Tuesday, May 6, 2014

5/6/14 Report - 1000 Ounces of Gold Recovered on a Reconnaissance Dive on the SS Central America & More Poll Discussion

 
Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.



SS Central America
 

Here is a little from a May 5 Globe Newswire story that one reader forwarded to me.

It says,  Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc., a pioneer in the field of deep-ocean exploration, recovered nearly 1,000 ounces of gold during the first reconnaissance dive to the SS Central America shipwreck site on April 15,2014.

Recovered gold included five gold ingots and two $20 Double Eagle coins (one 1857 minted in San Francisco and one 1850 minted in Philadelphia). The gold ingots were stamped with assayer's marks and weights that range from 96.5 to 313.5 troy ounces.

That was recovered during a two hour reconnaissance dive without any excavation!  It was all in plain sight.

This dive confirms for me that the site has not been disturbed since 1991, when I was last there," said Bob Evans chief scientist/historian for RLP.

Here is the link for more of the story.

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/gold-recovered-during-first-reconnaissance-dive-indicates-ss-central-america-has-not-been-disturbe-20140505-00368#ixzz30wy5MvLM

So that was that was 23 years ago and remained safely underwater without looting or any other major disturbance.

Odyssey stock has not been doing very well this year but maybe this news caused a little increase, or maybe it was totally unrelated to the news story.

So that was that was 23 years ago that it sat safely underwater without looting or any other major disturbance.
 
 
OMEX stock prices over last five days.
 

Wikipedia says, 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. It 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.

I started to talk about the results of the most recent blog poll yesterday, and it appears that about half of the people that responded to the poll detect more than one type of site.  A lot more detect on an ocean beach than detect in the ocean.

A relatively small number of people who responded detect along or in inland waters.  Less than 10% of the respondents said the detected along inland waters, and less than 10% said they detected in inland waters.

I always enjoyed detecting inland waters.  There are some old abandoned beaches on inland waters that are good for detecting.  And there are some where the main beach used to be at a different place from where the main beach is now.

I can think of a few right off where I detected in the past and it looked like everybody always swam and sun-bathed at one part of the beach, but in older times the main location was actually elsewhere.  By looking at it you would never guess where the main beach used to be.  It can pay to go around and detect some of those overgrown areas that don't look like anyone had ever been there.  Don't miss those overgrown and over-looked areas.

I remember when I visited a park out in the Everglades back a number of years ago and turned my detector on and the first signal I got was a wheat penny.  It didn't look like there would be anything there.  There were no other people when I was there and it looked like there never had been many people there, however that was wrong.

You might be surprised sometimes by where things used to be and where old items still remain waiting to be found.

I've detected along rivers in Alabama where there were hotels that no longer exist and a number of lakes in Minnesota, to give just two examples.  I like those kinds of places.   There are plenty of beaches besides ocean beaches.

Almost as many of the respondents said they detected a dry land site as the number that detected an ocean beach (42% and 46% respectively).  Of course there are a good number of readers of this blog who do not live near an ocean.  Others detect land sites by choice.

I've shown in recent weeks a number of very good finds that came from land sites.  It is always a good alternative but for best results some research is necessary.

About one third did not detect at all this month.  I don't find that surprising either.  People have stuff going on and it has been quite a while since beach conditions have been good.  There are still modern items to be found on the beach even if conditions aren't good.\


On the Treasure Coast the surf is pretty flat.  And on top of that the tides are pretty flat now.

Don't expect much help from Mother Nature on the beach anytime real soon.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net