EL CAZADOR

[Salvor6]

In 1783 the Spanish city of New Orleans was suffering from a recession with their paper money becomming worthless. King Carolus III ordered the Spanish brig of war El Cazador to ship newly minted silver coins from Mexico to New Orleans to relieve the crisis. El Cazador never made it. She sank with all hands in a storm 50 miles from New Orleans.
In 1993, fisherman Jerry Murphy snagged clumps of coins from the bottom in his trawling nets. He filed a claim on the wreck and in 3 days was given a salvage permit. This was clearly a soverign Spanish vessel with coins on board belonging to the Spanish government. Spain got nothing and Murphy continues to sell the coins to this day: http://www.elcazador.com/. What a difference 16 years makes!

 

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[FISHEYE]

A captain friend of mine worked that wreck with murphy.He got his cut in silver coins.I think he had about 500lbs of them in his cabin.Some cleaned and most uncleaned.When we were in NC working the el salvador wreck after we had to leave the wreck site because of bad weather we all met up at the local watering hole.The capt brought a stack of the big nose charlie coins to bribe the women at the bar into comming back to the ship.The bribes worked.