Treasure to see the light of day after 150 yrs
santa ana (California) — More than $50 million worth of gold bars, coins and dust that’s been described as the greatest lost treasure in US history is about to make its public debut in California after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for more than 150 years.
The 3,100 gold coins, 45 gold bars and more than 36 kilogrammes of gold dust recovered from the wreckage of the SS Central America steamship are now sitting in a makeshift laboratory just south of Los Angeles.
Bob Evans, the chief scientist on the original voyage that discovered the shipwreck and its treasure in 1988, is now painstakingly cleaning each piece of gold by hand, soaking it in a solution and brushing off rust and grime that accumulated as the treasure sat 2,134 metres below sea level.
“This is a whole new season of discovery,” Evans told from the laboratory in Santa Ana. “We are now peering beneath the grime and the rust that is on the coins, removing those objects and those substances and getting to look at the treasure as it was in 1857.”
The Central America was laden with booty from the California Gold Rush when it sank in a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina in 1857. Four hundred and twentyfive people drowned and thousands of pounds of California gold were lost, contributing to an economic panic.
Using sable paintbrushes and a cleaning solution, Evans has been restoring the gold to its original lustre for the past two weeks. He will continue that work through February, when the treasure will go on public display at the Long Beach Convention Centre, just south of Los Angeles.
The gold is all for sale. Just one tiny coin alone could go for $1 million because of its combination of rarity and the history behind it, said Dwight Manley, managing partner of the California Gold Marketing Group.
“This is something that in hundreds of years people will still be talking about, reading about, looking back on and collecting things from,” Manley said. —