This is from the Columbus Dispatch.

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Salvaged gold coins on market at last Shipwreck's treasure

Saturday, January 29, 2000

BY Gerald Tebben Dispatch Staff Reporter

More than 140 years after they were lost at sea and more than a decade after they were retrieved from the bottom of the ocean, the first coins from a gold rush-era shipwreck salvaged by a Columbus-based group were placed on sale yesterday.

Q. David Bowers, chairman of Bowers and Merena, said a half-dozen of the gold pieces, valued at $2,390-$26,000, were ordered during the first hour they were on sale.

Bowers and Merena is one of three coin firms with exclusive marketing rights to about 3 tons of treasure salvaged by Columbus America Discovery Group.

The coins, which are being examined, graded, authenticated and placed in special leather booklets by Professional Coin Grading Service of Newport Beach, Calif., will be delivered to customers about March 1.

Each coin also will come with a certificate signed by salvor Tommy G. Thompson, who has been retained as full-time historical consultant by California Gold Group.

Dwight Manley, a sports agent and former coin dealer who put the deal together, said California Gold Group bought the treasure for $50 million to $100 million from the Columbus America Discovery Group after 18 months of negotiations.

Columbus America officials did not return phone calls yesterday.

The treasure, which includes 7,500 gold coins, dust and bars weighing as much as 80 pounds each, has been the object of numerous lawsuits since it was discovered in 1988.

Companies that insured the SS Central America when it sailed in 1857 were awarded 8 percent of the treasure. They tried to sell their 400 pounds of gold at auction in December, but were stopped by Thompson, who questioned the insurance companies' ownership and said the auction would harm his marketing efforts.

In recent months, Thompson also settled a $43 million suit filed by Christie's auction house over an invalidated marketing agreement and a $4.5 million suit filed by a California bank over a contested loan. Details of the settlements have not been disclosed.

Thompson's salvage operations were financed initially by $12 million provided by 161 limited partners, mostly from central Ohio. California Gold bought all the gold Thompson recovered, Manley said.

A chance comment by Beverly Hills, Calif., coin dealer Larry Goldberg while golfing in 1998 led to the purchase. Goldberg asked Manley if he would like to meet Thompson.

Manley, who negotiated Karl Malone's $66.5 million contract with the Utah Jazz last year, said the gold talks were "the most complex set of negotiations that I've ever worked with.''

The deal, he said, involved a lot of money, competing interests and 15 years of baggage.

Viewing the recovered treasure in a Brink's vault in Norfolk, Va., "was like a dream. It was like one of the dreams you have when you're a child of finding a treasure chest,'' Manley said.

Most of the gold has been moved to a secure site in California. Manley told Coin World, a weekly hobby publication, that two wooden boxes, still 50 percent to 75 percent intact, containing stacks of $20 gold pieces remain inside saltwater aquariums in the Norfolk vault.

"We don't know exactly what we bought,'' he said. "It has that sense of discovery.''

The first 525 coins, all $20 gold pieces minted in San Francisco in 1857 and in various states of preservation, are on the market now and being sold by Bowers of Wolfeboro, N.H.; Blanchard and Co. of New Orleans; and David Hall's North American Trading of Santa Ana, Calif.

Manley said the very finest coins will be sold at a special Christie's auction, probably by the end of the year.

As part of the arrangement, Christie's will produce a reference guide to gold rush-era coins. Bowers, author of more than 30 coin books, also is producing a volume on the SS Central America and the economic conditions of the times.

Manley said some of the treasure will be donated to four museums, including the Smithsonian Institution.

The SS Central America was carrying several hundred passengers on Sept. 12, 1857, when it sank in a hurricane about 200 miles off the North Carolina coast. Although 162 people survived, more than 430 died.

The wreck was too deep and too far at sea to be salvaged before Thompson found the ship and devised a robot to recover the treasure from a depth of 7,200 feet.

Although Thompson recovered several tons of gold from the wreck, he said he thinks 18 tons remain aboard, including a 15-ton secret military shipment.

Last summer, he was trying to raise an additional $40 million to further explore the wreck.

-- Zguy (gold@treasure.com), January 29, 2000

Answers

About as off topic as you can get but extremely interesting all the same, thanks Zguy.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 29, 2000.

Huh! What, where? Gold!

Gold!

Gold!

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Gold..... shhhhhhhhhh.....)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 29, 2000.

One reason why I love this forum- it makes us the most educated people on the Net! FOr those of us who find this subject fascinating, there is a book out, about this very subject....called "Ship of Gold on the Deep Blue Sea". It is a non-fiction best seller....by Gary Kinder. It took the author ten years to write...a knuckle-gripping tale of suspense and adventure. I just ordered a copy from Amazon. Comes in both paperback and hardback.

I just learned about it, from a gold dealer who called me, promoting the coins. He said the mishap almost caused an economic crisis, in this country. It happened before the Titanic, so these coins have a true historical value. (But he did admit that it would probably be a long time before the coins would appreciate to a great extent, if appreciation is what you're after.)

-- Jo Ann (MaJo@Michiana.com), January 30, 2000.