1835 $5 Classic Head Half Eagle PCGS AU53 Ex.Central America #2

HISTORICAL NOTES:

The Central America went from being an almost-forgotten maritime disaster to an oft-told treasure tale after the discovery of the wreck -- and the golden cargo within. 

Of the thousands of American ships lost – over 8,000 in the Great Lakes alone (Bowers, 2008: 63) – relatively few are known to have carried large amounts of specie and, of these, only a handful have been found and valuable coins recovered. The SS Central America is the perhaps the most widely recognized in this very exclusive roster. Indeed, there are just two other confirmed and documented major finds (SS Republic and SS Brother Jonathan), the decades of the 1850s and 1860s, to which can be added a fourth possibility (SS Yankee Blade), information about which is vague. Two other relatively minor coin cargoes derive from the loss of the SS New York in 1846, yielding several hundred gold coins and over 2,000 silver ones, and from a small boat dispatched from the schooner William and Mary in 1857, also known as the Fort Capron hoard.

The earliest documented major recovery comes from the wreck of the SS Central America, lost off North Carolina on 12 September 1857. The ship carried to the ocean floor a vast cargo of gold coins and ingots headed from Aspinwall, on the Atlantic side of Panama, north to New York City. The wreck was found in 2,194 meters of water in the late 1980s by the Columbus- America Discovery Group. About 7,500 gold coins were recovered, dominated by more than 5,400 mint-fresh 1857-S double eagles, plus more than 500 gold ingots. There were few, if perhaps what could be considered as a "handful" of small denomination coins, brought up and offered for sale to the collecting public. Originating in San Francisco, the cargo had been shipped south to Panama City by the SS Sonora, from where it was transported 77km overland on the Panama Railroad to Aspinwall. The gold coins and ingots, plus a small number of heavily corroded silver coins, were distributed mostly by the California Gold Marketing Group. The recovered treasure is reported to have yielded well over $100 million in sales.