardiac arrest while in school. The Fishers believed that if the school had a defibrillator, he might have lived. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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