Overview
About 72 percent of Earth is covered in saltwater, estimated to equal 326 million cubic miles. It is also estimated that there are about two million boats and ships of all types that have sunk during the last two thousand years.
It has been estimated there are more than 9,000 historic treasure wrecks that remain unfound and scattered throughout the world’s oceans. Many of these wrecks are located in the Caribbean Ocean where they sunk when following the then existing trade routes. It is believed that the Caribbean is the resting-place of more than 3,000 ships. From 1492 to 1830, the Spanish extracted an estimated 156,250 metric tons of gold and silver from the New World mines, the bulk of this was put on ships headed for Spain. Approximately 125,000 metric tons of which approximately 12 percent was gold reached Spain. An additional 10 to 15 percent of silver and gold shipped to Spain never reached its destination. Pirates and privateers accounted for some losses, but most galleons were wrecked due to storms and poor navigation.
In dollar amounts relating to quantities of gold and silver that could be recovered, the totals referenced above, whether in bullion or as a combination of artifact and numismatic values, are impressive by any stretch of the imagination.
Of the possible thousands of historic ship lost on the world’s oceans, some carried cargoes of precious metals that, based on today’s bullion values, could easily range from a few million to billions of dollars. It is important to recognize that recovered precious metals: coins, ingots and/or jewelry…are basically bullion with added value due to their vast historical context; in other words, artifact and numismatic values. As such, their intrinsic worth usually extend far beyond current bullion values. Based on these facts along with the numbers shown above for unaccounted gold and silver, we created the following table showing bullion, and estimated artifact and numismatic values of these two metals. This is based upon our best estimates, but is not to be taken as a warranty or guarantee of values by management.
On a pure bullion basis alone, the estimated current value of unrecovered gold would be approximately $840 billion (at a price of $1500 per troy oz) and the estimated current value of unrecovered silver would be $770 billion (at a price of $35 per troy oz). Of course, the numismatic and artifact values are typically many times the bullion values.