The 'Duchy take'.

When years of searching & research pays off.

Im always on the hunt for treasure wrecks and found a couple of nice sites in my time and I'm often asked-"So what happens when someone in the UK finds treasure?  This is a big question with too many variables  to be able to it answer easily. However, one thing is for sure- it depends on where you find your wreck and whom owns it. In the past a salvor would gain possession of his wreck and because the original owner no longer exists-or the owner exists but does not want to pay the salvor for what he brings up -then the salvor usually gest the material in lieu of salvage and rightly so................ 

                                             

                                         The small treasure currently held by the Receiver of Wreck

.....................Im the one going home empty handed each night while feeling queezy from all the rolling around, going back and forth at sea through, all the hours god sends. Then, also, all alone, I go out when its calmer and safer, to dive all the anomalies I have identified during the survey. All that dive kit is also expensive to buy and maintain and even more so when you live on a tiny island as everything has to be sent to the mainland for servicing and repair.  Not to mention all the years of dive training to get me to this point. I even have to spend hours on end filling my own dive cylinders, with my own compressor, in order to perform the many dives it takes to actually find a wreck. In this case one of those anomalies identified in my survey turns out to be the wreck I'm actually hunting for. I then place myself in mortal danger for over two years mapping the wreck site and identifying everything on the sea bed that is all but hidden from view under thick weed. The tides flow fast over the wreck site. I can enter the water when it is slack tide but by the time the dive is over I come up in the tide and dare not let go of my rope to the boat for fear of being lost at sea. Sometimes the visibility is lousy, and sometimes the swells come over making the diver feel like he is in a washing machine. Sometimes I have to make a decision to abandon a dive for any of the many reasons above. Amidst all this I eventually identify an area on the site worthy of further investigation and amazingly find a small but not insignificant treasure. All I can think when that happens is that for once Im actually going to get paid!! I have been diving for 43 years and found 18 new wrecks in that time. So I can tell the reader that more often than not, the work is seldom profitable and thus far, when added all together- I am in financial deficit. The only way to make money is to find a big site like the Merchant Royal.

Government archaeologists on site.

 I salvaged that small treasure and nothing else on the sea bed has been disturbed. No artifacts are moved aside as they always did in the old days. I then call in the Government archaeologists to come and asses the wreck site as a whole. They get to see it pretty much as I found it. They get the benefit of my research and of my site plan of the wreck. I ask for nothing in return. Now is when the authorities suddenly take a great interest in what I am doing.   

Diving the site alone.

                                          A cropped version of my site plan of the wreck site.

There is one last thing to consider here- The RoW thinks it fit to allow a museum the advantage to buy the collection of artifacts without going to auction to bid for it. The RoW think it is fairer to get 3 independent valuations and to take the middle amount of the three and offer the collection to a museum at that middle price. This is neither legal, nor fair, on either myself or the original owner or the crown. Let me explain- A while back I took this material to Spinks, who are the biggest coin auctioneers in the world, and I was told by them that 'valuations are completely subjective'. That any valuation of this kind of material could never be accurately predicted. I was told that such items are most likely to go for far more money than any valuation undertaken. So if the items are likely to be worth far more than any valuation-then it stands to reason that someone will be unfairly treated if a museum has the benefit of buying it all without having to go to the auction- with the price paid by them based solely upon a subjective valuation only. Only an auction can set a true value of anything.  Similarly, if the valuations have been 'over estimated' then the auction will set the price here also. Better to let the Museum bid along with everyone else on the day- that is 'the' only fair way to proceed.