1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels, LLC v. Unidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Vessell

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

This in rem admiralty proceeding began in 1979, when Cobb Coin Company retrieved a cannon from wreckage discovered off the coast of Florida. That cannon was part of a shipwreck' dating back to 1715, when eleven Spanish galleons carrying gold, silver, and precious jewels perished off the Florida coast in a hurricane. Over the next 264 years, the shifting tides spread and then buried the remains of these ships and their cargo along the coastline. In 1982, Cobb Coin was awarded exclusive salvaging rights to the shipwreck of one of those galleons, and the district court held…