After 10 years they have found the missing piece of the golden statue

A golden wing found this summer by divers off the Atlantic coast of Florida turned out to be the missing piece of a discovery made almost 10 years earlier! Back then, a group of treasure hunters from the 1715 Fleet Society found a 300-year-old gold pelican statuette with one wing on the seabed.

Both the gold statue, which measures 14cm tall, and the missing wing came from a Spanish ship that crashed and sank in 1715. The statue was found in August 2010 by Bonnie Schubert while searching with an underwater metal detector about 300 metres off Frederick Douglass beach in Fort Pierce.

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The shipwrecked vessel was part of a fleet of 11 vessels full of treasure that were on their way back from Cuba to the Kingdom of Spain. On the last day of July 1715, the ships fled a powerful hurricane and, seeking refuge, reached the coast of nearby Florida.

Unfortunately, it was of little use and the Spanish fleet was smashed by the elements anyway, and the destruction was completed by the surrounding reef. As a result of the sinking of ships filled with gold, the area between the towns of St Lucie and Sebastian was named the ‘Treasure Coast’, and every year between May and September American divers search for sunken artifacts there.

Despite the lack of a wing, the figurine of the bird – originally thought to be an eagle – was sold for a round sum of $150,000, of which, in accordance with current law, 20% went to the coffers of the State of Florida.

Now a missing wing with a gold chain attached has been found not far from where the pelican statuette was found 10 years earlier. Luck smiled on Henry Jones, captain of the Perfect Day boat, and his crew member Tracy Newman. Over the past decade they have repeatedly searched the area for the missing piece and have finally made it!

It is believed that the statuette known as the Pelican of Piety was a reliquary in whose recess the holy relics were kept. The Pelican, a mother taking blood from her own breast to feed her hungry chicks, symbolised Christ the Redeemer who shed his blood on the cross.

The Pelican of Devotion is currently valued at US$885,000. Its buyer is interested in acquiring the missing wing if the price is right.

There is no denying that finding a missing fragment of a figurine is a remarkable story, but it is also quite a turnaround on the value of artefacts. Based on similar cases, we can safely assume that a set in the possession of one buyer will be worth more than the sum of both items if they have different owners.

^{Source: 1715 Fleet Society}