New coin collector 1857 S.S. central america

Hello,

You guys were so helpful on helping me determine value on my first post. This one I know is worth more but I’m having a lot of trouble trying to find an actual estimate range for it!

thanks so much

 

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Pretty coin, probably 7k or there abouts

Edit: it's worth mentioning that there are still about a zillion of these still on the ocean floor so the prices have been generally coming down quite a bit. I imagine they will likely continue to do so as they trickle out into the market.

 

https://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/details/1857-s-ms/8922

 

Now, I need your help Kyle with a serious question for you...

How did you acquire the coin? Was it a gift or DID YOU PURCHASE IT? If you purchased it, I'm very curious what you paid for it.

Thanks so much!

 

The Grey Sheet says it’s worth $8,400 with the gold foil label.

There are a lot of these coins, but if you are a type collector who is looking for a high Type 1 Liberty Head $20 gold, this is really your only choice. Almost all of the pieces that stayed on dry land are very lucky to make MS-63. The vast majority of survivors are well below that.

 

How do precious coins fair on the ocean floor. Do they require restoration?

 

Is this in reference to the 1857 shipwreck?

 

Gold coins can fair fairly well on the ocean floor if they are in the middle of a pile of coins and are protected from the ocean currents. Coins that are not protected lose their luster, from being bombarded with tiny particles, but retain a lot of sharpness. It’s called the “sea water effect,” and it does lower value by a fairly strong margin.

The high priced coins that have been recover from the SS Central America were the pieces in the center of the pile. The $20 gold pieces were packed in wooden boxes. The boxes disintegrated leaving the piles of coins intact on the ocean floor.

The savage company sucked them up very carefully making sure that coins did not come in contact with each other. Then they were “curated” in chemicals to remove whatever may have accumulated on them over the 140 years. After a lengthy court battles, they were graded, mostly by PCGS, and marketed to the public.

The one preservation issue with these pieces is copper staining. I have seen some of these coins get brown spots over a five to ten year period. There is nothing you can do about it, and sometimes it can be severe.

 

johnmilton, posted: "The one preservation issue with these pieces is copper staining. I have seen some of these coins get brown spots over a five to ten year period. There is nothing you can do about it, and sometimes it can be severe."

AFAIK, the stains that develop years after the original conservation can be removed. I guess they are more valuable with the original slab and label.

 

An incredible undertaking and investment to have found this wreck. I remember last hearing about it many years ago but have since not heard anything about it again.

 

...Quotes

 

Here are a couple of photos of the sea bottom that you might find interesting from the SS Central America.

Sorry ... I just got a new desktop computer, and I can't upload photos with it. It only asks for a "URL code" and won't go to my photo files.

 

bruthajoe, posted: "...Quotes [ ? or . ]"

Yes, of course. Those red marks above are called "quotation marks." They go at the beginning and after your missing period or question mark.

 

The treasure of the Central America was discovered by Tommy Thompson. During the recovery process he developed a number of unique ways of recovering artifacts from deep below the ocean's surface. In the case of the coins that were once in mint boxes, he devised a method of encasing the entire assemblage in latex. The latex block was brought to the surface and the latex was removed. He solved the problem of getting latex to solidify under extreme pressures and very cold temperatures. It was this technique that allowed for a number of the coins to be recovered with a minimal amount of damage. His book, America's Lost Treasure, provides lots of detail about the wreck discovery and the innovative techniques he developed to recover the artifacts. He solved a number of major engineering problems in the discovery and recovery process.

 

Now I can post the pictures from SS Central America site!

 

I can't view properly with your images, but I purchased a todays' Gem condition 1857P Double Eagle certified MS63 from Mark Yaffe, many years ago. The coin was what I believed to be a "steal" at $16,000, with current wholesale estimates of >$50,000.

I don't know if there were any P mints in that recovery, so who knows?

JMHO

 

If there are any P Mint coins from the SS Central America recovery, they would undoubtedly be circulated coins that some of the passengers had with them. The mostly 1857-S double eagles high grade coins recovered from the wreck were fresh from the San Francisco Mint.

The coins are practically the only source for Gem Uncirculated quality Type I double eagles. Before this find, it was almost impossible to obtain the Type I $20 gold in that grade. Since there have not been an salvage operations like this for Type II double eagles, that type coin is not available in that grade.

A double eagle was a tremendous amount of money in the mid to late 19th century. Collectors could not afford to put that much money aside to do nothing. Furthermore, a collector could spend that money on multiple coins that were much more interesting to them. Finally, collectors were not as obsessed with super high grade coins as they are today. There was “Uncirculated” and “used.” When I started as a collector in the 1960s, there was “Uncirculated” and “Gem.” “Gem” was MS-64 and higher.

Here is my 1857-S double eagle, graded MS-65. It's one of those "odd ball" pieces in an NGC holder. It's scarcer in this holder, but not worth as much as the coins in the PCGS gold foil label holders. My theory is that these were coins that awarded to the plaintiffs who got the "8%" part of the settlement in the court ruling.



And here is my higher grade Type II double eagle. Note the addition of the the motto, "In God we trust," to the reverse on the design. This is graded MS-63. Finding an MS-65 graded example of this type is almost impossible.

 

The supply is over. They got most of the coins out, and to send another ship out there would cost millions of dollars and the "take" in coins would be a fraction of that.

John Albanese says it's 100-to-1 against another salvage operation being launched. So no more coins, including 1857-S, beyond what we have now (I'll assume they are all out but maybe some are in the final stages of being marketed or graded by the TPGs).

 

For those who want more details, the CAC Forums have some insiders who worked on the coins spelling out exactly what they did.

 

Cannot find. What category is is under?