As scrap metal enthusiasts, we’re always fascinated by the incredible stories and instances where old treasure is discovered – as that treasure typically tends to be made of metal. Some treasure is ancient and others a little recent – but history seems to be in no short supply unrecovered sunken ships carrying treasure. In between coming to us to sell scrap metal, we thought we’d write a blog for you centred around some amazing treasures that have been recovered from the depth of the ocean floor.
1. The Queen Anne’s Revenge
We’ll kick off the list with what a lot of people associate the word treasure with – pirates. The Queen Anne’s Revenge was the ship of the famous English pirate, Blackbeard. For starters, yes, Blackbeard was a real pirate. In 1718 the Queen Anne’s Revenge ran ashore off the coast of North Carolina. The shipwreck wasn’t actually discovered though, until 1996.
Since then, a variety of anchors, cannons, blunderbusses and sword hilts have been discovered – but no actual treasure as such. It’s still a very impressive find. Allegedly, Blackbeard purposely ran his ship ashore to break up his large company of pirates – around 300 of them – and then snuck away with a smaller crew and all the treasure.
2. The SS Central America
More commonly known as The Ship of Gold, the SS Central America was sunk in 1857 by a hurricane. 457 passengers were killed, and 14,000 kg of gold was lost. That is, until September 1988 when the Columbus-American Discovery Group of Ohio found it. They recovered approximately 100 – 150 million USD in gold from the wreckage.
A long legal battle then took place between the expedition group and various insurance companies who claimed they were at a loss from the ship sinking during the 19th century. The expedition group was awarded custody of 96% of the recovered gold.
The leader of the expedition, Tommy Thompson, was then sued in 2005 by investors and fellow expedition members over lack of returns. He fled with 4.16 million USD until he was located in 2015 and extradited to Ohio.
3. Heracleion
Discovered off the coast of Egypt in 2000 by Frank Goddio, the sunken city of Heracleion (Thonis to the Greeks) is one of the closest things we’ll get to Atlantis. Along with ceramics, jewellery and coins – large statues were also discovered, which was customary for ancient Egyptian city.
The city served as the only port of entry for incoming Greek ships into the ancient city of Alexandria. The city was founded around 8th century BC and was entirely submerged by around 8th century AD.
4. Esmeralda
The Esmeralda was a Portuguese ship that sunk during the Age of Discovery – which was a period when an extensive amount of overseas exploration was being undertaken. The Esmeralda was involved in several gruesome battles, but it was ultimately a storm in 1503 along the Indian Route in the Arabian sea that sunk the ship.
Almost 500 years later and the wreck was found in 1998 – but not actually excavated until almost another 20 years later. Some of the artefacts found were silver and gold coins, the ships bell, munitions and other items. It is still being excavated currently for more artefacts.
5. The Atocha
The Nuestra Senora de Atocha was a ship that went missing in 1622 on its way from Cuba to Spain. Essentially, the ship sailed straight into a hurricane and didn’t survive. The curious thing about The Atocha, though, was the fact that it was full of treasure.
Mel Fisher found the shipwreck in 1985 after searching for it for 16 years. There was an estimated total of around 450 million USD found. Some of it is on display at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum whilst certain items were auctioned off at the 30th anniversary of the find.
Are you looking to sell scrap metal?
Reading about lost treasures being discovered can be pretty exciting, but you probably don’t realise that you’ve got a whole bunch of treasure at home that’ll give you some return as well. At Metal Men Recycling, we buy all sorts of scrap metal. If you sell scrap metal to us, we’ll ensure that it’s appropriately and safely recycled using the correct methods.
We also offer various sized bins that we can deliver to your home or workplace to make large hauls easier for you to manage. Our facilities are state-of-the-art and feature weighing bridges with large load capacities.
If you’re looking to sell scrap metal, then please give us a call on 03 5941 6677. You can also contact us via the enquiry form on our website.
