If one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, then Fort Lauderdale scuba divers Bob Rucci and Elaine McColskey are treasure hunters.

They also might just be plain old underwater junk collectors.

The divers spent five months exploring the ocean floor under Dania’s closed pier and recovered 2,000 pounds in lead weights, dozens of encrusted fishing knives, rusting cigarette lighters and about $45 in corroded coins.

The change included quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies and a Kennedy half- dollar issued during the Bicentennial. Many of the coins were worn paper- thin by shifting sands.

“It’s just been unbelievable,” Rucci said.

McColskey said she thinks the coins were tossed into the Atlantic by people making wishes, a thought that almost made her wish she had not collected them.

“I feel guilty,” she said.

Rucci and McColskey, a newly certified diver, said the small lead weights, in various shapes and sizes, were lost by unlucky anglers over the years.

The 30-year-old pier was declared unsafe and was closed in 1990. A few months ago, the Dania City Commission agreed to demolish the structure and build a new one.

Rucci will not divulge how much he earned selling the weights, but he said lead scrap dealers pay between 8 and 15 cents per pound. On his last trip to the dealer, he made $81.

“Most of the lead paid for all her new dive equipment,” Rucci said.

The divers also found a few bullets, a couple of men’s rings and a set of car keys, complete with a small electronic device used to trigger the car’s alarm.

What they also saw but left behind included fishing rods, pipes, balls of monofilament, dinner plates and hundreds of discarded Pepsi and Coke bottles.

“There is so much garbage down there,” McColskey said.

The divers discovered most of their booty in 20 feet of water or less by fanning the sand with their hands and waiting for the silt to clear, never quite knowing what they would see next.

McColskey got excited one day when she picked up what she thought was a diamond ring.

“I never heard anybody scream underwater before,” Rucci said.

As it turned out, the stone in the ring was cubic zirconia, a diamond lookalike of little value.

Rucci’s favorite artifact was a thin black knife handle engraved with a genie.

“You can tell something like that had a lot of sentimental value,” Rucci said. “For every one of these things dropped, somebody went, ‘Shoot!”‘

Rucci’s salvage efforts started in March, when he dove around the pier out of curiosity and began filling up the pockets of his buoyancy compensator, an inflatable life jacket that divers wear, with the lead weights he was finding.

“I thought, ‘There’s got to be something you can do with these,”‘ Rucci said.

Most of the weights were concentrated in mounds around each piling.

Diving near the pier is prohibited, and posted signs warn divers and swimmers to stay away. Rucci and McColskey, however, did most of their diving after getting off work at 5 p.m., after the city’s lifeguards had gone home.

The only witnesses to their underwater hunt were the barracuda, snook and other fish hanging out under the pier.

Rucci said there is not much lead left for anyone to see anymore.

“We fished it out,” he said.

UNDERWATER BOUNTY

Items found under Dania’s pier:

–Lead weights

–Fishing equipment including monofilament, fishing rods, knives and lures

–Cigarette lighters

–Soda and whiskey bottles

–Swiss knife

–Cans

–Keys

–Jewelry, including a turquoise earring

–Coins

–Sharpening stone

–Lights

–Pipes

–Plates

–A pair of tin snips, used to cut sheet metal.

SOURCE: Bob Rucci and Elaine McColskey.