Spain to take delivery of Odyssey treasure next week

A federal magistrate in Tampa, Florida on Friday agreed to allow Spain a three-day inspection period next week before taking the 594,000 silver and gold coins and other artifacts that Odyssey Marine Exploration plucked from a 19^th century shipwreck and which have been at the center of an intense legal battle in the United States for more than five years.

US Magistrate Mark Pizzo said Spanish experts will get to inspect the coins and the rest of the trove on Tuesday to ensure that the government is satisfied that everything is in order before the goods are handed over. It will have three days to examine the treasure and after that period Spain will be free to take it back home, Pizzo said.

Two Spanish Hercules military jets and a technical team from the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology are expected to fly to southern Florida this weekend.

Both Odyssey and Spanish officials appeared before the US District Court on Friday in Tampa, where the shipwreck hunter is based, to go over the logistics and terms in handing over the estimated 594,000 silver and gold coins and other artifacts plucked from the shipwreck Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes.

Odyssey had also insisted that Spain pay some $400,000 in reimbursements to help the costs in keeping and preserving the coins since the court battle began with Pizzo’s original ruling in favor of Spain handed down in 2009. But the magistrate rejected Odyssey’s petition.

Spain's cultural attaché in Washington Guillermo Corral said he was "greatly satisified" with the ruling.

Spain’s lawyer James Goold asked Pizzo for a three-day inspection period to ensure that everything was in order and nothing was missing from the collection Odyssey had recovered in early 2007 off the southern coast of Portugal. According to a court filing early this week, Spain said that some of the coins were being prepared for their sale.

For their part, Odyssey officials, who had been adamant in their fight to keep the coins, appeared to finally accept their defeat before the hearing. “Sadly, we believe this case will have a profound negative effect on Spanish underwater archaeology. Whatever is found that has a potential interest for Spain will be hidden, or even worse, melted down and sold on eBay,” said Melinda MaConnel, Odyssey’s lawyer and vice president of the firm.

Odyssey chairman Gregg Stemm also said that “the ultimate loser” is Spanish heritage. “There won’t be any archaeological studies, no books, no exhibits or documentaries, about the discoveries of these archaeological finds,” he told Efe news agency.

Goold also asked the US magistrate to order Odyssey to hand over by February 29 another portion of the treasure from Las Mercedes that is being stored in Gibraltar.

Spain and Odyssey have been fighting a nearly five-year battle in the US federal court system over ownership of the coins the treasure hunter plucked from Las Mercedes that was sunk in the Atlantic by the British in 1804.

The US Supreme Court this week rejected two petitions for an emergency stay — one filed by Odyssey, the other by a descendant of one of the ship’s passengers — to prevent Spain from taking the coins immediately. After losing the case at the district court in Tampa and appellate court in Atlanta, Odyssey has said that it will take it to the justices in Washington but it wanted the coins to remain stateside until then.

Odyssey had also insisted that Spain close to $400,000 in reimbursements to help keep the coins since the court battle began with Pizzo’s original ruling in favor of Spain handed down in 2009. But the magistrate rejected Odyssey’s petition.