I bought a wooden model of the Santa Maria at a thrift store because why not 1400's ships are nice, and I just got the idea to put a year on the base of it, which currently only says "Santa Maria". The only year i had in mind was 1492, but i figured that might be a bit odd since I assume it was older. So I looked around online and saw some websites claiming it was built in 1460, but I cannot find any sources for the claim so where on earth are people getting that information and is it true or entirely made up?
We don't know when the Santa María was built.
That caravel makes its appearance in Christopher Columbus' first journey to the New World, where it ended up being dismantled after capsizing, and its wood used to create the first christian settlement in the Americas called Fuerte Natividad (or Navidad in more modern terminology).
The ship belonged to shipwright, pilot, and cartographer Juan de la Cosa, who used it as a way to invest "in kind" in the Columbus' expedition. According to some sources, the ship had been called "La Gallega" (the Galician), which would likely mean that it had been built in Galicia, likely in the shipyard of Baiona.
When Juan de la Cosa came back to Castile from the first journey into the New World, he asked the Crown to be compensated for the loss of his ship. The Crown agreed to compensate him, granting him license to export 200 wheat "cahices" free of any royal taxes.
There is some confusion around the Santa María, as some sources from the 16th century claim it had been previously called Mari Galante, but it has no basis in primary sources. Chronicler Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas dispelled that error pointing out that the Marigalante was one of the ships that took part in Columbus' second journey, whereas the Santa María capsized and was dismantled in the first one