Free Republic

Colombia is hoping to expedite its mission to recover a three-century-old sunken treasure worth as much as $20 billion as the ownership of the fortune lies in legal limbo amid an ongoing court battle. President Gustavo Petro ordered his administration to exhume the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” — the Spanish galleon San José — from the floor of the Caribbean Sea as soon as possible, the country’s minister of culture told Bloomberg last week. Petro wants to bring the 62-gun, three-masted ship to the surface before his term is up in 2026 and has requested a public-private partnership be formed...

The Royal Navy sank the galleon in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession, but its resting place had been a mystery for more than three centuries. Today its contents could be worth billions. ...Experts speculate that the ship was loaded with at least 200 tons of treasure, including millions of high-purity gold doubloon coins, as well as many silver coins and emeralds that the Spanish empire had plundered from South America, worth up to $17bn (£13.5bn) today. The salvage rights have been subject to decades of litigation and are contested by a professional salvage company that claims to...

A treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires buried for decades on a glacier off France’s Mont Blanc has finally been shared between the climber who discovered them and local authorities, eight years after they were found. The mountaineer stumbled across the precious stones in 2013. They had remained hidden in a metal box that was onboard an Indian plane that crashed in the desolate landscape some 50 years earlier. In September 2012, India took possession of a bag of diplomatic mail from a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai which crashed on the south-west face of Mont Blanc on 24...

Now we know one reason why Obama bowed to the Saudi monarch. The Saudi Kingdom gave the Obama team suitcases of jewels during their infamous Apology Tour.

Taliban fighters aren't just making gains on the battlefield: They're also bleeding away a revenue source that is crucial for Afghanistan to pay for its military without US help. The Afghan government will earn about $30 million in 2015 from its mineral sector for the third straight year, far short of a previous projection of $1.5 billion, according to Mines and Petroleum Minister Daud Shah Saba. That's also a quarter of what smugglers -mostly linked to the Taliban and local warlords -earn annually selling rubies and emeralds, he said.

To celebrate the publication of her book Taylor asked her favorite jewelers to donate a precious piece for an auction to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. That event, to be held at Christie's on September 26, will take place during a book party sponsored by In Style. All proceeds from the auction will benefit ETAF. Liz at the 1971 Academy Awards wearing the Cartier diamond, later renamed the Taylor-Burton diamond. Originally a ring (inset) the Burtons had it made into a necklace when Taylor thought it too big for a ring. These earrings were originally made of paste and...