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 ozt) and the estimated current value of unrecovered silver would be $770 billion (at a price of $35 per ozt). Of course, the numismatic and artifact values are typically many times the bullion values.