I Love the Sound of Gold': Treasure From Legendary 1715 Spanish Shipwreck Discovered 100 Feet From Fla. Shore

The 1715 Treasure Fleet Queen's Jewels salvage company made the discovery of a lifetime over the weekend in recovering dozens of gold coins from a legendary shipwreck in 1715.

According to CNN: "The coins, called escudos, were part of the treasure aboard a fleet of 11 Spanish galleons wrecked by a hurricane off the Florida coast on July 31, 1715. It was this famous shipwreck that gave this part of Florida its nickname, The Treasure Coast."

The 48 coins have been valued at roughly somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000, the company's owner Brent Brisben said.

(Photo: WPTV via CNN)

(Photo: WPTV via CNN)

But Brisben cautioned that the work isn't diving until you see a "big galleon on its side with treasure chests overflowing."

Rather, "With shipwrecks that old, most of the organic material like the actual wood of the ship is gone, due to deterioration. What's left are mostly metals and pottery... china, silver buckles, bronze cannons and gold coins."

Captain Greg Bounds told WPTV: "A lot of times, it's beer cans, fishing weights, just garbage."

Which may be one of the reasons why this case is so remarkable.  According to CNN, the treasure was discovered in water just six feet deep, only 100 feet from the shoreline.

(Photo: WPTV via CNN)

The company describes itself as dedicated to exploring the 1715 fleet and bringing the "amazing story" to the public.

"We hope the recovery of these historic artifacts will help educate people about the Spanish colonization of the new world and life on the high seas in 1715," the website reads. "Not to mention more than 2 million silver coins and an untold amount of gold yet to be recovered."

And while the group's most recent discovery would mark a crowning discovery for most, they have made a number of equally impressive finds in the past.

(Photo: WPTV via CNN)

In 2010, Bonnie Schubert was working as a subcontractor for the company when she found an "absolutely perfect and impossibly gold" statue of a bird that had been resting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for roughly 295 years.

It had an appraised value of $885,000.

After this weekend's find, Bounds remarked: "I love the sound of gold...This right here is what makes it all worth it."

For more on the story, watch WPTV's complete report below:

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