National treasures—the Crown Jewels of England, King Tut’s Tomb, the Amber Room of Russia—are fascinating not only because they are unique, priceless, and of inestimable value, but also because they are symbolic of the cultures that created them. They are more than just collections of precious metals and gems.
Traditional national treasures often represent extravagance and exploitation uncharacteristic of more democratic societies. They often emerge from a strong caste system: a nation’s homage to a leader, a king’s purposeful accumulation of wealth, an autocrat’s share of the labors of his people.
In a democracy like the United States, created “of the people, by the people, for the people,” there is no king or pharaoh, no czar, and hence no crowns, no king’s jewels, no pharaoh’s tombs. Accumulated treasures that do exist in America are either public or private, such as great collections of art or other important cultural relics. However, these tend to lack either the intrinsic monetary value or the national symbolism of traditional national treasures. On rare occasions, a significant treasure may be accumulated accidentally, the result of an act of nature or an act of God.
When the United States Mail Steamship Central America sank in deep water off the coast of the Carolinas during a monstrous 1857 hurricane, it created just such an accidental accumulation of treasure. Bound for New York with 578 passengers and crew, and 38,000 pieces of mail, the Central America also held tons of gold ingots, coins, nuggets, and dust mined from the western gold fields during a defining quarter-century when the country came of age.
Lost for 131 years, the Central America shipwreck is a unique time capsule of information and artifacts of an era in which the very character and spirit of America blossomed.
The treasure symbolizes one of the most significant periods in American history, the quarter-century between Samuel Morse’s 1837 invention of the telegraph, which launched the country’s first electronic information age, and Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address, which gave voice to the unspoken question that lingered for decades in the hearts and minds of the American people—whether the United States “or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
In becoming students of this period, we found ourselves part of a movement of people whose interest in American history had increased dramatically. This interest has resulted in a variety of modern perspectives on the quarter-century that included the discovery of western gold, the Central America’s sinking, and the economic panic of 1857. We concur with the school of thinking of noted scholar Page Smith and others who view the period before and after the sinking of Central America as one of the most defining periods in American history, a time when, as Smith titled his 1981 history of the era, “the nation came of age.”
The telegraph— the communication miracle of this electronic information age—caused the nation’s first electronic information explosion. Until its invention Americans shared news the hard way, by walking, riding a horse, or sailing from one place to another and then returning home. The speed of shared information could be no faster than the speed of any particular round trip.
In the 1840’s, as the telegraph became part of the fabric of the nation, Americans east of the Mississippi could share news at the speed of light. News in Savannah reached New York immediately. A presidential address set wires humming throughout the East. Americans began to share their enthusiasms, aspirations, and emotions not only as individuals and regional groups, but also as a nation.
The dramatic increase in the speed of shared information led to a dramatic increase in “emotional connectedness.” With the ability to exchange ideas quickly, being an American became a more immediately shared experience. For the first time, many Americans began to believe in their hearts and minds that the democratic experiment was succeeding and prospering. That belief allowed the national character to blossom into a uniquely American spirit and a robust drive toward progress. The American dream was alive.
In 1893, noted scholar Frederick Jackson Turner defined this developing American character as a “coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and acquisitiveness; that the practical inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients, that masterful grasp of material things; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism.”
Today many nations around the world admire and emulate what it means to be American. Americans, both as individuals and as a nation, are characterized as spirited, optimistic, visionary, forward-thinking, adaptable, and entrepreneurial, traits symbolized by the pioneers, adventurers, and nation-builders aboard the Central America.
With courage and ingenuity, passengers and crew endured the hurricane the hurricane and bailed their sinking ship for more than 40 hours. In a final heroic act, Captain William Lewis Herndon and his crew rescued the women and children by lowering them into lifeboats at the sacrifice of their own lives. The values and beliefs that inspired their industry in life and tenacity in the face of death endure today in a shared American spirit.
S.S. Central America Time Line
The S.S. Central America carried the most talked about treasure in American history. A book about the ship and its fabulous cargo, Ship of Gold, In The Deep Blue Sea, by Gary Kinder (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998) was on the New York Times Best Seller List, and Warner Brothers has purchased the rights to produce a major motion picture. Tommy Thompson, who organized the expedition to locate the sunken steamship and recover the cargo, wrote a critically-acclaimed book, America’s Lost Treasure (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998).
For the first time, individuals now can own treasure from the Central America – extraordinary Gold Rush history you can hold in your hands!
Here is a brief recap of the S.S. Central America story.
- October 28, 1852: Operated by the United States Mail Steamship Company, the legendary S.S. Central America is launched. Originally named, S.S. George Law, it was a three-masted, 272-feet long sidewheel steamship that made 43 round trips between New York City and Panama. Each leg of the voyage usually took between 19 to 24 days to complete.
- 1852 to1857: The Central America transported an estimated one-third of the entire California Gold Rush output. That one-third was valued at the time at approximately $150 million.
- September 3, 1857: The Central America left Aspinwall (now Colón), Panama carrying 476 passengers, 102 crew members and over three tons of gold. The precious cargo included approximately 5,200 recently-minted $20- denomination (“Double Eagle”) gold pieces produced in 1857 at the San Francisco Mint. The gold for these coins was mined during the California Gold Rush. There also was a much smaller quantity of other historic gold coins that circulated in the Wild West. (These will be released later for purchase by individuals). The cargo also contained privately-made gold coins and ingots produced by such historic, government-supervised San Francisco Gold Rush-era assayers as Blake & Co.; Kellogg & Humbert; Wass Molitor & Co.; Harris, Marchand & Co.; and Justh & Hunter. The largest ingot recovered is an astonishing gold brick that weighs 933 ounces, nearly 80 pounds, made by assayers Kellogg & Humbert.
- Friday, September 11, 1857: In the second day of a hurricane the ship sprang a leak at 9 a.m. Passengers were ordered to assist the crew in bailing. The ship sank at about 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. Unable to meet payrolls or pay creditors because of the loss of the gold cargo, New York banks began to fail and stores and factories began to close, touching off a financial crash in the United States and Europe. It was “The Panic of 1857.”
- 1985: An ocean engineer with Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas G. Thompson, founded the Columbus-America Discovery Group to research and locate the Central America shipwreck. The 161 investors raised more than $10 million.
- 1986: The group, based in landlocked Columbus, began exploring 1,400 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and located the ship’s bell in 8,500 feet of water. After successfully using state-of-the art technology to recover the treasure and other important artifacts, the Columbus-America Discovery Group began a decade of litigation to retain the historic find. Eventually, courts awarded approximately 92 percent of the treasure to the Columbus group with the remainder awarded to insurance companies. ·
- July 1998: A casual conversation at a country club (Big Canyon C.C., Newport Beach, California) sets the stage for the world’s largest numismatic transaction. Rare coin dealer Larry Goldberg of Beverly Hills, told coin expert-turned-sports agent, Dwight Manley, that the Columbus group wanted to sell intact its portion of the treasure.
- July 1998 – January 2000: Intrigued and determined to “do the deal,” Manley, now Managing Partner of California Gold Group, Newport Beach, then undertook nearly two years of complex negotiations with Columbus-America Discovery Group, Union Bank of California and Christie’s auction house to acquire the $100+ million worth of historic gold coins and bars. He earlier obtained a $70 million contract for Utah Jazz basketball star Karl Malone, but now declares the treasure project involved the biggest and most complicated negotiations he’s ever undertaken. Manley accomplished what no else could do.
- January 2000 – present: The coins are being certified by Collectors Universe Professional Coin Grading Service (NASDAQ: CLCT), the world’s largest rare coin authentication company. Each coin is sonically sealed in a protective holder, then placed inside a custom-made leather-bound book. For future academic study, some historic gold coins from the S.S. Central America will be donated by Manley to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the New York Historical Society, New York City; the San Francisco Historical Society, San Francisco; and the American Numismatic Association Money Museum, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- February 10 – 13, 2000: The first public exhibit of this previously unseen treasure is scheduled at the Long Beach, California Convention Center (100 S. Pine Ave.) in conjunction with the Long Beach Coin & Collectibles Expo. Future Long Beach exhibits took place on June 8 – 11 and October 5 -8 2000, and in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center (1201 Arch St.), August 9 – 13, in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money®. (Public exhibits elsewhere also may be planned.)
- March 1, 2000: For the first time in history, individuals will be able to purchase historic gold coins from the S.S. Central America treasure. They will be sold by the largest, best-known numismatic dealership in the country: