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Author Topic: Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S.  (Read 3684 times)

sky otter

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Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S.
« on: April 25, 2014, 11:40:53 am »
Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S. Lures Hunter
April 25, 2014 12:25 PM ET.

By Liezel Hill



Wreck of the SS Central America

Treasure-hunter Bob Evans has spent half his life dreaming about the SS Central America, a pre-Civil War steamship decaying in the lightless depths off South Carolina. Now he’s returning to the shipwreck after 23 years.

Evans, 60, set out this week with deep-ocean explorer Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OMEX -5.07%, news) to revisit the remains of the 19th-century sidewheel steamer, which sank in 1857 with the loss of 425 lives and an undetermined amount of gold. Despite recovery efforts in 1989 through 1991 that netted more than two tons of the precious metal, Odyssey says there may still be $86 million of gold lying more than a mile below the surface of the Atlantic.

“This is the greatest lost treasure in United States history,” Evans, who was chief scientist on the earlier expeditions, said in a phone interview before the ship sailed.

Even with the plunge in gold last year, the metal is still more than triple its price in the early 1990s, when previous recovery efforts were suspended because of legal battles over rights to the treasure. And the rare coins that have been found at the site are selling for much more than their weight in gold.

For Odyssey, the Central America shipwreck offers another chance to show the potential gains from deep-sea salvaging. While the Tampa-based company had its biggest profit in the fourth quarter and has recovered tons of treasure in past projects, some chronicled in the Discovery Channel series “Treasure Quest,” it’s failed at others and hasn’t posted an annual profit in eight years.

‘Very Atypical’
Odyssey is a “very atypical company in an atypical industry,” Mark Argento, a Minneapolis-based analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets, said by phone. “It’s more like a biotech company: Not every biotech company gets every drug approved.”

Ryan Morris of hedge fund Meson Capital Partners LLC says it’s unlikely Odyssey will find any easily recoverable gold. He’s shorting Odyssey’s stock and vowed to give any personal profit to charity.

Odyssey is undeterred. The company cites a court-appointed expert for its estimate of how much gold may still be at the wreck site, assuming that the bullion is in the form of 19th-century U.S. coins called Double Eagles.

“Our research department and the court-appointed experts all believe there is enough gold remaining at the SS Central America to warrant the expense of conducting an expedition,” Odyssey President Mark Gordon said last month in an e-mail.

California Gold
In 1857, the quickest way to get from San Francisco to New York was to take a steamship to Panama, cross the isthmus by train and then sail up the coast via Havana. The Central America, which ran the Atlantic leg, was on its 44th round trip when it sank on Sept. 12 after being caught in a hurricane. Only about 150 passengers were saved.

The ship was carrying, among other things, a large consignment of gold for businesses, including ingots and coins, from California’s Gold Rush, according to the 1998 book “Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea.”

Based on information in “Ship of Gold” and other references, there may be an additional cargo, often referred to as the army-guarded gold. The company wasn’t counting on finding any of that in its cost calculations, Gordon said on a March 17 earnings conference call.

‘Collapsed Building’
The shipwreck site was located in 1988 by a group led by explorer Tommy Thompson, who raised financing for and led a series of expeditions beginning in the 1980s. Evans, a geologist, began working with Thompson, his former neighbor, in 1983.

“It’s essentially a four-story collapsed building at the bottom of the sea,” said Evans, who was one of a handful of people in the ship’s control room who watched the deep-water discoveries via video transmissions from a camera aboard a remotely operated robot called Nemo.

Using the robot, which can withstand deep-sea pressures of 4,000 pounds per square inch, the expeditions found gold flakes, coins and bars over the following three years, according to Thompson’s 1998 book “America’s Lost Treasure.”

Thompson’s operations were cut short by legal battles, beginning with lawsuits filed by insurance companies, banks and underwriters. Thompson’s group eventually successfully defended the right to 92.5 percent of the artifacts it recovered and the right as salvor to recover what remained at the wreck.

Arrest Warrant
The salvaged gold was sold in a series of auctions and private sales. Today, you can bid on a so-called $20 Double Eagle from the Central America on EBay Inc.’s website priced at about $11,000.

Still, the legal disputes dragged on when investors didn’t receive any money from the expeditions, according to Ira Owen Kane, who was appointed by a court to manage Thompson’s companies for the benefit of the investors and their creditors.

An arrest warrant was issued for Thompson in August 2012 after he failed to appear at a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Edmund A. Sargus.

Avonte Campinha-Bacote, a lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, who represented Thompson from 2012 to 2013, said he was unable to provide current contact details for Thompson.

‘Incredibly Unlikely’
Odyssey, which was selected for the Central America project by Kane, said it will receive 80 percent of recovery proceeds until a fixed fee and a negotiated day rate are paid, without disclosing those amounts. After that, Odyssey will receive 45 percent of the proceeds.

Meson Capital’s Morris said in a March phone interview he believes Thompson probably would have tried to retrieve any remaining gold “if there was really stuff worth finding.”

Odyssey discounts the possibility that anyone has been able to access the site since 1991.

One of many impediments is the depth of the wreck, Odyssey said. Though not as deep as the RMS Titanic, discovered in about 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) of water, Odyssey said the site of Central America at about 7,200 feet would make it inaccessible to most groups.

An expert retained by the court estimated that the gold remaining on the ship was probably worth $343,000 to $1.37 million in 1857, according to Odyssey. Using the low end of the estimate, there would be at least 17,150 coins still at the site if the gold was in the form of Double Eagles, Gordon said March 17.

Using a conservative average price per coin of $5,000, the potential cargo would now have a value of $85.8 million, Gordon said, in what he described as a hypothetical exercise. The value would be reduced if some of the bullion is in ingots, bars or gold dust. Gold for immediate delivery rose 0.5 percent to $1,299.85 an ounce at 5:23 p.m. in London.

Evans, who will represent the original investors and act as a scientific adviser, says he’s sure the Odyssey expedition will more than pay for itself -- though he won’t be more specific.

“I publish and I teach about what we did recover and the history of the site,” Evans said. “But all along I’ve known what it still holds.”

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=BLOOM&date=20140425&id=17557794
« Last Edit: April 25, 2014, 01:29:17 pm by zorgon »

Offline zorgon

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Re: Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S.
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2014, 01:39:34 pm »
SS Central America, Ship of Gold,


SS Central America Date   3 October 1857 Library of Congress Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, was a 280-foot (85 m) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the eastern coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally named the SS George Law, after Mr. George Law of New York. The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with more than 550 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857.

Sinking

On 3 September 1857, 477 passengers and 101 crew left the Panamanian port of Colón, sailing for New York City under the command of William Lewis Herndon. The ship was heavily laden with 10 short tons (9.1 t) of gold prospected during the California Gold Rush. After a stop in Havana, the ship continued north.



Storm path

On 9 September 1857, the ship was caught up in a Category 2 hurricane while off the coast of the Carolinas. By 11 September, the 105 mph (165 km/h) winds and heavy surf had shredded her sails, she was taking on water, and her boiler was threatening to go out. A leak in one of the seals to the paddle wheels sealed her fate, and, at noon that day, her boiler could no longer maintain fire. Steam pressure dropped, shutting down both the pumps keeping the water at bay and the paddle wheels that kept her pointed into the wind as the ship settled by the stern. The passengers and crew flew the ship's flag upside down (a universal sign of distress) to try to signal a passing ship. No one came.


A bucket brigade was formed and her passengers and crew spent the night fighting a losing battle against the rising water. During the calm of the hurricane, attempts were made to get the boiler running again, but these all failed. The second half of the storm then struck. The ship was now on the verge of foundering. Without power, the ship was carried along with the storm, so the strong winds would not abate. The next morning, two ships were spotted, including the brig Marine. One-hundred fifty-three passengers, primarily women and children, managed to make their way over in lifeboats. However, the ship remained in an area of intense winds and heavy seas that pulled the ship and most of her company away from rescue and eventually sent the ship to the bottom at 8:00 P.M on that night, and as a consequence of the sinking, 425 people were killed. A Norwegian bark, Ellen, rescued an additional fifty from the waters. Another three were picked up over a week later in a lifeboat.

Effects of the sinking

At the time of her sinking, Central America carried gold then valued at approximately $2 million USD. The loss shook public confidence in the economy, and contributed to the Panic of 1857.

Commander William Lewis Herndon, a distinguished officer who had served during the Mexican–American War and explored the Amazon Valley, was captain of Central America. Commander Herndon went down with his ship. Two US Navy ships were later named USS Herndon in his honor, as was the town of Herndon, Virginia. Two years after the sinking, his daughter Ellen married Chester Alan Arthur, later the 21st President of the United States.

Several books were written about this historic ship. One book is America's Lost Treasure, a pictorial chronicle of the sinking and recovery. Gary Kinder's Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is an account of the recovery efforts.

Search and discovery

The ship was located by the use of Bayesian search theory and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operated by the Columbus-America Discovery Group of Ohio, that was sent down on September 11, 1988. Significant amounts of gold and artifacts were recovered and brought to the surface by another ROV built specifically for the recovery. Tommy Thompson led the group. Thirty-nine insurance companies filed suit, claiming that because they paid damages in the 19th century for the lost gold, they had the right to it. The team that found it argued that the gold had been abandoned. After a legal battle, 92% of the gold was awarded to the discovery team in 1996. In March, 2014, a contract was awarded to Odyssey Marine Exploration to conduct archeological recovery and conservation of the remaining shipwreck.

The total value of the recovered gold was estimated at $100–150 million. A recovered gold ingot weighing 80 lb (36 kg) sold for a record $8 million and was recognized as the most valuable piece of currency in the world at that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Central_America

America's Lost Treasure Hardcover – November 1, 1998
by Tommy Thompson



Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck
Gary Kinder

Offline zorgon

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Re: Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S.
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2014, 01:45:15 pm »
Coin Hoards Past & Future:
A Historical Look at Investing in Hoard Coins



oins from the S.S. Central America shipwreck on the ocean floor off the Virginia coast.

http://www.amergold.com/library/specialreporthoard.php


sky otter

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Re: Sunken Gold Untouched for 157 Years Off U.S.
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2014, 02:04:17 pm »


shoulda looked here too..




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3wFGWGzTXU[/youtube]






Uploaded on Aug 12, 2010

A look at a mail ship that sank in the 19th century and made news again in the 20th -- the SS Central America. Read more at: http://npm.si.edu/exhibits/2a3c_ameri...

Category Education

LicenseStandard YouTube License



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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIzTL6SGJs[/youtube]




Published on Oct 3, 2013

Bob Evans, Chief Scientist, SS Central America Project, Interviewer: David Lisot, CoinWeek.com.
Bob Evans was chief scientist on the salvage operation to recover the US Central America treasure ship that sunk in 1857. He talks about what it has been like to have spent more than 30 years being involved with what has been called the greatest treasure find of all time.
More news and video about coin and paper money collecting at: http://coinweek.com.

Category People & Blogs

LicenseStandard YouTube License



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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXWNlVkEMhs[/youtube]




Published on Jun 1, 2012

In 1857, the elegant side-wheel steamer SS Central America was bound for New York, carrying 578 hardy souls and more than two tons of gold dust, nuggets, coins and assayer ingots from the California Gold Rush. The ship never made port, sinking in a hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas in 8,000 feet of deep blue sea. The loss has been described as the greatest economic catastrophe in all of U.S. maritime history, triggering the Panic of 1857, a severe recession and a deep depression.


Several years later, in 1865, at the end of the U.S. Civil War, two more ships containing significant cargoes of gold and silver coins were lost—the SS Brother Jonathan off the coast of Northern California in a violent storm...and the SS Republic, on its way to New Orleans to aid in the Reconstruction of the South, sunk in a hurricane off the Georgia coast.

For more than 100 years, all this treasure rested on the ocean floor and was thought to have been lost forever. But thanks to modern computer technology and recovery techniques, scientists and deep water salvage experts located each of these shipwrecks and recovered thousands of gold and silver coins...unique assayer gold ingots, bars and "bricks"...a few precious pounds of gold dust and nuggets...and other 19th century numismatic treasures.

For many years now, Monaco Rare Coins has been the recognized leader in offering this recovered shipwreck treasure to market, and to thousands of eager rare coin collectors and investors. We maintain an active, two-way buy and sell market in these rarities and will always make you an offer to buy your shipwreck treasure should you decide to sell.

If you are interested in acquiring what many believe to be the finest specimens of rare and historically significant shipwreck treasure coins and artifacts, you owe it to yourself to contact Monaco now.

Category Education

LicenseStandard YouTube License



.........................................................


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmOmSQEshok[/youtube]




Uploaded on May 24, 2011

After over a century at the bottom of the sea these gleaming keep sakes offer the investor a unique opportunity to truly own a piece of American history.

I'll give you an example the S.S. Central America sank in 1857 carrying thousands of coins. These coins represented an illuminating cross section of the minted currencies of the time making them one of the most remarkable treasures ever found. Never before has the public been able to acquire coins with such rare and historical significance. Because these coins are so rare and there's a very limited amount available to the public investing is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Rare coin investment performance is well documented by many sources, consumer reports, guide sheets and a host of other industry periodicals. These reports have proven that carefully selected portfolios of rare coins have had a high rate of long term appreciation. I strongly recommend you consider adding rare coins to your investment portfolio.

Category Education

LicenseStandard YouTube License




.........................................




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbzsOAa0IY4[/youtube]




Published on Sep 2, 2012

At the Long Beach Expo, a replica of the SS Central America fascinated thousands of onlookers. Adam Crum recounts the story of the rich treasure that was recovered after being at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for 130 years. Fantastic narration by Julie Uptegraff.

Category Education

LicenseStandard YouTube License


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