SPANISH GOLD MAKES PORT IN QUEENS

Gold, $10 million worth of it - in gleaming doubloons, pieces of eight, bullion, jewelry and seven-foot-long chains - forms the centerpiece of ''Shipwrecked 1622,'' an exhibition on view at the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park through Nov. 29.

''Lost treasure - it's one of the primal fantasies of man,'' Janet Schneider, the museum's director, said the other day, handing a visitor a heavy chunk of 23-carat bullion the size of half a small pie.

Beyond the exhibition's entrance, which is marked by an imposing, 14-foot-tall anchor, are more than a hundred objects recovered from the hulks of two 17th-century Spanish galleons, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita, which went down in sight of each other during a hurricane off the Florida coast on Sept. 5, 1622. Laden with gold, silver, copper, tobacco and indigo, they were part of a fleet of 28 vessels bound from Havana to Spain and carrying a load of riches to help King Philip IV finance the Thirty Years' War. Five members of the crew survived, but 550 drowned, and eight ships sank at the site, between Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

Poison Cup With Bezoar Stone

Much of the treasure is cast in 22-and 23-carat gold, including a so-called ''poison cup,'' an object that immediately attracts the beholder. The exquisitely carved solid-gold cup, with scroll-shape handles depicting dolphins, is about five inches in diameter and was specially restored for the exhibition. Miss Schneider explained that the cup got its name because it once held a bezoar stone - an organic stone that grows in the gastrointestinal system of a Persian goat and contains a substance that was once thought to neutralize arsenic and other toxic chemicals. It was also believed able to ward off evil spirits.

The cache recovered from the galleons is the result of a 15-year quest by Mel Fisher and his Treasure Salvors Inc. of Key West. With the help of original research in Spanish archives and inventive salvage technology - a so-called ''mailbox'' that uses the prop-wash of a boat's propellers to blow sand off submerged objects -Mr. Fisher found the shipwrecks and retrieved about 10 percent of their cargo - which on the Atocha alone comprised 901 silver bars, 161 gold bars and about 225,000 silver coins. All together, the cargoes of the two galleons are believed to be worth more than a million and a half ducats, or about $250 million.

Treasure seekers had long known that the shipwrecks lay somewhere off the Florida Keys, and in 1965, with previous experience in salvage operations, Mr. Fisher set out to find them. After a fruitless search, he turned to a friend for some scholarly help. Eugene Lyon, researching his doctoral thesis in Seville, found records of salvage attempts that the Spaniards had made for eight years after the galleons sank, and managed to map the location of the wreckage.

In June 1971, the huge anchor of the Atocha was found. Then in May 1973, Mr. Fisher and his divers struck, not gold, but silver - a pocket of 1,500 doubloons. Mr. Lyon, having obtained ships' manifests that detailed the cargoes of the Atocha and the Santa Margarita, found that he could determine which ship was which, and subsequently more treasure was salvaged from the hulks.

But the treasure is only a part of the exhibition at the Queens Museum. ''We want people to see exactly what life was like aboard a 17th-century galleon,'' Miss Schneider said, pointing out some of the other artifacts on display: books, maps and prints of the period; armaments such as matchlock muskets and grapeshot; an astrolabe, which was a forerunner of the sextant, and other nautical devices, such as a solid-gold boatswain's whistle and a pocket-size sundial. Museum Recently Remodeled

The handsomely mounted exhibition, which is one of several on display at the recently remodeled museum, was financed by a grant from the Chase Manhattan Bank and includes objects from private collections, the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A 48-page catalogue has also been produced for the show.

Among the other exhibitions on view is a large collection of contemporary sculpture that combines the whimsical qualities of the toymaker's art with the intricacies of machinery. And on the ground floor, a platoon of larger-than-life, soft-sculpture marionettes dangle from their strings - which visitors are free to pull.

Another display, of photographs and other memorabilia, is a look back at the symbol of the 1939 World's Fair, the trylon and perisphere, former occupants of the Unisphere's site, next to the Queens Museum.

Also, as many New Yorkers will remember, the building that houses the Queens Museum was a feature of both the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs and it remains the permanent home of a huge topographical map of the entire city, complete with detailed renderings of all the buildings and hundreds of blinking lights.

The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. and Sundays 1 to 5. It is closed Mondays. The suggested contribution is $1 for adults, 50 cents for children. A recorded tour of the exhibition is available.

To get to the museum by subway, take the IRT No. 7 train to the Willets Point-Shea Stadium station. By car, take the Grand Central Parkway to the Shea Stadium exit. Follow signs to the museum, which is next to the Unisphere. For information, call 592-5555.