You understand they'll be a 75-80% "spread the wealth" fee...
Posted on 09/23/2012 8:04:55 AM PDT by Theoria
It was buried among the legal ads in a local newspaper this week, nary two paragraphs long amid public notices from municipalities and legal name changes.
It was a federal court announcement, but no ordinary one, from a treasure hunter announcing to "modern day pirates" that he was laying claim to a previously undiscovered Civil War-era shipwreck buried off the coast of Asbury Park — the maritime equivalent of a wedding officiant asking "if anyone has reason for these two not to be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace."
The "groom" is Allan Gardner, a Florida diver who is seeking to salvage the ship. His bride-to-be, he hopes, is the Ella Warley, a 19th century steamship that sank into the murky waters off New Jersey nearly 150 years ago, taking with it the lives of six crewman.
"We’re looking for sunken treasure," said Jerome A. Ballaratto, an attorney representing Gardner’s company, Endeavor Associates. "We found the ship and we suspect that there’s treasure in it, and we’re hoping to find it."
Gardner’s company has asked the courts to recognize him as the sole owner of anything he unearths at the wreck site, a little-known niche of maritime law that would permit the arrest of anyone else who tries to poach his watery bounty.
"With today’s technology, once you’ve located (a wreck). unless you put something on it twenty-four-seven, you can’t protect it," said David Paul Horan, another attorney representing Gardner and one of the most prolific authorities on litigation involving salvage operations. "It protects the site. So if a modern day pirate shows up and you say I have court protection of this site and show them your paperwork, a federal Marshall boards his ship, says come with me and that’s that."
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Very cool. Though, it might work on pirates, but not on politicians.
Potential bling, ping.
Roger that. Tell it to Odyssey Marine.
That $8000 in gold coins is worth about $720,000 in today’s money with the current price of gold. Not a bad haul.
After 50% in taxes, fuel, crew, and all the other costs involved he will be lucky to have enough left over to buy a Volt.
“he will be lucky to have enough left over to buy a Volt.”
Didn’t you mean ‘buy a vote’?
Good Read. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder.
Shipwreck in 1860’s off N. Carolina coast with the first minted gold coins from SF mint (49ers Calif. gold)— lots of Gold — very readable adventure. Stick to the end ‘cause when the insureance companies step in (the last chapter) a new adventure begins and ends quickly.
Going to NJ in two weeks, will look this up! Thanks!
btw — re: the book I cited above Ship of Gold
they go into Virginia Maritime Law which appears to be the law of the land for the East Coast (guess that applies to NJ also) — very interesting about staking out a claim in the middle of nowhere, i.e no land signifiers but by longitude and latitude.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Wow, the diver is from Florida? He must have worn out three pairs of swim fins getting to New Jersey. /rimshot |
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