We’ve all heard the legends of pirate’s treasure. Searching for sunken treasure makes for a good story, and it’s produced some great movies, but it’s only a legend, right? Did you know that in 2003 the US, France, and Spain were fighting over who owned a ship that sunk off of the Florida Keys in 1755? And that the ship contains three billion dollars worth of sunken treasure, including 17 chests full of gold bullion and 15,000 antique coins?

Oceans Full of Treasure

In 2003, the United Nations passed a resolution to stop treasure hunters from pillaging sunken ships and stealing the treasure and antique coins. (You know, the pirates pirating the pirate treasure). These sunken ships are historical treasures, too, and the United Nations wants them to be properly investigated.

Unfortunately, however, there is too much financial incentive for pillaging. There are an estimated three million undiscovered shipwrecks in the oceans of earth, and a lot of them went down with treasure in them. With new technology, treasure hunters are finding these sunken hoards and salvaging the treasure and antique coins. Some of the finds are worth millions of dollars.

The problem with treasure hunting, salvaging, pillaging, or whatever you call it, is that the people doing the salvage are business people and are after a profit. They don’t have any interest in the archeological value of sunken treasures and antique coins. They care about the monetary value of Blackbeard’s treasure, not its historical value.

The UN points to the discovery and archeological exhumation of the Pandora off the coast of Australia. We learned the true ending of the Mutiny on the Bounty and what happened to the mutineers by studying the wreckage.

Until the resolution was ratified, sunken treasure and antique coins in international waters were pretty much up for grabs. The Titanic sank in international waters. So did the Polluce, a Genoese ship that sank in 1841, carrying French and Spanish antique gold coins and thousands of antique silver coins.

Not Just Ships

The UN resolution applies to sunken cities, too. Like Port Royal, Jamaica, which sank in an earthquake in 1692. It was a pirate city at one time, so maybe Blackbeard’s treasure is buried there—chests full of antique coins, jewels, and gold. Treasure hunters would like to find out.

Pirate’s treasure really does exist, and there is a lot of it buried under the sea. Like the three billion dollars worth of gold, jewels, and antique coins buried off of the Florida keys with the Notre Dame de Deliverance. Pirate’s treasure worth a king’s ransom.