A shipwreck salvage company has struck gold.
The 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels, LLC—which specializes in salvaging the remains of a 1715 shipwreck off the Florida coastline—said its divers discovered over 1,000 gold and silver coins. And the, well, treasure trove of 18th century items are valued at $1 million.
"This discovery is not only about the treasure itself, but the stories it tells,” the company's director of operations Sal Guttuso said in a statement. "Each coin is a piece of history, a tangible link to the people who lived, worked, and sailed during the Golden Age of the Spanish Empire."
He continued, "Finding 1,000 of them in a single recovery is both rare and extraordinary."
The coins—known as pieces of eight—were minted in Spanish colonies in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, according to the company. The salvager said visible dates and mint marks are still visible on many of the coins, were being transported to back Spain when it got caught up in a hurricane.
"Historians estimate that as much as $400 million worth of gold, silver, and jewels were lost in the storm," read a press release from 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels, LLC, "making it one of the greatest maritime tragedies—and treasures—of the Americas."
The company said the condition of the recovered coins "suggests they were part of a single chest or shipment that spilled when the ship broke apart in the hurricane’s fury."
"We think they would have had these things in wooden boxes," Guttuso told NBC News in an interview published Oct. 2, "and that makes sense because the wooden box degrades in the ocean and, once the box degrades, the sack degrades and the only thing that's left are these silver coins."
In addition to the coins, he said divers found a royal lead seal bearing the impression of Philip II of Spain, who ruled from the mid-to-late 1500s.
"You can almost assume that this was a family heirloom," Guttuso added. "This lead seal probably had an important document around it that may have given that family title to lands or positions."
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