Treasures of legendary 1857 wreck 'Ship of Gold' unveiled

A mysterious daguerreotype of a woman and jeans believed to be made by Levi Strauss himself, nearly 1,000 gold rush treasures is one of Recovered from the legendary "Ship of Gold" currently on display in Reno, Nevada.

Since her 2014 recovery from the late 1980s, remarkable finds extracted from the sunken S.S. was stored in This week, they kicked off their national tour with the National Antique Bottle Convention Thursday through Sunday at the Grand Sierra Resort.

This is the artifact's first public display and is scheduled to be auctioned later this year.Reno Gazette Journal

Among the notable items recovered were the largest known I have an old Wells Fargo treasure chest lid. Clothing from 1857 includes the earliest known Gold Rush-era canvas work pants jeans with button fly, which Strauss may have made early in his business. According to Fred Holabird, president of his Holabird Western Americana Collections in Reno, the "mother vein" of the California Gold Rush, native to his jewelry made of quartz with gold as its gemstone.

A daguerreotype metal plaque photograph of an unidentified young woman has been nicknamed the "Mona Lisa of the Deep." Sea bed found in a pile of coal on a ship.

"There is even a S.S. Central American brass nametag attached to the ship's wine storage room key and a set of keys that belonged to the ship's purser. The treasure was kept," Holabard said in a press release.

Other items recovered include a pistol. brass luggage tags; ticket receipts for passengers; Glasses with pure gold frames. Chewing tobacco in a pouch at the 1851 London World's Fair, according to Holabard.

While loaded with booty, the wreck of the SS Central America was also a deep-sea graveyard.

The ship sank at a depth of 7,200 feet in the Atlantic Ocean during a hurricane on September 12, 1857. It carried Gold Rush coins, ingots, and placer gold from the San Francisco and Northern California areas.

According to recent reports, 425 of her 578 passengers and crew were killed, and the loss of gold coins had a devastating economic impact on the economy.1857 was a major factor in the Panic of 1951. release.

The recovery from the site of the wreck, dubbed "America's Greatest Treasure," took place in several stages from 1988 to her in 1991 and her in 2014, although recent tarnished by scandal.

Deep-sea explorer Tommy Thompson, who discovered a shipwreck in 1988, refused to answer questions about the whereabouts of 500 gold coins, sohe was sent to federal prison for six months. imprisoned for a year.He also fled the investors who funded his business and fled for two years.

Thompson, without elaborating, said about $2.5 million worth of coins were in his trust. said to have been handed over. Belize. After a federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the whereabouts of the coin in 2012, Thompson fled to Florida, where he lived with a longtime female companion at a hotel he lived near Boca Raton. In early 2015, US Marshals tracked him down and arrested . Various states: Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, until a court-approved settlement was reached, ending a decades-long ownership dispute. Evans comes to an exhibition in Reno to tell visitors about the "Ship of Gold" and salvaged gold rush artifacts.

"This was a largely forgotten moment in American history, as the Civil War broke out a few years later." Evans told CBS News in 2018. 

The item will be offered for public auction in October and November by Holabird Western Americana Collections. The antique is now owned by the California Gold Marketing Group of Blair, California.

"Jass & hunter bars recovered from SS Central America were found in 86 pieces of various sizes. Given that they were counted in ingots, their experience and integrity ranked them among the best: a reliable, well-run analytical facility during the critical Gold Rush era. Heritage Auctions said: Over the years. In 2019multiple artifacts from the shipwreck were auctioned at which he fetched over $11. In 2001an 80-pound ingot was purchased by a private collector for his record $8 million.