Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck

Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by lastofthemojito on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @10:58PM (#31677149)

I'm guessing you're running with the "Experts believe it contains at least 200 tons of gold, silver and emeralds" line from the article. Without further breakdown you don't really know if you're talking about $12 billion (if virtually all of the 200 tons is gold) or $150 million (if the hoard is virtually all silver) or (probably) somewhere in between.

EDIT: Further research (reading the Wikipedia page) makes it sound closer to your estimate. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_galleon_San_José:

> The wreck of the San José is estimated to be worth about $14.43 billion as of 2021, based on the speculation that it had up to 11 million 4-doubloons (i.e. 11 million 8 escudos gold coins, or 11 million coins each of 27 grams of 92% gold, totaling 8.8 million troy ounces AGW, or $11.5 billion) and many silver coins on board at the time of its sinking

I now heartily endorse your plan!

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Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by spydum on Thursday June 09, 2022 @07:39AM (#31679957)

real question: we are assuming the value of the gold is market price by weight, but would people really melt this down? i think the value of the coins could be quite different than just the materials they are made of (maybe that sets the floor value)

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Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by Arrath on Thursday June 09, 2022 @03:27PM (#31685673)

Quite possibly, in that it is 'easier' (after all the risk entailed in the salvage of the wreck, ofc) to sell plain gold in some form rather than historical artifacts that are easier to track, more notable, have a smaller audience, etc etc. Its tragic, but sensible in a cold blooded, economical fashion.

E.g. Would the criminal enterprise that went to such great lengths to obtain the material rather sell a sizable quantity of unmarked gold ingots to WeDon'tCareWhereItCameFromJewelers LLC for a nice return, or go through an arduous process to sell coins in varied quantities to wealthy collectors.

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Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by nonethewiser on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @11:42PM (#31677346)

There is no way most of it is accessible.

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Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by dylan604 on Thursday June 09, 2022 @12:30AM (#31677569)

I can imagine a new History Channel show where Robert Clotworthy no longer utters the phrase 'There is an island...', but now says 'There is a shipwreck...'

Commercials will be more than content. Seasons will be made out of 15 minutes of footage. It'll be huge!

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Re:Colombia shares unprecedented images of treasure-laden wreck by konfusinomicon on Thursday June 09, 2022 @08:51AM (#31680592)

this sounds like a job for Dog the bounty hunter

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