Release: JANUARY 26, 2024
The lust for gold has forced many a person to do crazy things. Take Tommy Thompson. He’s been sitting in a Michigan prison for almost 10 years thanks to the countless millions in gold he found and has allegedly hidden.
Thompson was the head of a group searching for the fabled SS Central America aka “The Ship of Gold.” It sank in 1857 off the coast of the Carolinas ferrying $500+ million worth of coins and bars to the eastern seaboard from the California gold rush. That sinking and monetary loss resulted in widespread bank failures and economic catastrophe....
The ship’s whereabouts were unknown until, with $12 million from investors, Thompson’s crew found it over a mile deep on the ocean floor. The seabed was literally covered in gold coins and bars. Far too deep for divers, one way the expedition devised to recover the gold was by lowering a circular form around the coins on the seabed. Then, via a tube, latex was injected over the coins. That latex glob was then lifted to the surface and the gold extracted when the latex was peeled off. Clever.
Everyone should have been thrilled. Not so fast. Even though millions in gold was retrieved, investors weren’t being paid. Worse, Thompson then disappeared along with much gold. He was finally caught and sent to prison in 2015 after he wouldn’t reveal in court where a large portion of the treasure was. To this day, Thompson still won’t talk and remains in prison. (Investors did realize profits from other gold recovered from the site.). It’s just one modern example of “gold fever.”
That treasure-seeking fever will again soon make the news – this time just 50 miles south of Nantucket. That’s where the ill-fated RMS Republic sank on January 24, 1909. On that foggy night, the ship descended to the frigid depths after being rammed in the side by the SS Florida. The Florida was carrying survivors of the Messina, Italy earthquake.
In turn, the Republic was sailing to the Mediterranean with a registry of rich passengers. Unbeknown to most was other cargo aboard including 45 tons of gleaming US gold coins. There was something else…the vast riches of Russian Tsar Nicholas II meant to repay the 1904 Russo-Japanese war debt. Add to that the many valuable possessions left by the evacuated wealthy travelers. (Only seven people died with hundreds being rescued.)
Information and news about much of the lost cargo was kept secret to avoid a banking disaster akin to that after the SS Central America loss. For Russia, it also might have spelled the collapse of the Tsar’s reign (which did end a few years later via the Bolshevik revolution.)
The wreck of the RMS Republic sits in just 250 feet of water – less than the length of a football field. That’s still too deep for scuba divers but not for those in pressurized suits. Alternately, technology has advanced enough to avoid the need for human divers. That’s due to remote retrieval methods via underwater cameras, cranes and submersibles. Large cranes will be essential considering the ship’s multiple decks known to have collapsed on top of each other. It won’t be easy or cheap. Investors are now being sought.
Unlike the wooden ship SS Central America, which rotted underwater for 150 years leaving mainly only the gold, the RMS Republic was a metal vessel. It was also operated by the White Star Line – the same company that owned the Titanic. That ship would famously sink just three years later. It’s unfortunate that more investigation into the Republic sinking didn’t happen for two reasons.
First, construction of the Republic and Titanic was similar using metal plates and rivets. It’s believed a major failure of the rivets on the Titanic were a primary cause for it sinking. That might have been rectified if an investigation had taken place following the Republic incident.
Second, wireless radio communications. It had been recommended that two people always be on duty in a ship’s wireless room. Because so few perished in the Republic incident, that advice wasn’t heeded. Had it been, countless hundreds more would have survived the Titanic disaster because the ship SS Californian, with only a lone radio operator who had shut down for the night, was less than 20 miles away at the time of that sinking.
Exactly how soon the gold recovery on the RMS Republic will begin is unknown. When it does, we are sure to have an entirely new definition of “gold fever.” I’ll keep you posted.
For more collecting information and advice, log on to: http://prexford.com/.