I am considering buying this 1857-S taking from the ship wreck of the S.S Central America..But

I went with this for my piece of shipwreck gold. It was not cheap, but I won it at auction for a fraction of what an SS Central America gold piece would have cost.

Copying and pasting my earlier thread:

An Australian gold sovereign from the 1882 RMS Douro shipwreck

This recent purchase is my first Young Head Victoria sovereign and also my first Shield type sovereign. It also fulfills another item I’ve been wanting: a piece of gold with a shipwreck pedigree. The nice thing about gold is that it can survive seawater immersion for centuries without corrosion, so this coin has a straight Mint State grade with no “shipwreck effect” qualifiers.

The coin was struck at the Sydney mint in 1877 and was part of the cargo of the British Royal Mail steamship Douro, which sank in a nighttime collision with the Spanish ship Yrurac Bat off Cape Finisterre near the Spanish and Portuguese coast, on the evening of April 1, 1882.​

All of Duoro’s passengers and 32 of her crew were saved, but the captain and five of his officers- and the ship’s treasure of gold coins and bullion- sank with Douro in 1,500 feet of water. 53 people aboard the Spanish ship also perished when it too sank.​

The wreck was found in 1993 and salvage operations were completed by 1996. There were some 28,000 gold coins brought up from the Douro wreck. Most were gold sovereigns, but there were also some rare Brazilian and Portuguese coins.​

I find shipwreck coins fascinating. I guess there’s the natural appeal of a historical gold coin here, but also some touches of romance, tragedy, and adventure. To me, it would have been a lovely enough coin anyway, but the added history behind the shipwreck pedigree made it irresistible, so I threw caution to the wind and did what I had to do to beat the competition and win the auction.​

https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49106726