I have always loved gold nuggets, especially the ones you find yourself while panning for gold. You put a lot of hard work in and don't always get much, but it's fun. But sunken treasure is a whole different category, like 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that sank off of Florida. In 1715 eleven Spanish ships bound to Spain laden with gold, silver, and jewels ran into a hurricane and were sunk. When Mel Fisher discovered the Atocha (one of the boats from the fleet) off of Florida in around 35 feet of water treasure hunters started to search out the other lost ships. The beaches along the Florida east coast became known as the treasure coast because hurricanes often wash up gold and silver onto the beaches. I myself used to comb the beaches off the treasure coast after hurricanes, with my trusted metal detector hoping to find some gold or silver washed ashore during the storm. I never found any of the treasure, but did find a few rings and necklaces people lost at the beach. A few were gold so some treasure is better than none!
On September 3, 1857 the S.S. Central America set sail from Panama en route to New York City. They were carrying 587 people and in excess of $765 million USD in gold. Most of it came from the California gold rush and was being shipped to New York. The ship had sails and steam powered paddles, at the time a very advanced sailing vessel. They sailed straight into a hurricane off the Carolina coast and sank on Sept. 12, 1857. 425 people went down with the boat along with all of the treasure. It was rediscovered in Sept. 1988 and much of the treasure was subsequently recovered.
The largest piece of treasure recovered was an 80 pound (36 kg) gold nugget that sold for $8 million USD. Some of the small nuggets were then certified genuine from the wreck by PCGS and encapsulated. Each one of these contains 3 grams of raw gold dust. So I did some calculations assuming the gold is around 22 carat since most gold found in nature is around that figure. The gold might be worth around $170 USD right now, and the asking price at APMEX today is $320 USD. So you can own some sunken treasure for only about a $150 USD premium. I think it's pretty cool, but not cool enough for me to pay that kind of premium! If I find a better price I would definitely consider it.
photos: APMEX
photo: Wikipedia
I hope you found this interesting, I sure did. So there are some options to add some true sunken treasure to your stack without actually getting wet. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below and thanks for stopping by.
And please remember that collecting coins and stacking gold/silver is a great hobby but definitely not for everyone. You can lose money and you have to research before you make any purchase. Before you spend your hard earned money always do your due diligence by researching what you are buying. I am not a financial advisor and this isn't financial advice, I'm just a guy who loves coins and gold/silver stacking!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Central_America
https://www.apmex.com/product/276990/1857-s-s-central-america-double-pinch-gold-nuggets-pcgs
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