Three years after the opening of the San Francisco mint, a huge cargo of freshly minted coins, gold bars, and private-issue coins were loaded on a side-wheel steamship for a land-sea journey to New York. The passengers originally boarded the Sonora as it headed out for Panama on August 20th, 1857. After traversing the isthmus by train, over 500 passengers and the gold were loaded on the United States Mail Steamship Central America.
The passengers and crew set sail for New York on September 3rd and encountered a monstrous hurricane shortly thereafter. The ill-fated ship and its cargo sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor somewhere off the Carolinas after struggling to stay afloat for three days. Only a quarter of the persons aboard survived and the many tons of gold were believed lost forever. The disaster still stands as the worst shipwreck in United States peacetime history. Along with the failures of several institutions, it led to the 'panic of 1857'. Some historians believe that this crisis was the financial trigger for the Civil War less than four years later.
Not until massive human and financial effort was undertaken 131 years later that the wreckage was pinpointed 8000 feet below the surface. After years of legal wrangling, the Columbus-America group actually recovered the treasure, finding most of the coins to be as bright and lustrous as the day they were minted in 1857! All the gold wound up in collections, museums, and investment portfolios. The only reason this relatively small group of coins is available is that one of the original investors in the recovery chose to liquidate his holdings for personal reasons.
If coins could only talk, what a story the $20 Liberties of the SS Central America could tell. From the gold hills of mid-Nineteenth Century California to the San Francisco Mint, through Panama, down to the bottom of the Atlantic, back to the surface, and now to you. This may be your best opportunity to hold a significant piece of American history in your hand. |