Odyssey Gold » Odyssey Marine

Odyssey Marine Shipwreck Exhibit Moves to Detroit

Elmer Hurlstone — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:58:23 +0000

What do pirates, sunken treasure, lost gold and Detroit have in common?

Odyssey Marine Explorations евтини мебели “SHIPWRECK: Pirates & Treasure” exhibit will open at the Detroit Science Center on March 24, 2008.

The traveling exhibit was most recently at Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry where it enjoyed a very successful run.

Tickets may be purchased at the Detroit Science Center online beginning Feb. 1, 2008 at www.detroitsciencecenter.org

Odyssey is a successful underwater exploration and recovery firm. Their stock is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol OMEX. The corporate offices are located in Tampa, Fl.

Stemm replaces Morris at Odyssey Marine

Elmer Hurlstone — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:24:47 +0000

“As many of our friends and investors know, I have been dealing with serious health issues for some time now. I have therefore made the decision that it is in Odyssey’s best interest that Greg takes over my offices. I am very proud of what we have built over the years, and with Greg at the helm I feel fully confident about the Company’s future. I am excited to still be able to serve Odyssey by providing ongoing consulting services, and by continuing to maintain a substantial amount of my personal assets in the Company,” said John C. Morris, outgoing CEO and Chairman.

With these words John C. Morris relinquished day-to-day operational control of Odyssey Marine (NASDAQ: OMEX) to his long time associate Greg Stem.

Mr. Morris, we wish you well.

Spain captures, detains Odyssey Explorer

Elmer Hurlstone — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:21:51 +0000

The Kingdom of Spain, once again in possible violation of international law, has seized a vessel operated by Tampa, Florida based Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.

According to a BBC article posted earlier today patrol boats of The Kingdom of Spain’s maritime police intercepted the Odyssey Explorer. OE is Odyssey’s 251 ft. (76m) primary research and recovery vessel. The vessel was “escorted” to the Spanish port of Algeciras.

A separate report on gibfocus.gi, a Gibraltar-centric blog reported that the vessel was in international waters when stopped by Spanish civil and naval vessels.

Odyssey Explorer is presumably being searched by Spanish authorities for evidence relating to the salvage of an estimated USD 500,000,000 value from a long lost sunken ship code named “Black Swan.”

The company announced the recovery in a press release dated May 18, 2007. According to the release the recovered treasure weighed 17 tons and consisted of, “… over 500,000 silver coins weighing more than 17 tons, hundreds of gold coins, worked gold, and other artifacts.”

Shortly after the recovery announcement Spain filed lawsuits claiming ownership of the find. The legal battle and apparent harassment of Odyssey operations is ongoing.

Elmer Hurlstone

Odyssey Marine TV Show?

Elmer Hurlstone — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:48:09 +0000

According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, FL) Odyssey Marine Exploration may be getting its own TV show. Odyssey (OMEX:NASDAQ) is a Tampa, Florida based deep ocean recovery firm. Odyssey has recently recovered an estimated 500 million dollar undersea treasure of silver and gold coins from an undisclosed site in the Atlantic Ocean.

The St. Pete Times article may be found here: http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/26/Business/Talk_of_the_bay__Piec.shtml

Elmer Hurlstone

Odyssey Marine gets $7 Million

Elmer Hurlstone — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:45:25 +0000

News of the Spain vs Odyssey Marine continuing legal battle has been scant as of late. Earlier this week it began to pickup.

According to papers filed with the (US) Securities and Exchange Commission the week of 10 September 07 Odyssey Marine Exploration received USD 7,000,000.00 from Fortress Investment Group. The money was provided by Fortress in return for shares of Odyssey preferred stock convertible to 100,000 shares of common stock at $5.35. Fortress recently made news when it was made public that it paid $479,512 to former Democrat Sen. John Edwards, in 2006, for “part-time” consulting work. Former Sen. Edwards is currently seeking the Democrat party nomination to run for President of the United States. He was the unsuccessful Democrat Vice Presidential nominee in 2004.

While Odyssey (OMEX: NASDAQ) recovered an estimated $500 Million dollars in silver and gold coins earlier this year the Kingdom of Spain has filed claim against the recovery in US Federal Court in Tampa, Florida. The cash infusion will assist OMEX in funding the legal battle.

Spain seizes Odyssey ship “Ocean Alert”

Elmer Hurlstone — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:46:49 +0000

The Kingdom of Spain seized, earlier today and under threat of force, the Odyssey Marine Exploration research vessel, Ocean Alert, in international waters. The ship was ordered to sail to the Spanish port of Algeciras to undergo a Spanish government search and inspection.

Odyssey Marine (NASDAQ: OMEX) issued a press release earlier today that details the events leading up to the interdiction of the vessel.

The complete text of the press release may be found at: http://shipwreck.net/pr140.html

Spain Blinks; Opposition “Chimes In” on Odyssey Marine Conflict

Elmer Hurlstone — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:30:10 +0000

Last week Spain’s Culture Minister admitted that Odyssey Marine’s recent find of an estimated half-billion US Dollars in sunken treasure, consisting of gold and silver coins, was likely discovered in international waters. That admission has not kept Spain from continuing to use the issue as an international political football.

Gibfocus, (http://www.gibfocus.gi/details_todaysnews.php?id=2559), a Gibralter-centric news and opinion site today, June 9, 2007, quoted a Spanish Opposition leader, Mr Bossano, at length in the referenced article. Among the many points Mr. Bossano made was that the treasure was not found in Spanish territorial waters and therefore Spain was using the Odyssey Marine situation to obfuscate other political issues concerning, Spain, Gibralter and the UK.

Odyssey Marine (AMEX: OMR) Moving to NASDAQ; to be OMEX

Elmer Hurlstone — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:04:30 +0000

Odyssey’s Journey to NASDAQ

The news release printed below is “Hot Off the Press”

In a rather interesting way it’s a return to the, once, familier. OMR, soon to be OMEX, initially traded on the bulletin boards (unlisted stocks, unaffiliated with an exchange) as OMEX. At that point success was in the offing and today’s share prices a dream.

Odyssey Marine Exploration Announces Move To The NASDAQ Stock Market

TAMPA, FL – June 28, 2007 – Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (currently AMEX:OMR), the world leader in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, announced today that its application for listing its common stock on The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC® has been approved, and the transfer of trading from the American Stock Exchange to NASDAQ will become effective on or about July 10, 2007. Odyssey Marine Exploration will trade under the symbol NASDAQ:OMEX. “This decision was reached after careful consideration of capital market alternatives and analysis of the electronic market model, which provides added visibility to our investors,” said John C. Morris, Odyssey Marine Exploration CEO and co-founder. “We believe that NASDAQ’s electronic multiple market maker structure will provide Odyssey with enhanced exposure and liquidity, while at the same time providing investors with the best prices, the fastest execution, and the lowest cost per trade. We feel the move to NASDAQ is an important step towards future growth of the Company.” About NASDAQ®
NASDAQ® is the largest U.S. electronic stock market. With approximately 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, its systems trade more shares per day than any other U.S. market. NASDAQ is home to companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, transportation, media and biotechnology. NASDAQ is the primary market for trading NASDAQ-listed stocks. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at http://www.nasdaq.com or the NASDAQ NewsroomSM http://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom. About Odyssey Marine Exploration
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. is engaged in the exploration of deep-water shipwrecks and uses innovative methods and state-of-the-art technology to conduct extensive deep-ocean search and recovery operations around the world. The Company recovered more than 51,000 silver and gold coins from the shipwreck of the SS Republic at a depth of approximately 1700 feet. On May 18, 2007, Odyssey announced the discovery and recovery of more than 500,000 coins from a Colonial era site in the Atlantic Ocean code-named “Black Swan“. Odyssey has several other shipwreck projects in various stages of development around the world and recently opened a shipwreck exhibit at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry called SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure. Additional information about Odyssey, the SS Republic shipwreck, the “Black Swan” project and the company’s other activities is available at www.shipwreck.net .

# # #
Odyssey Marine Exploration believes the information set forth in this Press Release may include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. Certain factors that could cause results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements are set forth in “Risk Factors” in the Part I, Item 1A of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Odyssey, the Media, Spain and the Gold

Elmer Hurlstone — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:52:18 +0000

News about Odyssey Marine and their recovery of an estimated $500,000,000 worth of gold and silver coins from a sunken treasure ship went wild. Over the period of May 18, 2007 thru May 31, 2007 I received over 119 Google News Alert notices. Each notice contained links to at least one story and sometimes up to six links per alert. May 18 brought 12 alerts consisting of 38 story links. The first link was to a AP story in the Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald. The articles were fairly factual and mostly based on the initial AP story. That started changing on the second day. And how!

Day two of the saga brought 16 alerts containing 30 story links. While most were factual towards the end of the day the wackiness began. Spain started lusting, publicly, after the gold. A column in “The London Times” announced that the sunken treasure was found off the coast of Tampa. And, of course, no sudden wealth story is complete without at least one long lost relative coming forth to stake claim to, at least, some portion of the loot. In this case it is a man claiming to be a direct descendent of the Captain of HMS Merchant Royal. The Merchant Royal sank in the Atlantic off the south east coast of England in 1641. Many are speculating it is the vessel from which OMR recovered the treasure. So – only 18 plus generations later a fellow wants a share of his great-great-great-great-etc. grandaddy’s personal fortune which was thought to be aboard the ship.

From there it continued with Spain continuing to scream and kick like a spoiled child. A few academicians bemoaned the rape of a pristine cultural asset by a for profit organization. These are, in many cases, the same academicians who, on bended knee with head hung low, serially submit grant requests, for their favorite airy-fairy projects, to philanthropies funded, by of all things, corporate profits.

Possibly the highlight of all the stories, articles and posts relating to the gold was a parody story posted on thespoof.com.

Also of importance during this time OMR stock prices hit new highs several times.

May 31, brought 16 Google News Alerts consisting of 30 seperate story links. This for the most part was due to The Kingdom of Spain deciding to effectivly blockade Odyssey’s research and recovery vessels in the port at Gibralter.

Just a quick note in closing: The Google News Alerts I subscribe to are in English only. The only non-English language I have any experience with is Spanish. Now while the ability to fluently read Spanish would have been very helpful in researching this post my year and a half of Spanish classes in high school 40 years ago failed me. As of today (6/26/07) Google is showing 128,000 pages in all languages versus 83,000 pages in English and about 20,000 pages in Spanish. Based on a significant number of posts and stories some of the Spanish press treated the story with less than complete regard for the truth.

News About Odyssey Marine: a short history

Elmer Hurlstone — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:18:39 +0000

The year 2006 brought sporadic news about Odyssey Marine and the firms continual search for lost treasure. There were government mandated financial reports and a few operational updates.

CEO John Morris returned after an extended medical leave.

A new, heavy weather capable, ship was purchased.

OMR stock prices were less than exciting; trading throughout 2006 was in a fairly narrow range between two and four dollars per share. The high for the year was $4.18 on March 13th with the low for the year, followed three months later, on June 19 at $1.52 per share.

Odyssey is in some ways a “story stock”. A story stock, according to investorwords.com, is, “A stock whose price is currently moving, or expected to move, due to some important company news”, hence, no exciting news and no, or not much, movement. The last major news was the recovery of silver and gold coins from the wreck of the SS Republic in 2005. At various times through the year a bit of hopeful news regarding the HMS Sussex project would surface resulting in increased interest.

The new year, 2007, arrived and it appeared not much had changed – until March 26th.

That’s the day Odyssey issued a press release stating that agreement had been reached between the Spanish government, the Junta of Andalucia, the UK and Odyssey concerning survey and identification methodology to be employed on the shipwreck believed to be the HMS Sussex. The full press release is available on Odyssey’s website.

After that the stock price wandered around in the “fours” until May 18, 2007 and then…

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment…

Elmer Hurlstone

ehurlstone@odysseygold.com