Actually, Mel himself said that he never found the bulk of the treasure. His surviving son continued the search after Mel’s death, and even though he found hundreds of millions more treasure, if memory serves, he also said he still hadn’t found the the main hold of the ship.
I was lucky enough to be in Key West in 1987, and was able to go thru the “museum” where some of the treasure was stored while what they had was being divyed up for the shareholders. Stacks of silver bars were piled all over the place. Many glass cases were filled with gold, jewels and jewel encrusted gold objects.
Lots of armed guards, of course.
Yeah, that’s discussed near the end of the main (newer) vid — in particular a box of emeralds that’s known to have been loaded on the ship, worth about $500 million.
Mr. GG2 had an emerald from the Atocha. I think it was about 9-10 karats. He finally decided to sell it about 12 years ago and called Kim Fischer who he knows pretty well. Kim put it on consignment in the museum and sold it for him.