Divers have recovered over 1,000 coins from a shipwreck off the east coast of Florida. The coins were discovered this summer within the historical "Treasure Fleet" of Spanish ships that sank in July 1715, when hundreds of sailors and over $400 million worth of gold and silver disappeared into the ocean.
In a statement, representatives for 1715 Fleet - Queens Jewels, a shipwreck salvage company authorized to dive to the wrecks, wrote that they had recovered more than 1,000 silver reales (also called "pieces of eight") and five gold escudos, along with other rare gold artifacts. Both types of coin were common currency in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
