Catching bids and keeping the enthusiasm flowing, ringman Mike Lewis lets out a yelp during the auction Wednesday in Tampa. The new owners of the sunken treasures contributed $761,500 to a Treasury Department fund.
Christopher James of Palm Beach videotapes the coins and other shipwreck items before the auction. He is watched by Rolando Perez-Pedrero of Tampa, reflected on the table.
TAMPA - Tom McKaughan said his wife had been hoping for a minivan.
But for now, she'll have to settle for a $16,000 piece of sunken treasure from the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet shipwreck.
On a whim, McKaughan loaded his son and daughter into the family's Kia on Wednesday and headed to the Radisson Riverwalk Hotel for an auction of shipwreck artifacts and gold coins confiscated from a convicted drug smuggler.
"It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get something that's authentic, a work of art and a treasure," said McKaughan, an airline pilot from Belleair Bluffs. "So I bought it."
The auction lists McKaughan's new treasure as a gold candlestick holder, but it was probably used as a communion vase, said Daniel Frank Sedwick, a rare coin dealer.
Either way, it was one of the most unique and expensive items sold at the auction, which fetched more than $760,000 for a Treasury Department forfeiture fund for law enforcement operations.
The auction was the last of five held around the country to sell the assets of Thomas Ruck, currently serving 121/2 years for cocaine trafficking.
Over the years, Ruck had hidden away a cache of U.S. gold coins and Spanish colonial treasure. Most of the shipwreck coins and artifacts were from the 1715 fleet, which sank during a hurricane off the coast of Florida.
The auctions raised about $1.3-million, said Britney Sheehan, a spokeswoman for EG&G Technical Services, which organized the Tampa sale.
Authorities believe Ruck, 63, flew more than three tons of cocaine into southwest Florida from Colombia in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the Cali cartel.
Ruck fled after being indicted in 1993 and was caught in Hawaii in 2001. When he pleaded guilty in March 2002, he surrendered the sunken artifacts and coins, $300,000 cash, three Harley-Davidson motorcycles and a Ferrari.
Ruck, being held in the Taft Federal Prison in California, said in a telephone interview that he voluntarily gave up the treasure as part of his guilty plea.
"They were looking for a very substantial forfeiture," Ruck said. "I decided rather than get life in prison I'd give them everything I had."
Ruck said he and four other divers found most of the treasure off the coast of Florida over the course of several months in the mid 1980s. He said scuba diving and books about the Atocha shipwreck piqued his interest in sunken treasure.
He's "one of the few and lucky" people in the world to live his childhood dream, he said.
"It's just about a heart-stopper to look through your goggles through the water and see gold glinting down there," Ruck said. "Anyone who's been through the experience could tell you that."
But John Gaudioso, special agent in charge at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa, said he's skeptical of Ruck's claim. One reason is that Ruck refused to specifically discuss where the treasure came from.
"He's a career smuggler," Gaudioso said. "It's very hard for me to believe he just by luck found this treasure in the ocean somewhere."
Ruck says he won't provide specifics because when and if he gets out of jail, he may go back to look for more treasures.
By Wednesday evening, his old collection was scattered.
Many in the crowd of about 450 arrived early to inspect the coins and artifacts. "You have an opportunity today that's very rare," auctioneer Gary Poulsen said before taking bids on Lot 1 of 250. "You'll probably never see this again."
Mark Sullivan, 43, of Starke, bid on the first lot, a silver ingot from the Atocha. "I thought with all the gold coins it might draw attention away from the silver bar," he said.
It didn't; the silver went to another bidder, for $8,300.
But the most expensive item was a gold ingot from the 1715 fleet, which sold for $18,000. The least expensive items - U.S. gold coins - sold for an average of $475 each.
Many among the 228 registered bidders were dealers and treasure hunters - their pastimes given away by the gold coins hanging around their necks.
For Pam McCullough, a senior special agent for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday's auction was the end of a long chapter in her career. She'd been on the Ruck case since 1996.
"Now we're seeing closure to the investigation and to the case," she said.
For their own closure, Tom McKaughan and his son and daughter have one more thing to do: Tell mom.
How will she react?
Said Jessica, 16: "She'll be okay within a day."
By the numbers$1.33-million - total revenue from five auctions
$761,500 - Tampa auction revenue
$18,000 - most expensive artifact, a gold ingot from the 1715 fleet
$13,250 - most expensive Spanish colonial gold coin, an 8 escudo from 1703
$900 - least expensive Spanish colonial gold coin, a 2 escudo with date unknown
$475 - average price of hundreds of U.S. gold coins, which were sold in lots
