Qualla: Black Swan Project https://qualla.com/black-swan-project en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Black Swan Project https://qualla.com/black-swan-project Black Swan Project: Introduction https://qualla.com/black-swan-project/ Photo credit Oilisab, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the crates landed at a secret address in Florida on 18 May 2007, the men who had loaded them in Gibraltar would say only that they contained coins. Not what kind. Not from where. Not from whose ship. Seventeen tons of silver and a small fortune in gold, worth somewhere around half a billion US dollars - the largest single recovery of shipwreck treasure ever announced. The company called it Black Swan, a project name as carefully chosen as the secrecy itself. The wreck, they implied, might be the Merchant Royal, sunk near Land's End in 1641 with riches the survivors described in 1641 as '300,000 Pounds in silver, 100,000 Pounds in gold, and as much again in jewel'. The coins, it turned out, were not from the Merchant Royal. They were from a Spanish warship, sunk in 1804, and Spain was about to spend five years getting them back.

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Image: Oilisab | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/gbg9-black-swan-project-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Black Swan Project: The Hunt and the Hush https://qualla.com/black-swan-project/ Photo credit jacinta lluch valero from madrid * barcelona...., (España-Spain), CC BY-SA 2.0. Odyssey Marine Exploration was, in 2007, one of the most aggressive deep-water salvage companies in the world. Founded in Tampa, publicly traded, and equipped with remotely operated submarines that could work at depths far beyond traditional divers, Odyssey treated the seabed of ...

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Image: jacinta lluch valero from madrid * barcelona...., (España-Spain) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/gbg9-black-swan-project-the-hunt-and-the-hush.mp3 0:06 2 full Black Swan Project: The Frigate Was Named for Mercy https://qualla.com/black-swan-project/ Photo credit Benjamín Núñez González, CC BY-SA 4.0. The ship Odyssey had found was the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate sunk by the British Royal Navy off Portugal in 1804. The encounter happened during a peacetime pursuit that Spain regarded - then and now - as an act of unprovoked aggression. The Mercedes was ca...

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Image: Benjamín Núñez González | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/gbg9-black-swan-project-the-frigate-was-named-for-mercy.mp3 0:06 3 full Black Swan Project: Five Years in Court https://qualla.com/black-swan-project/ Photo credit jacinta lluch valero from madrid * barcelona...., (España-Spain), CC BY-SA 2.0. The case wound through American federal courts for five years. Odyssey argued the wreck was found in international waters and that admiralty law gave them rights to the recovery. Spain argued that the Mercedes was a Spanish naval vessel and that the doctrine of sovereign immunity...

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Image: jacinta lluch valero from madrid * barcelona...., (España-Spain) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/gbg9-black-swan-project-five-years-in-court.mp3 0:06 4 full Black Swan Project: What the Coins Now Mean https://qualla.com/black-swan-project/ Photo credit Hispalois, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 2 December 2012 the Spanish government deposited 14.5 tons of recovered coins in the National Museum of Subaquatic Archaeology in Cartagena, in the Region of Murcia, where Spanish law dictates they can never be sold. They are catalogued, studied, and displayed - patrimony rath...

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Image: Hispalois | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/9/black-swan-project-wp/gbg9-black-swan-project-what-the-coins-now-mean.mp3 0:06 5 full