Royal Mint takes delivery of 48 tonnes of silver salvaged from site of WWII shipwreck.
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Quote:
The Royal Mint has received an overseas delivery of 48 tonnes of silver – 70 years later than expected.
Depleted of enough stock during World War Two to make coins, Britain was reliant on silver from the war ship SS Gairsoppa but hit by a U-boat torpedo, she never docked in port to make her precious delivery.
Now, however, the silver is finally in the hands of the Llantrisant-based Royal Mint and will be turned into limited edition coins after deep-sea explorers discovered SS Gairsoppa three miles beneath the surface.
Through sonar imaging, American-based company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, discovered the 412ft vessel 300 miles off the coast of western Ireland and began their 15,420ft descent to retrieve the treasure.
Operating in such deep water made raising the forgotten ingots to the surface a time-consuming process. By the time the first batch totalling 1,200 bars had been retrieved there was an estimated £23m worth of silver on board.
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There's more in the orginal article including a video.
Dad and I both bought one of the coins which arrived about ten days ago, but we haven't yet watched the accompanying Discovery Channel DVD.
I had to search around for an article that wasn't a barely disguised sales spiel!