Seventeen tons of gold and silver coins recovered from sunken galleon touch down in Spain

(I know the loot was found off Portugal, but Odyssey Marine Exploration is based in good ol' Florida ... Couldn't resist this story about one of the biggest sunken treasures EVER found ...)

Home at last: part of the treasure from the 19th-centuary Spanish galleon that landed in Madrid today following a long legal battle

London Daily Mail
February 25, 2012

Two military planes laden with 17 tons of silver and gold coins scooped up from a Spanish warship that sank during a 1804 gunbattle landed in Spain today, ending a 200-year odyssey that took the treasure from an ocean floor to Florida courtrooms.

The planes landed with the 594,000 coins and other artifacts retrieved after a five-year legal wrangle with the Florida-based salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which had taken the haul to the U.S. in May 2007.

Once the treasure is offloaded from the planes it will be transported to an undisclosed location, state broadcaster RTVE said.

The deep-sea explorers found the treasure in a shipwreck, believed to be Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast.

British warships had sunk it as it approached Spain as part of a fleet that had traveled from South America. The Mercedes was believed to have had 200 people aboard when it exploded and sank.

Odyssey made international headlines when it discovered the wreck, estimating the trove to be worth as much as $500 million to collectors, making the haul one of the richest ever ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106373/Spanish-treasure-lands-200-years-17-tons-gold-silver-coins-touch-Spain.html#ixzz1pIb5Rnnx