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American Morning

Sunken Treasure

Aired December 02, 2003 - 07:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Greg Stemm is his name and shipwrecks are his game. I'm sure you've never heard that one before. The discovery of the steamer ship Republic, 135 years after it sank in a hurricane, may be the watery jackpot for Stemm and his Odyssey Marine Exploration Group. The gold and silver coins from the deep could be the richest sunken treasure ever found.
Greg Stemm joins us to talk about his amazing find.

Greg, thanks for being with us. Congratulations.

GREG STEMM, OSYSSEY MARINE EXPLORATION: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: You have been wanting to do this from the time you were a little kid, I've read. The first moment you saw the images -- I mean, what jumped out at you? What do you remember?

STEMM: We were in the control console, and we have a big screen about like this one, and we had our crew and we had the National geographic film crew sort of looking over our shoulder. And there were a couple of coins that you could see. And as the ROV blew the sediment away, coins just kept appearing and more coins and more coins, and the National Geographic guys who have seen it all just sort of sat down their camera. And for about an hour, we just were in awe. It was the most amazing thing we had ever seen -- literally a carpet of gold.

COOPER: And, I mean, as we look at these images now, these -- I mean, this is what it looked like.

STEMM: That was it. It was amazing. It's like somebody from Disney would have set this up. You couldn't imagine that it would really look like this.

COOPER: Now, how are you salvaging this? I mean, this is a lengthy operation. It's very difficult. This is very deep.

STEMM: It's an archeological excavation. It's really important to know that we're not just, you know, recovering stuff. Every artifact is marked really carefully -- the x, y and z position. It's carefully noted. We do a photo mosaic before we do it. It's, like, don't try this at home.

COOPER: And you've got basically an unmanned sub of some sort of robot.

STEMM: It's huge. It's about the size of a Suburban. It's seven tons and it's a big robot. It's a 200 horsepower thing that's tethered to the surface with an umbilical. And one of the complicated things about this is not only is it 1,700 feet deep, but we're working in about five to six knots of current that we have to get the ROV through.

COOPER: So, this is the machine here, the Odyssey...

STEMM: That's it. That's the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COOPER: How many coins does it pick up at one time?

STEMM: One at a time.

COOPER: One coin at a time.

STEMM: One coin at a time. And the reason for that is some of these coins are extremely rare and very valuable, and one scratch can make the difference between $10,000 and $30,000 in value.

COOPER: That's remarkable.

STEMM: So one scratch.

COOPER: So, how many coins can you pick up in a day?

STEMM: So far, our best test is about 750 a day. We can pick up about one a minute without scratching them. That's the important thing.

COOPER: It's estimated at about $150 million worth of coins?

STEMM: Well, we're a publicly-traded company.

COOPER: OK.

STEMM: So, we are very cautious. We don't make estimates like that. There have been some numismatic experts that have suggested that it could be worth in the $120 to $150 million range. But we won't know until we get all of the coins up, which hopefully we'll be able to do within the next couple of months.

COOPER: In your wildest dreams, did you ever think you could get something like this?

STEMM: Yes, actually I did.

COOPER: You did?

STEMM: Yes.

COOPER: You were an optimistic young lad.

STEMM: Well, my partner, John Morris (ph), and I have been doing this for -- we started about 16 years ago down the pat, and we think there's a whole industry here. There are a lot of shipwrecks down their lying... COOPER: Yes, you're working on a number of them.

STEMM: We have about 15 different projects in the books right now. There are a lot of shipwrecks, and we've got the right equipment and a really great team of guys out there.

COOPER: Well, now you've got some money to work with, I guess.

STEMM: That's right.

COOPER: Greg Stemm, appreciate you joining us.

STEMM: Thank you, Anderson.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired December 2, 2003 - 07:47   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Greg Stemm is his name and shipwrecks are his game. I'm sure you've never heard that one before. The discovery of the steamer ship Republic, 135 years after it sank in a hurricane, may be the watery jackpot for Stemm and his Odyssey Marine Exploration Group. The gold and silver coins from the deep could be the richest sunken treasure ever found.
Greg Stemm joins us to talk about his amazing find.

Greg, thanks for being with us. Congratulations.

GREG STEMM, OSYSSEY MARINE EXPLORATION: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: You have been wanting to do this from the time you were a little kid, I've read. The first moment you saw the images -- I mean, what jumped out at you? What do you remember?

STEMM: We were in the control console, and we have a big screen about like this one, and we had our crew and we had the National geographic film crew sort of looking over our shoulder. And there were a couple of coins that you could see. And as the ROV blew the sediment away, coins just kept appearing and more coins and more coins, and the National Geographic guys who have seen it all just sort of sat down their camera. And for about an hour, we just were in awe. It was the most amazing thing we had ever seen -- literally a carpet of gold.

COOPER: And, I mean, as we look at these images now, these -- I mean, this is what it looked like.

STEMM: That was it. It was amazing. It's like somebody from Disney would have set this up. You couldn't imagine that it would really look like this.

COOPER: Now, how are you salvaging this? I mean, this is a lengthy operation. It's very difficult. This is very deep.

STEMM: It's an archeological excavation. It's really important to know that we're not just, you know, recovering stuff. Every artifact is marked really carefully -- the x, y and z position. It's carefully noted. We do a photo mosaic before we do it. It's, like, don't try this at home.

COOPER: And you've got basically an unmanned sub of some sort of robot.

STEMM: It's huge. It's about the size of a Suburban. It's seven tons and it's a big robot. It's a 200 horsepower thing that's tethered to the surface with an umbilical. And one of the complicated things about this is not only is it 1,700 feet deep, but we're working in about five to six knots of current that we have to get the ROV through.

COOPER: So, this is the machine here, the Odyssey...

STEMM: That's it. That's the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COOPER: How many coins does it pick up at one time?

STEMM: One at a time.

COOPER: One coin at a time.

STEMM: One coin at a time. And the reason for that is some of these coins are extremely rare and very valuable, and one scratch can make the difference between $10,000 and $30,000 in value.

COOPER: That's remarkable.

STEMM: So one scratch.

COOPER: So, how many coins can you pick up in a day?

STEMM: So far, our best test is about 750 a day. We can pick up about one a minute without scratching them. That's the important thing.

COOPER: It's estimated at about $150 million worth of coins?

STEMM: Well, we're a publicly-traded company.

COOPER: OK.

STEMM: So, we are very cautious. We don't make estimates like that. There have been some numismatic experts that have suggested that it could be worth in the $120 to $150 million range. But we won't know until we get all of the coins up, which hopefully we'll be able to do within the next couple of months.

COOPER: In your wildest dreams, did you ever think you could get something like this?

STEMM: Yes, actually I did.

COOPER: You did?

STEMM: Yes.

COOPER: You were an optimistic young lad.

STEMM: Well, my partner, John Morris (ph), and I have been doing this for -- we started about 16 years ago down the pat, and we think there's a whole industry here. There are a lot of shipwrecks down their lying... COOPER: Yes, you're working on a number of them.

STEMM: We have about 15 different projects in the books right now. There are a lot of shipwrecks, and we've got the right equipment and a really great team of guys out there.

COOPER: Well, now you've got some money to work with, I guess.

STEMM: That's right.

COOPER: Greg Stemm, appreciate you joining us.

STEMM: Thank you, Anderson.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.